This cannot be done, unless the source of supply is properly guarded.  When unrestrained access is afforded to a spring-head or pond, the water is fatally wasted and spoiled.  In the Crimea, the English officers had to build round the spring-heads, and establish a regular order in getting supplied.  Where there is crowding, dirt gets thrown in, the water is muddied, or animals are brought to drink at the source.  This ruins everything; for animals will not drink below, when the mouth of horse, mule, or cow has touched the water above.  The way is for guardians to take possession, and board over the source, and make a reservoir with taps, allowing water to be taken first for drinking and washing purposes, a flow being otherwise provided by spout and troughs for the animals, and for cleansing the camp.  The difference on the same spot was enormous between the time when a British sergeant wrote that he was not so well as at home, and could not expect it, not having had his shoes or any of his clothes off for five months, and the same time the next year, when every respectable soldier was fresh and tidy, with his blood flowing healthfully under a clean skin.  The poor sergeant said, in his days of discomfort:  “I wonder what our sweethearts would think of us, if they were to see us now,—­unshaved, unwashed, and quite old men!” Cut in a year, those who survived had grown young again,—­not shaven, perhaps, for their beards were a great natural comfort on winter duty, but brushed and washed, in vigorous health, and gay spirits.

The next consideration is the soldier’s abode,—­whether tent, or hut, or quarters.

I have shown certain British doctors demanding lime-juice when food was necessary first.  In the same way, there was a cry from the same quarter for peat charcoal, instead of preventing the need of disinfectants.  Wherever men are congregated in large numbers,—­in a caravan, at a fair in the East or a protracted camp-meeting in the far West, or as a military force anywhere, there is always animal refuse which should not be permitted to lie about for a day or an hour.  Dead camels among Oriental merchants, dead horses among Western soldiers, are the cause of plague.  It is to be hoped that there will never be a military encampment again without the appointment of officers whose business it shall be to see that all carrion, offal, and dirt of every kind is put away into its proper place instantly.  For those receptacles, and for stables and shambles, peat charcoal is a great blessing; but it ought not to be needed in or about the abodes of the men.  The case is different in different armies.  The French have a showy orderliness in their way of settling themselves on new ground,—­forming their camp into streets, with names painted up, and opening post-office, cafes, and bazaars of camp-followers; but they are not radically neat in their ways.  In a few days or weeks their settlement is a place of stench, turning to disease; and thus it was, that, notwithstanding their fresh bread, and good cookery, and clever arrangements, they were swept away by cholera and dysentery, to an extent unrevealed to this day, while the British force, once well fed and clothed, had actually only five per cent sick from all causes, in their whole force.