disabled from duty for nearly a fortnight; but I
don't think he would have minded his daughter not marrying me in
particular, so long as he could persuade some one. But he happened one
day to leave his horse tied up close to our main guard while he went
into a kind of public-house, and occupied himself treating some of our
men; and the fact being discovered by those outside that his stirrups
were of solid gold, when he came out again one of them was missing. It
must have weighed at least a pound, so naturally he thought it worth
while reporting the circumstance to the colonel, and a search was
made; but no clue could be found to the missing stirrup, so he had to
ride away as best he could with only the other one; so he only came
off a loser in the end, and he never got his daughter married after
all.

After staying in the town for the time stated, a thousand of us were
despatched up the river Rio de la Plata to a small place called
Colonia, where an army of Spaniards about four or five thousand strong
was lying. We landed with ease, and the enemy retreated out of the
place after firing a few shots, leaving it in our hands, so that we
again found ourselves for a time in comfortable quarters. We placed
pickets of two or three hundred men round the place, and fixed a
_chevaux de frise_ in the gate, formed of very sharp and pointed
swords stuck very thickly into a beam which was made to turn on its
axis: rather an awkward instrument to face if one is not used to it.
Duty at this place was rather hard, owing to there being so few of us,
and such a number on picket or at work building some batteries for our
better protection.

At the picket-house, which was some distance from the town, there
lived a soap-boiler and tallow-chandler, who was very kind to us while
we were there on duty, killing a bullock almost every night for our
use, as he only required the skin and tallow, and any one may suppose
that two hundred hungry men knew what to do with the rest of it. An
incident took place during our stay at his house which will show how
well disposed he was towards us. We had passed a very quiet week
there, when one night the Spaniards passed our picket secretly in the
darkness, fired a volley into the town, and then immediately
retreated. Our picket only just managed to get through safely into the
town, leaving one of our men asleep in the picket-house, and he must
certainly have met his death if he had been caught there singly;