In the usual routine of friendly intercourse with the natives, we experienced a good deal of what might be termed a gay sort of life; the intervals, however, and they were tolerably long, were filled up with duty enough to satisfy the most fastidious martinet, the Adjutant or Sergeant Major, with their satellites, being perpetually at our skirts, at all hours, with some newly concocted order for our edification. The French troops, under Foy, being close at hand, watching a favorable opportunity to pounce upon us when off our guard, it was quite requisite that we should be on the alert, and keep our eyes about us; idle time was, therefore, a very rare commodity, so that between pickets, outlying and inlying, parades, and other matters of an equally pleasing description, there was not any very great room left to enjoy that society which, in a most inviting way, offered its varied charms for our gratification. By reason of the miserable state of the old defences of the town, that were tumbling about our ears, it became highly necessary to guard other openings than those which the gates presented, and, accordingly, our working parties were busy night and day, in repairing, with loose stones and clay, the several chasms and breaches made by time, that yawned in the ancient and crumbling walls. Here, and at all the other weaker points, were well armed parties stationed, and it was by no means so agreeable a lounge as that of Bondstreet, or Pall Mall, to be pacing up and down, like a hungry tiger in his cage, behind those tottering stockades, ever and anon peering above the top, to look out for squalls, or watch the motions of our vigilant opponents. It was truly no joke, or rather it was a cool one, to remain thus shivering in every limb, from the damp and frosty air of a wintry morning. The whole regiment, with the exception of the lame and lazy, was planted at their alarm post, one hour before daylight, and at the rendezvous did they remain, in awful stillness, hardly wide awake, patiently to abide the moment of dismissal, which usually came when the first glimmering of dawn was seen in the horizon, or when a white horse was visible within a mile. With faces exposed to the gentle influence of a sharp norwester, and suffering a purgatorial trial, while straining our organs of vision to get a peep at the aforesaid quadruped, we might have waited till this hour, or even to the day of doom, for no such animal appeared. However, on the full assurance that our quondam neighbours had no desire to favour us with their company at that particular period, we were again despatched from the well known rendezvous, and, hastening to our quarters, we once more unharnessed, and lost no time in bundling into the warm nest from which we had so lately started.