ffered no human habitation, and
it was too late for the landing of our tents. But the sand was dry; our
fires were soon lighted; all was sport and activity; our bands played
"Welcome to Holland;" our men danced with the peasantry; all had the
look of a magnificent frolic; and, when at last I threw myself on my
open air pillow, I dreamed of fairyland.

At daybreak we marched, in the highest spirits, and only longing to have
an opportunity of trying our strength with the enemy. From time to time,
the sound of a cannonade reached us, and heightened our eagerness to
advance. But Holland is proverbially difficult for any movements but
those of a trackschuyt; and the endless succession of narrow roads, the
perpetual canals, and the monotony of her level fields, rich as they
were, exhausted us, more than if we had marched twice the distance. But
the spell of human hearts is excitement, and war is all excitement. All
round us was new, and from the colonel to the rank and file, the
"general camp, pioneers and all," enjoyed the quaint novelty of Dutch
life. The little villages, so unlike our own, and yet so admirably
fitted for peasant comfort, the homesteads embedded in plantations of
willows, the neatness of every thing round the farm-houses, and even the
sleekness of the cattle, which seemed by their tameness to form a part
of the habitancy--all were objects of constant remark on our march; and
we could easily comprehend the horror with which the arrival of a French
commissariat must strike these comfortable burghers. But the punctuality
of British payments was perfectly known already; the whole plenty of the
land was poured out before us; we regaled sumptuously.

On the second evening of our march through this landscape of fatness, we
were warned of our approach to the besieged fortress, by the louder roar
of the cannon, and not less by the general desolation of the country.
The enemy's hussars had made a wide sweep, and wherever they were seen,
the villagers had fled instantly, carrying off their cattle. We found
the traces of those foraying excursions in the fragments of burned
mills, a favourite object of destruction with the French--for what
purpose I never could comprehend, except the pleasure of seeing them
burn--in cottages unroofed, for the sake of the thatch; in broken
moveables, and, in some instances, in the skeletons of horses and
remnants of arms; for the peasantry were not always patient sufferers,
and some of