The next day we disembarked. The snow that had been threatening was now falling, and it was freezing very hard. One month previous the sun was shining and the thermometer marked 86°. The men of the 88th, with their white-covered helmets on their heads, had, like all of us, red noses and yellow faces. We thought it was positively cruel to bring us suddenly from intense heat to bitter cold, but, in spite of shudders and chattering teeth, we all felt an exhilarating glow on that 22nd of December, 1870, when we disembarked during an eclipse of the sun and in a blinding snowstorm. The 88th regiment proceeded to Fort Grange, and that night thirty men were taken into hospital with bronchitis. The regiment did not remain very long quartered in the forts, but were moved over to Portsmouth, where it occupied the Cambridge Barracks. What a changed place is Portsmouth now that the old walls have been removed! It has assumed a gay and youthful look. Midshipman Easy would not recognise it, and the old tars of former days would feel quite adrift. The last ten years have greatly improved its outward appearance. It was always a favourite quarter, being so near the Isle of Wight, and the young officers of the different regiments stationed in Portsmouth and the neighbourhood kept the ‘tambourin a-roulin,’ as no doubt they do still. There was a good anecdote told about the subaltern of the main guard at Portsmouth during the time that a noble lord was commanding the district. A ball was to take place at the Southsea Rooms, and, as ill-luck would have it, the hero of my story was in orders for guard the very day of the ball, and could get no one to exchange duties with him. Despair filled his mind, for _she_ was to be there, and he was engaged to her for several dances. Cupid, they say, laughs at locksmiths, so, I presume, goes into fits when a subaltern’s guard is mentioned as an excuse for being a recreant knight. So our hero decided he would, like Cinderella, go to the ball for only a certain time. As the other officers were in uniform, his costume was not remarkable, but he kept his eyes on the general, and once, when whispering soft words into his fair one’s ears, he saw his lordship give a start as he looked towards him, and felt sure he saw his lips form themselves into the appearance of a strong expletive.