In the hall of the house a well had been sunk to keep it supplied with water; the house was plentifully stored with provisions in case of a siege; and the doors being once closed, the tenants remained perfectly indifferent about every hostile attack the Indians could make against it. Fortifications to strengthen the house were gradually erected; and by the year 1759 the place was so strong as to resist, for some time, the forces under the command of Sir William Johnston. Great additions were made to the works after the fort fell into the hands of the British. The stone house is a very spacious building, and is now, as it was formerly, appropriated for the accommodation of the principal officers of the garrison. In the rear of the house is a large apartment, commanding a magnificent view of the lake and of the distant hills at Toronto, which formerly was the officers mess room, and a pattern of neatness. The officers of the federal garrison, however, consider it more convenient to mess in one of the kitchens, and this beautiful room has been suffered to go to ruin; indeed every part of the fort now exhibits a picture of slovenliness and neglect; and the appearance of the soldiers is equally devoid of neatness with that of their quarters. Though it was on Sunday morning that we visited the fort, on which day it is usual even for the men of the garrisons in the States to appear better dressed than on other days, yet the greater part of the men were as dirty as if they had been at work in the trenches for a week without intermission: their grisly beards demonstrated that a razor had not approached their chins for many days; their hair, to appearance, had not been combed for the same length of time; their linen was filthy, their guns rusty, and their clothes ragged. That the clothes and accoutrements of the men should not be better is not to be wondered at, considering how very badly the western army of the States is appointed in every respect; but it is strange that the officers should not attend more than they do to the cleanliness of their men. Their garrisons on the frontiers have uniformly suffered more from sickness than those of the British; and it is to be attributed, I should imagine, in a great measure to their filthiness; for the men are as stout and hardy, apparently, as any in the world. The western army of the States has been most shamefully appointed from the very outset. I heard General Wayne, then the commander in chief, declare at Philadelphia, that a short time after they had begun their march, more than one third of his men were attacked in the woods, at the same period, with a dysentery; that the surgeons had not even been furnished with a medicine chest; and that nothing could have saved the greater part of the troops from death, had not one of the young surgeons fortunately discovered, after many different things had been tried in vain, that the bark of the root of a particular