since its periodical visits gave the good people of Tolosa a little wholesome excitement during the stagnant intervals between the revolutions. At night we all turned into a large room with a clay floor, in which there was not a single article of furniture. Our saddles, rugs, and _ponchos_ had all been thrown together in a corner, and anyone wishing to sleep had to make himself a bed with his own horse-gear and toggery as best he could. The experience was nothing new to me, so I soon made myself a comfortable nest on the floor, and, pulling off my boots, coiled myself up like an opossum that knows nothing better and is friendly with fleas. My friends, however, were evidently bent on making a night of it, and had taken care to provide themselves with three or four bottles of rum. After conversation, with an occasional song, had been going on for some time, one of them--a Mr. Chillingworth--rose to his feet and demanded silence. “Gentlemen,” he said, advancing into the middle of the room, where, by occasionally throwing out his arms to balance himself, he managed to maintain a tolerably erect position, “I am going to make a what-d'ye-call-it.” Furious cheers greeted this announcement, while one of the hearers, carried away with enthusiasm at the prospect of listening to his friend's eloquence, discharged his revolver at the roof, scattering confusion amongst a legion of long-legged spiders that occupied the dusty cobwebs above our heads. I was afraid the whole town would be up in arms at our carryings on, but they assured me that they all fired off their revolvers in that room and that nobody came near them, as they were so well known in the town. “Gentlemen,” continued Mr. Chillingworth, when order had been at length restored, “I've been thinking, that's what I've been doing. Now let's review the situation. Here we stand, a colony of English gentlemen: here we are, don't you know, far from our homes and country and all that sort of thing. What says the poet? I daresay some of you fellows remember the passage. But what for, I ask! What, gentlemen, is the object of our being here? That's just what I'm going to tell you, don't you know. We are here, gentlemen, to infuse a little of our Anglo-Saxon energy, and all that sort of thing, into this dilapidated old tin-pot of a nation.” Here the orator was encouraged by a burst of applause.