long time was the agent of the P. M. S. S. Company at this place. The whole family is highly connected and universally respected.

Having smoked the pipe of contemplation, and played a game of billiards with a young gentleman who remarked, "he could give me fifty and beat me," which he certainly did, with a celerity that led me to conclude "he couldn't do any thing else," I retired for the night, but not to sleep, as I fondly imagined. Fleas ? rather! I say nothing at present; my feelings of indignation against those wretched insects are too deep for utterance. On another occasion, when in a milder mood, I intend to write a letter concerning and condemnatory of them, and publish it. Yes, by Heaven, if I have to pay for it as an advertisement!

George! you always make

The next morning, bright and early, I parted with my young military friend McAuburn, who was about to join his company at the Gila River. "Good bye, Phoenix," says he, "God bless you, old fellow! And look here, if you go to San Francisco, tell her-no, by fun of every thing. Good bye." So he wrung my hand and galloped away, and I stood looking after him till his prancing horse and graceful figure were hid by the projecting hills of the old Presidio. "Blessings go with you my boy!" said I, "for a fine, honest, noble-hearted young chap, you haven't many superiors in the U. S. Army; and happy, in my opinion, is the woman who gets you."

How I went to a Baile, and visited "New Town," and rode forth to the Mission, and attended a Fiesta, and the ex

traordinary adventures that befell me there, shall form the subject of a future epistle; at present my time is too much occupied, for lo, I am an editor! Hasn't Ames gone to San Francisco (with this very letter in his pocket), leaving a notice in his last edition, "that during his absence an able literary friend will assume his position as editor of the Herald,” and am I not that able literary friend? (Heaven save the mark.) "You'd better believe it." I've been writing a "leader” and 'unny anecdotes all day (which will account for the dryness of this production), and such a "leader," and such anecdotes. I'll send you the paper next week, and if you don't allow that there's been no such publication, weekly or serial, since the days of the "Bunkum Flagstaff," I'll craw fish, and take to reading Johnson's Dictionary. Fraternally-ahem!

Yours.

CAMP REMINISCENCES.

PERHAPS, you will not object to a few short military yarns which I have hastily twined for your edification. And if the interesting, fair-haired, blue-eyed (or otherwise) son of the reader, now sitting on his knee, on hearing them, should look confidingly into his parent's face, and inquire— "Is that true, Papa?" reply, oh reader, unhesitatingly"My son, it is."

Many years since, during the height of the Florida war, a company of the Second Infantry made their camp for the night, after a rainy day's march, by the bank of a muddy stream that sluggishly meandered through a dense and unwholesome everglade. Dennis Mulligan, the red-haired Irish servant of the commanding officer, having seen his master's tent comfortably pitched, lit a small fire beneath a huge palmetto, and having cut several slices of fat pork from the daily ration, proceeded to fry that edible for the nightly repast.

In the deep gloom of the evening, silence reigned unbroken but by the crackling of Dennis's small fire and the frizzling of the pork as it crisped and curled in the mighty mess-pan, when suddenly, with a tremendous "whoosh," the leaves of the palmetto were disturbed and a great barred owl, five feet from tip to tip, settled in the foliage. Dennis was superstitious, most Irishmen are, and startled by the disturbance, he suspended for an instant his culinary operations, and frying-pan in hand, gazed slowly and fearfully about him. Persuading himself that the noise was but the effect of imagination, he again addressed himself to his task, when the owl set up his fearful hoot, which sounded to the horrified ears of Dennis, like, "Who-cooks-for you—all? Again he suspended operations, again gazed fearfully forth into the night, again persuaded himself that his imagination was at fault, and was about to return to his task, when accidentally glancing upward he beheld the awful countenance and glaring of the owl turned downward upon him, and from that cavernous throat in hollow tones, again issued the question,

eyes

"Who-who-cooks-for you-all?" "God bless your

honor," said poor Dennis, while the mess-pan shook in his quivering grasp, and the unheeded pork poured forth a molten stream, which, falling upon the flames, caused a burst of illumination that added to the terrors of the scene, "God bless your honor, I cooks for Captain Eaton, but I don't know sir, who cooks for the rest of the gintlemen." A burst of fiendish laughter followed-from those who had witnessed the in

cident unseen, and "Dennis's Devil" became a favorite yarn in the Second Infantry from that time forth.

In New Mexico, at some time during the last two. years, Capt. A. B. of the First Dragoons, commanding Company, had been stationed about forty miles from a small post commanded by Lieut. O. B. of the Infantry. One day Capt. B. concluded to ride over and give his neighbor a call; so throwing himself athwart a noble horse, he started, and after a hard gallop-forty miles is a respectable ride you know he arrived at O. B.'s tent just as the drummer was performing that popular air, "Oh, the roast beef of Old England."

Reining in his horse and shaking hands with O. B., who, came forth to greet him, "on hospitable thought intent," he said, "Well, Lawrence, been to dinner?" "No, I haven't," was the reply, "just going, come in, come in; "Devilish glad of it," said Capt. B. dismounting, "never was so hungry in all my life." “Well, come in,” said O. B., and they went in accordingly, and took seats at a small uncovered pine table, on which a servant shortly placed a large tin pan full of boiled rice, and a broken bottle half full of mustard. The Captain looked despairingly around-there was nothing else. "Abe," said O. B., as he drew the tin pan towards him, "are you fond of boiled rice ?" "Well, no," said Abe, somewhat hesitatingly, "I can't say that I am-very-Lawrence." "Ah,” replied Lawrence, coolly, "well just help yourself to the mustard!" "He was from South Carolina," said B.,