To the battalion generally the camp proved to be a kind of perpetual picnic, good eating and drinking, with very little sleeping, but plenty of hard work. It was not intended to be child's play, but a lesson in drilling and discipline, and so far as volunteer rules and regulations, combined with tact and temper, allowed, this was carried out; but it was beyond human skill to make all obedient to one will, to insist upon punctuality on parade, that lights were out at the time ordered, and that strict silence reigned throughout the camp until the rouse sounded. Men might mean well, and doubtless did not intend to defy authority, but with a canteen ever open, and the liquor to be had almost for the asking, no little injury was inflicted on discipline. It may be necessary for a certain amount of drink to be purchaseable where large bodies of men assemble, but when these are brought together to do a special work, and to learn obedience to all orders received from those in authority, drinking booths, whether termed canteens or clubs, are destructive of discipline, and tend to incapacitate the men from doing that which was intended they should do. Moreover it is not good, either for the man himself--only too often a mere lad of 17--that when not on duty he should find no other recreation provided than is afforded by a huge public-house with its rows of tables and seats, where the drink, the song, the profanity, and the uproar grows faster and more furious as the day advances. It is not in the canteen that respect for officers and authorities is learned. The best non-commissioned officers, and men who are wide awake and cautious, on picket or sentry, are not from canteen frequenters. The canteen in the regular army and militia is a fruitful source of misery to the many, however well conducted it may be, but when open at all hours, from daybreak to last post, in a volunteer encampment, subject only in reality to the mere licensing laws of the country, it is little else than a curse. If necessary for merely supplying beer, &c., let the canteen tent be at least one mile from the camp. Of course there were very many amusing incidents occurring in the camp, few more so, perhaps, than those in connection with guard and sentry duties. These had to be learned _ab initio_, and as the learners were often utterly ignorant of the rudiments of drill, the explanations as given were scarcely understood. "Your front" was a tremendous difficulty, and to challenge properly perhaps more abominable. The reliefs were not carried out quite regularly as the night advanced, and posts were deserted by sentries to know the reason why relief did not arrive. Sitting was found to be as cheap as standing, and a pipe on the sly in the pale moonlight a great relief to the monotony of sentry go.