The ride that night would have furnished amusement and interest to the general observer, no less than to the soldier. The sentry duty is well done by the natives, and if they fought as well as they do guard duty, or as patiently as they submit to all manner of hardship except when mixed with danger, they would make extremely formidable troops. In riding through the streets at night, it was difficult at times to keep your horse from treading on the soldiers. There they lay on the hard pavements ranged by companies in two files, the feet of the front and rear ranks toward each other, and their heads against the walls of the houses on opposite sides of the street; their arms are at their sides, and their cartridge-boxes with one compartment, and made sometimes of leather, sometimes of hide, turned in front, in order to enable them to lie easily on their back or sides. And if dismounting you enter their quarters and see them, some on the brick or dirt floors, others swinging in hammocks, and bent up almost double in order to keep from falling out, you would not wonder at the horror the whole people have of military service. There is scarcely any labor a Nicaraguan will not do in order to keep out of the clutches of the press-gang; and their immunity from this dreaded evil by the presence of the Americans in the country, gave the latter much of the moral power they possessed over the native population. The laborers and small proprietors run more risks to escape military duty than they are generally required to meet, if they are so unlucky as to be caught by the recruiting sergeant.