ich I
am writing, it had happened terribly often, and on the day before it had
made the scene at the embarkation of an Irish regiment a really horrible
one. The two regiments which embarked on the _Assaye_ happened to be the
soberest I had yet seen. Indeed, there was hardly one case of
drunkenness amongst them. I think this was partly because the outside
public was not allowed near the ship. The men passed from the train
directly on board, and did not come in contact with their friends. It
was kinder to the friends too. I saw none of those heartrending tragic
scenes of parting, none of the wild grief that grows so much wilder for
being indulged. From the officers' deck the picture of embarkation
appeared in outline rather than in detail. The constant movement of
people far below, the orderly disorder, the shouts and cries of officers
and stevedores, the waving arms of cranes and the general excitement
produced in a mere onlooker a strange sense of isolation. One felt like
Gulliver observing the Liliputians in some great effort of maritime
preparation, and the longer one looked the smaller and more like toy
soldiers seemed the men. Such an endless stream of them poured from the
dock shed to the ship. I heard their cries faintly. "Bring back old
Kroojer's whiskers" was the burden of them, and this was indeed the
chief trophy, the chief spoil of war which the average soldier pictured
for himself. It was strange to think that this army of Liliput which
tramped and cried down there conceived its mission so vaguely and
imperfectly that it could depart light-heartedly.

The deep note of the _Goorkha's_ foghorn sounded close at hand. The tops
of her masts glided past the roof of the dock shed; in five minutes she
was out of sight, and her departure seemed to have been almost
uncelebrated. She got away at about two, and an hour later the _Braemar
Castle_ also departed.

The only thing which now delayed the departure of the _Assaye_ was the
embarkation of the horses. There were eight chargers belonging to
officers of the two regiments, and they made the utmost objection to
being enclosed in narrow boxes and swung in mid-air. In particular a
magnificent grey belonging to the colonel of the Hampshire Regiment gave
any amount of trouble. It took her groom ten minutes to coax her into
the box, and as soon as it began to move upwards she snorted and
trembled with fear, and finally sat down on her haunches, with her neck
hanging over