On this ride I remember a feeble infusion of that excellent spirit which, since the days of Sir Walter Scott, ought to belong to all horse-soldiers, moss-troopers, or mounted rangers, but which I had despaired of ever finding in General Walker’s service.  It is true we had no bugler, or standard-bearer, or piece of feather in the troop, or, indeed, any circumstance of war, save our revolvers and Sharpe’s rifles, vermin and dirty shirts.  Nevertheless the morning was splendid, with a fresh breeze behind us; the road was hard and smooth, and rang under our horses’ feet; and withal I felt, that, if we should see a troop of greaser lancers ahead, in good uniform, we might run ’em down, and bullet ’em, and strip ’em, with good romantic spirit, even.

But this is a most hollow cheat which Sir Walter Scott and other book-men have played off on some weak-headed young men of our low-minded generation.  There is no doubt but a man seated amongst ten thousand cavalry, who shake the earth as they charge, ought to feel himself swell, as part of an avalanche or mighty Niagara,—­as part of the mightiest visible force which feeble man can enter or his spirit commingle with.  This were no contemptible joy, which the thin-blooded philosopher might laugh at,—­better, indeed, than most to be found here on this fog-rounded flat of ours, where some few melodies from heaven and countless blasts from hell meet, and make such strange, unequal dissonance.  But, alack! alack! it is not for the feeble, or the young soldier, fresh from his plough or his yardstick, his briefs or his pestle.  For how shall we who have all our lives been standing guard against the approach of death, who start horror-shaken from the dropping of a tile, whose small wounds are quickly bound up by tender mother or sister, and lamented over,—­how shall we feel romantic in the midst of a shower of bullets?  Enough done, if our vanity or sense of duty hold us there in any spirit, so that we do the needed trigger-work, and not turn tail and disgrace ourselves.  Even the veteran’s satisfaction, since the laying aside of steel armor, is not much, to be sure, or is gathered after the battle.  There is some savage ecstasy, perhaps, when he sees his enemy fall, or when he sees his back; this last, indeed, a glorious sight for any soldier,—­worth rushing at the cannon’s mouth to look at, almost.  But the man, be he veteran or other, who tells me he found pleasure on the field where the Minie-balls kill afar off, in cold blood,—­I know him for one of the eccentric, stupid, or talkers for purposes of vanity.—­But this will suffice.

There were three places on the road, amongst the Cordillera ridges, where, in former wars, a Costa-Rican force, flying before the filibusters, had stopped to barricade, and gathered heart to withstand their pursuers awhile,—­long enough to bark the surrounding trees with musket-shot,—­some of them, indeed, amid their topmost branches; for it is a greaser-failing to shoot inordinately high.  Each of these sites we approached with caution, expecting to see an enemy there; but there was none, and we came down safely at length to our old shed-camp.  Here we halted, and made our station, as it was more convenient for pasturage, whilst the foot passed on to San Juan, two miles beyond.