Fine wellbuilt cookhouses are constructed from the cut stone of Sebastopol which lies in large blocks around unfinished houses or is taken from the ruined edifices and walls about the place. jNIechanical ingenuity has been largely developed in the use of resources. One officer converts the funnel of a small steamer into a chimney; another uses one of the pipes of an engine as a hot-air apparatus to heat his hut; a third has arranged a portion of machinery so that he can communicate from his salon, sleeping-room, and dining-room (three single gentlemen rolled into one) with his cook in the adjacent kitchen, and dinner is handed through direct from the fii'e to the table, after the fashion of those mysterious apparatus which obey the behests of London waiters in the matter of roast meats, boiled beefs, and their satellites.
Many officers have distinguished themselves by the trouble they have taken in showing the men how to make themselves comfortable. The number of those employed on the roads and in various other ways has rendered it difficult to get on with these works, and in many cases the officers are unable to complete their huts for want of wood and labom*, and the unfinished walls stand in grim ruin here and there about the camp. Wood, canvas, little bits of glass, tar and pitch, and, above all, nails and tacks, are eagerly sought after. At the head-quarters' sale, on General Simpson's departure the other day, a hammer, hatchet, and saw sold for 2,1. ISs. A bag of nails was disposed of by auction the same week for 40s., and on counting the contents it was found there were only 130 nails in the bag.
Friendly little felonies of planking and such things are not unheard of, and the greatest favour you can do a friend is " to let him have a piece of board about six feet long by a foot wide;" or, " The Captain says, sii', as how he'd be very gx'ateful if you could give him a bit of glass about three inches square, sir, for his winder." The heart soon grows hardened under such constant pressure, and one is obliged at last to refuse " a couple of tenpenny nails" or " the loan of a hammer for an hour" with the sternness of a Erutus. Pictures of saints, the erotic scripture pieces, in which the Muscovites delight, fat Potiphar's wives and garmentless Josephs, veiy plump Susannahs and very withered elders, and " subjects" of the kind, as well as straiglit-baclvetl iincomfortable arm-chairs of waluut, heavy tables, and chests of drawers, are not uncommon in the officers' huts.
Cats j'rom Sebastopol abound in camp, and are very useful, inasmuch as the huts are overrun with rats and mice, not to speak of other small deer, now disappearing before the march of King Frost. Dogs have come in from the deserted city, and domesticate themselves whether j'ou will or not. There are alwaj's an odd half-dozen about my hut and tent, which make night hideous with their quarrels — greyhounds, mastiffs, and sheep-dogs, and tlieir descendants, of very mixed and indistinct types; and for two whole days our peace was menaced by a hiige double-humped Bactrian camel, which took a fancy to the space before the door, and lay there constantly, so that omlegs as we went out and in were within easy reach of liis prodigious teeth.
But he was a good-natured brute, and never attempted to bite unless one tried to mount him, when lie disgorged his food, and spat it out at the assailant or snapped his jaws at him in terrorem. However, no one was sorry when he heard that the " ship of the desert" had got under way in the night, and had sailed off on a piratical excm-sion against other infidel habitations. There are, however, thefts committed in camp more serious than those of planks or nails. Blankets are not safe tl\ese chilly nights on horses in outlying stables, and the regiments that came back from Kinbm-n found their liuts broken into and robbed on their return. The officers' furniture and clothing were gone. Indeed, there is a system of petty thieving going on in camp which is very discreditable, but I am inclined to tliink it is not the work of our soldiers, or if it be, that there are not more than two or three who do all the mischief.