In a short time our own preparations for comfort, refreshment, and repose had been made. The tent was pitched, the fire lit in the nearest bush, and the kettle and gridiron put on. We had brought with us an Indian kitchen [Jones's Patent Indian Kitchen], a most compact thing; but, unfortunately, it had been packed up in a chest too securely to be got at without much trouble; and, as we were only a party of three, we resolved on doing without it as long as we could. For any number of persons it is invaluable, but for two or three a gridiron, kettle, and saucepan are, or ought to be, enough. Our servant had also put away the bellows and the hatchet; and, though the wind sometimes served us in lieu of the one, we were frequently obliged to borrow the other, when we halted. Having cold fowls, tongue, bacon, bread, butter, tea, sugar, and a bottle of milk [Note 2], and good store of wine, in our provision-basket, we did uncommonly well, roasting our potatoes in the ashes, comforting ourselves on the cold grass (not having thought of a tent-mat or table), with some warm negus. A piece of string wound round the pole of the tent, held a wax candle, but the wind rendering its light flickering and uncertain, we stuck a bayonet in the ground, and it made a very convenient and certainly characteristic candlestick. The meal and its fragments having been cleared away, our beds were made in the tent, which had been comfortably pitched (by an old soldier of the 27th, long used to the colony), with its back to the wind; we were thus screened from that, and could not well be inconvenienced by a shower.