fter, taking my _siesta_
in an aery couch under the gossamer frondage of the corozo palm. I had
eaten raw meat with the trappers of the Rocky Mountains, and roast
monkey among the Mosquito Indians; and much more, which might weary the
reader, and ought to have made the writer a wiser man. But, I fear, the
spirit of adventure--its thirst--is within me slakeless. I had just
returned from a "scurry" among the Comanches of Western Texas, and the
idea of "settling down" was as far from my mind as ever.

"What next? what next?" thought I. "Ha! the war with Mexico."

The war between the United States and that country had now fairly
commenced. My sword--a fine Toledo, taken from a Spanish officer at San
Jacinto--hung over the mantel, rusting ingloriously. Near it were my
pistols--a pair of Colt's revolvers--pointing at each other in sullen
muteness. A warlike ardour seized upon me, and clutching, not the
sword, but my pen, I wrote to the War Department for a commission; and,
summoning all my patience, awaited the answer.

But I waited in vain. Every bulletin from Washington exhibited its list
of new-made officers, but my name appeared not among them. In New
Orleans--that most patriotic of republican cities--epaulettes gleamed
upon every shoulder, whilst I, with the anguish of a Tantalus, was
compelled to look idly and enviously on. Despatches came in daily from
the seat of war, filled with newly-glorious names; and steamers from the
same quarter brought fresh batches of heroes--some legless, some
armless, and others with a bullet-hole through the cheek, and perhaps
the loss of a dozen teeth or so; but all thickly covered with laurels.

November came, but no commission. Impatience and ennui had fairly
mastered me. The time hung heavily upon my hands.

"How can I best pass the hour? I shall go to the French opera, and hear
Calve."

Such were my reflections as I sat one evening in my solitary chamber.
In obedience to this impulse, I repaired to the theatre; but the
bellicose strains of the opera, instead of soothing, only heightened my
warlike enthusiasm, and I walked homeward, abusing, as I went, the
president and the secretary-at-war, and the whole government--
legislative, judicial, and executive. "Republics _are_ ungrateful,"
soliloquised I, in a spiteful mood. "I have `surely put in strong
enough' for it; my political connections--besides, the government owes
me a favour--"

"Cl'ar out, ye niggers! Wha