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ACTIVE service in the field is a powerful antidote to sickness of many kinds, as experience fully taught us. With the change from the excitement of the fray and the rout to the monotonous drag of mere guard and police duty, came a host of maladies no less dangerous than the battle-storm. Many who had harmlessly traversed intrenchments, and clambered over ramparts with as light hearts as if scaling nunnerywalls, now fell sick and died. The reason was obvious. There was altogether too much time for reflection. Some sought a refuge in the wine-cup, or in absorbing games of chance which made them nabobs and beggars within an hour: some were of a studious turn, and they ransacked all the receptacles and store-houses of aboriginal lore, and read all the books, and conned all the manuscripts of the meagre public libraries; and the remainder of the gentlemen composing Uncle Samuel's forces in the city of Mexico, employed themselves in a myriad of ways, with but one object in view; and that object was the killing of Time. In return for the civility, the old white-beard, with his hourglass and scythe, killed many of them. They who had sought a lotustree, that could induce oblivion of their native land, found one that made them forgetful of that as well as all else beside; for its roots struck deep into the grave.

There is a celebrated national song of Switzerland, which is said to overpower the soldier in foreign lands, as like joy-bells it falls in sweet tones upon his ear. Such images of peace, home, and domestic felicity does it conjure up, that it causes home-sickness; and the government into whose service the mountaineer has entered forbids the song under severe penalties. It is wise to do so. Heimweh, the ardent and passionate longing for home that impels to desertion or suicide, is not peculiar to him. The maladie du pays of the Frenchman, and nostalgia (as medical men disguise the horrid name of home-sickness, when they dare not speak it plainly) both mean the yearning of the soul for the household smiles and looks of love that the humblest home can supply. 'Home! home, sweet home!' was with us tacitly proscribed; and when any sick man was heard humming that air it was a pretty

sure indication that he was on a quick march for his long home. I am going to tell of an attack of a malady that is not at all peculiar to clime or race; and it may be one that is not unfamiliar to some readers of this.

The name of the firm friend of our mess, who is now to be introduced, must for this purpose be supposed to be Rocket. Gifted with an exquisite taste for music, and various other accomplishments that made him a desirable companion, abounding in good-humor, and uniting a gentle spirit and a gallant heart, (by no means a rare combination,) he had all the qualifications for the position of leader in fun, frolic, and the more refined convivialities of a mess. The fault was partially mine that he, the silver-tongued, merry-hearted fellow, so fell away from his high estate as to become the antipodes of himself. Rocket had been wont to boast a freedom from those troublesome things called nerves; and all who witnessed his easy, unflurried carriage in the hour of fiery trial, when the rasp of the sabre as it leaped from the scabbard inspired with additional courage, and shots buzzed round like wasps; they, I say, who then saw him were more than half-inclined to corroborate his assertion of having been born without nerves. Now, an internal flame forced from him an admission to the contrary. He who had ever been ready and able to transfuse his own joyfulness into others, and who could revive the languid, bent-down spirit, now had no excess of cheerfulness, nay, sometimes needed a helping prop in his moments of despondency. His mental malady left its trace upon the physical system. One absorbing theme made him apparently insensible to any thing but the mechanical routine of duty. He had been smitten to the core by a weapon whose wound when earnestly given will never fully heal: but it took a long time, weeks, months, to develop the effects of my indiscreetness in connection with the matter.

To divert Rocket from that which was preying upon his mind, I felt bound to exert myself, having even then, in the incipient stage of the disease, a suspicion of its real cause. We went together for a ride on the beautiful public promenade called the Pasèo. That ought to cheer him if any thing could. Generally on a fine day it is frequented by thousands of carriages, horsemen, and pedestrians; but during the occupation of the neighboring city by our troops it was never uncomfortably thronged by the fashionables. The caballeros, having shed their coattails, appeared on horseback in jackets richly embroidered in silk, or gold, or silver-lace, and plentifully bespangled with shining metal buttons; loose-flowing crimson scarfs girded their waists; trowsers slashed up the side of the leg, and wide-rimmed sombreros with silver or golden cord twisted round them, completed the principal parts of their usually elegant yet sometimes gaudy costume. But then their magnificent horsefurniture, with the saddle that cost a thousand dollars, and the remainder of the equipment no less dashing, drew the gaze of vulgar curiosity from the rider to his steed. Not unfrequently could be seen gay parties of caballeros and their lady-loves in the enjoyment of equestrian exercises, a recreation to which the gentler sex of that country are quite partial. One cannot fail to compare it with Calmuck courtship on horseback, where the lady, if she fancy her pursuer, may allow herself

to be caught and made a bride. We had, however, seen the ladies to much greater advantage in Puebla, where foreign fashions had not perverted the simplicity of the native taste. The ladies of a Pueblan cavalcade seem not to sit less firmly than do their companions of coarser mould; and the alacrity with which the laughing Poblanitas would join in a contest of speed attested their entire freedom from fear. There was no rolling off like a dumpling with them, a feat which (with all due respect be it said) marked the first attempts in equitation of certain I wot of. The firmness in the saddle which is so peculiar to the señoritas is easily explained. Fond as they are of a promenade à cheval, their liking is for the manner of the Duchess de Berri and Madame Fanny K. B ; for the side-saddle is deemed an innovation not to be tolerated in a land where squeamishness and false delicacy are contemned. The graceful long riding-dress precludes an undue display of ankle. This is an item worthy the consideration of our more refined modern reformers (!) who seek to disclose their extreme beauty of formation by wearing a short costume à la mandarin. Let those strong-minded feminines who are not so lamentably low, ignorant, and stupid as to suppose that woman should have no higher nor more masculine aspiration that what merely enhances the joys of private life; let them give this question their serious and dispassionate consideration. Let, also, our handsome ladies on Broadway of a bright day, they who take the least suspicion of dampness or mud on the crossings for an excuse to elevate their corded skirts, and thus display their ankles, even to the second joint thereof; let them give attention. Would it not be well for them to adopt the Mexican mode, and to utterly discard the side-saddle, which affords so little security against tumbling, to the graceless hoyden? Discard the side-saddle and all the prudishness that goes with it, or fall short of the progress of the age, which improves so marvellously upon nature. But I am wandering from my proper subject of narration.

That is the primitive custom that is gradually being laid aside in the large cities, where fashion reigns rampant. On the Pasèo, even in our day, it was a very rare case for a lady to be seen mounted on any thing but what the natives justly deem a foreign barbarism.

As the mounted dons curveted and pranced along, and their brilliant accoutrements flashed before us, there was some hope that the sight of the joyous phalanx would dissipate the cloud that hung over my friend's mind; for we continually encountered acquaintances and exchanged courtesies with both ladies and gentlemen. But no; the occasion had no charms for him. He did start from his abstraction for an instant, only long enough to collect his thoughts and fix them upon a person who accosted us. A florid-faced, beetle-browed squib of a cockney was that person, whom it is convenient to designate as Harley Quin. Much sought after was he by anxious mammas who had marketable daughters, for he had the reputation of being wealthy. Harley Quin was a supercilious fellow, and was withal quite patronizing to such of our officers as were deceived into making an acquaintance with him. I thought a sneer curled his lip as he graciously bowed and turned to speak to some ladies in a carriage near; and, like a quiet individual, I called Rocket's

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