roughly guessed that ten beeves would feed as many million people, it
has such a stupendous sound; but General Saxton predicts a small
social party of five thousand, and we fear that meat will run short,
unless they prefer bone. One of the cattle is so small, we are hoping
it may turn out veal.

For drink we aim at the simple luxury of molasses-and-water, a barrel
per company, ten in all. Liberal housekeepers may like to know that for
a barrel of water we allow three gallons of molasses, half a pound of
ginger, and a quart of vinegar,--this last being a new ingredient for my
untutored palate, though all the rest are amazed at my ignorance. Hard
bread, with more molasses, and a dessert of tobacco, complete the
festive repast, destined to cheer, but not inebriate.

On this last point, of inebriation, this is certainly a wonderful camp.
For us it is absolutely omitted from the list of vices. I have never
heard of a glass of liquor in the camp, nor of any effort either to
bring it in or to keep it out. A total absence of the circulating medium
might explain the abstinence,--not that it seems to have that effect with
white soldiers,--but it would not explain the silence. The craving for
tobacco is constant, and not to be allayed, like that of a mother for
her children; but I have never heard whiskey even wished for, save on
Christmas-Day, and then only by one man, and he spoke with a hopeless
ideal sighing, as one alludes to the Golden Age. I am amazed at this
total omission of the most inconvenient of all camp appetites. It
certainly is not the result of exhortation, for there has been no
occasion for any, and even the pledge would scarcely seem efficacious
where hardly anybody can write.

I do not think there is a great visible eagerness for tomorrow's