isle. In the retrospect, I seem to see myself adrift upon a horse's back
amid a sea of roses. The various outposts were within a five-mile
radius, and it was one long, delightful gallop, day and night. I have a
faint impression that the moon shone steadily every night for two
months; and yet I remember certain periods of such dense darkness that
in riding through the wood-paths it was really unsafe to go beyond a
walk, for fear of branches above and roots below; and one of my officers
was once shot at by a Rebel scout who stood unperceived at his horse's
bridle.

We lived in a dilapidated plantation-house, the walls scrawled with
capital charcoal-sketches by R., of the New Hampshire Fourth, with a
good map of the island and its paths by C. of the First Massachusetts
Cavalry; there was a tangled garden, full of neglected roses and
camellias, and we filled the great fireplace with magnolias by day and
with logs by night; I slept on a sort of shelf in the corner, bequeathed
to me by Major F., my jovial predecessor,--and if I waked up at any
time, I could put my head through the broken window, arouse my orderly,
and ride off to see if I could catch a picquet asleep. I spell the word
with a _q_, because such was the highest authority, in that Department
at least, and they used to say at post head-quarters that so soon as the
officer in command of the outposts grew negligent, and was guilty of a
_k_, he was instantly ordered in.

To those doing outpost-duty on an island, however large, the main-land
has all the fascination of forbidden fruit, and on a scale bounded only
by the horizon. Emerson says that every house looks ideal until we enter
it,--and it is certainly so, if it be just the other side of the hostile
lines. Every grove in that blue distance appears enchanted ground, and
yonder loitering gray-back, leading his horse to water in the farthest