The barracks are a long continuous row of single-story buildings with covered porches facing the parade. They are generally painted an uncompromising brown, and are much more beautiful inside than out, especially the messrooms, where all the wood-work has been scrubbed so hard that the tables are worn almost to a concave surface. The architectural appearance of the officers’ quarters on the line differs in different posts; but each house of each individual post, whether it is a double or single house, is alike to the number of bricks in the walls and in the exact arrangement of the rooms. The wives of the officers may change the outer appearance of their homes by planting rose-bushes and ivy about the yards, but whenever they do, some other officer’s wife is immediately transferred from another post and “outranks” them, and they have to move farther down the line, and watch the new-comer plucking _their_ roses, and reaping the harvest she has not sown. This rule also applies to new wall-paper, and the introduction at your own expense of open fireplaces, with blue and white tiles which will not come off or out when the new-comer moves in. In addition to the officers’ quarters and the barracks, there is an administration building, which is the executive mansion of this little community, a quartermaster’s storehouse, a guard-house, and the hospital. The stables are back of the barracks, out of sight of those who live facing the parade, and there is generally a rear-guard of little huts and houses occupied by sergeants’ wives, who do the washing for the posts, and do it very well. This is, briefly, the actual appearance of an army post--a quadrangle of houses, continuous and one-story high on two sides, and separate and two stories high on the other two sides, facing the parade, and occasionally surrounded by beautiful country.