ing-house, and lived
in comparative decency. Some score of us, or perhaps a dozen, went up
together for surgical examination, and were made to strip stark naked in
each other's presence. I had never objected to this amongst my own kind
and kindred, when one exposed one's nudity by the side of the clean
brook or yellow canal in which we used to bathe in boyhood; but amongst
this crew it was hard, and even terrible. We had all been bathed,
perforce, before the medical examination began; but a mere tubbing does
not cleanse the mind or tongue, and I loathed alike the ceremony itself
and the men amongst whom I was forced to submit to it.

We marched through the London streets to Paddington, and I, having
ingratiated the sergeant who escorted us by a drink or two, was
permitted to walk by his side, whilst the ragged, semi-drunken
contingent went rolling and cursing ahead. We embarked for Bristol, and
there spent a night at the Gloucester Barracks, where a cross-grained
old sergeant, who had vainly tempted me to sell my clothes, and to
exchange them for a suit of rags, compelled me to carry endless loads of
coals up endless flights of stairs. He began his intercourse with me
by addressing me in Greek, of which language I knew nothing; and he
followed it with a dog-French which, ignorant as I was, I was able to
detect. In the morning we were taken aboard the paddleship _Appollo_,
bound for Cork, and I am in debt to the chief officer of that craft for
the advice he gave me. "It's the ambition of these beggars," he said,
intending thereby the convoying sergeants, "to land any decent chap at
the barracks looking like a scarecrow. There's a good half of them
no better than dealers in old clothes. You take my advice: go to your
regiment looking like a gentleman. When you get your regimentals, you
can sell your civilian clothes for twice as much as these sharks would
give you." I followed the advice thus given, and I had reason to be
grateful to the adviser.

The drunken, howling, cursing, foolish contingent with which I started
were scattered far and wide from the Catshill Barracks at Cork, and I
travelled thence under the care of a sedate old sergeant to Cahir, in
Tipperary. The sergeant was talkative and friendly, but I paid little
heed to him, for it was here, if I mistake not, that the joy of
landscape first entered into my soul. I have an impression only of an
abounding green and blue in general, but one or two stopping-points