I had a thirty-ton cutter, in which I made several expeditions. Once I went to Trinidad, where the head-quarters of the 88th were stationed. I do not remember how long we took to go there, but I recall with pleasure that delightful sail over a calm sea, a favouring breeze filling our sails. As we cut through the water, flying fish darted here and there, either in fear or in play; the nautilus floated gracefully, dolphins leaped, and sometimes the horrid fin of a shark following our track might be seen. It is long ago since all this happened, and I can only trust to my memory, but I think the barracks where the Connaught Rangers were stationed must have been the very abode of fever. The mosquitoes were intolerable, and the heat intense. Lord Harris was governor then, and his gardens were beautiful. I well remember the luxurious marble bath in his grounds. My colonel, the late Sir H. Shirley, gave me a room in his quarters, and in the morning he awoke me to show a huge tarantula, as big as the back of my hand, which a gunner had found in his boot as he was about to pull it on. I also saw a centipede, which the assistant-surgeon of the regiment was preserving, so long that in a common-sized havanna cigar-box it could not be placed without almost doubling it. So my recollections of Trinidad are a conglomeration of tarantulas, mosquitoes, centipedes, iced champagne, and a hearty welcome. My regiment went from the West Indies to Halifax, Nova Scotia. We changed from almost perpetual sunshine to a land where snow lay on the ground for months. When we landed, I well remember how fresh and beautiful everything looked. I had been accustomed for some years to see for the most part only the negro women, who, although possessing figures like graceful ebony statues, that showed to the finest advantage as they walked erect and firm, bearing their purchases from market on a tray carried on the top of their heads, still their faces, as a rule, were ugly, and always black. How surpassingly beautiful we thought the women of Halifax, with their dazzling complexions, who came to welcome the wild Irishmen; and further acquaintance showed that their beauty was only equalled by their frank and gentle ways. The year we remained at Halifax is a memory never to be effaced. The venerable and rickety old wooden barracks, which had been condemned during the time the Duke of Kent was in Nova Scotia, was burnt to the ground when the 88th and 38th Regiments occupied it as quarters. The conflagration was a grand sight, which we would willingly have dispensed with, as the Connaught Rangers never received any compensation for the mess napery and other valuables lost in that magnificent bonfire.