everently
the name of the opposite region!

Through the kindness of a Confederate officer or bribing the guards a
log four or five feet in length is sometimes brought in. Two or three
instantly attack it with a blunt piece of iron hoop to start the
cleaving, and in less time than one could expect such a work to be done
with axes it is split fine with wooden wedges.

Naturally one of the ever-recurring topics of discussion was the
glorious dishes we could prepare, if we but had the materials, or of
which we would partake if we ever got home again. In our memorandum
books we are careful to note down the street and number of the most
famous restaurant in each of the largest cities, like Delmonico's in New
York or Young's in Boston.

With few exceptions one day is like another. At earliest dawn each of
the two floors is covered with about a hundred and seventy-five
prostrate forms of officers who have been trying to sleep. Soon some one
of them calls in a loud voice. "_Buckets for water!_" The call is
repeated. Five or six, who have predetermined to go early to the river
Dan that seemed nearly a quarter of a mile distant, start up and seize
large wooden pails. They pass to the lower floor. One of them says to
the sentinel on duty at the southwest corner door, "Sentry, call the
sergeant of the guard; we want to go for water." He complies. In five,
ten, or fifteen minutes, a non-commissioned officer, with some half a
dozen heavily armed soldiers, comes, the bolts slide, the doors swing,
our squad passes out. They are escorted down the hill to the river, and
back to prison. By this time it is broad daylight. Many are still lying
silent on the floor. Most have risen. Some are washing, or rather wiping
with wet handkerchief, face and hands; others are preparing to cook,
splitting small blocks of wood for a fire of splinters; a few are
nibbling corn bread; here and there one is reading the New Testament.
There is no change or adjustment of clothing, for the night dress is the
same as the day dress. We no longer wonder how the cured paralytic in
Scripture could obey the command, "Take up thy bed and walk"; for at
heaviest the bed is but a blanket!

Now, for a half-hour, vengeance on vermin that have plagued us during
the night! We daily solve the riddle of the fishermen's answer to "What
luck?" the question which puzzled to death

"The blind old bard of Scio's rocky isle,"

"_As many as we caught we left; as many as