United States or Tunisia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I am very impatient, I do assure you, to be on the other side of the Rhine," wrote Count Clermont to Marshal Belle-Isle; "all the country about here is infested by runaway soldiers, convalescents, camp-followers, all sorts of understrappers, who commit fearful crimes.
They took food with them when they knew that at their halting-place it could not be procured. Very differently do our native regiments travel. They are attended by a host of camp-followers, and have a formidable amount of baggage.
The orderly retreat was soon converted into a rout; the flying throng made its way across country and over mountains towards Pamplona, leaving all the artillery, military stores, and accumulated spoils as trophies of the British victory. The value of these was prodigious, but the great mass of booty, except munitions of war, fell into the hands of private soldiers and camp-followers.
An appearance of order was restored; but the regular distributions were impossible. Famishing wretches, soldiers, and those of the camp-followers who still remained, all rushed upon the provision- stores. Panics also continually increased the tumult. "The Cossacks! There are the Cossacks!" was frequently shouted.
All the operations of rural husbandry are destructive to spontaneous vegetation by the voluntary substitution of domestic for wild plants, and, as we have seen, the armies of the colonist are attended by troops of irregular and unrecognized camp-followers, which soon establish and propagate themselves over the new conquests.
His face turned towards the prairie North and the mountain West where yet remained the hunter's quarry; and he longed to be away with rifle and gun, with his squaw and the papooses trailing after like camp-followers, to eat the fruits of victory.
As in other extreme cases the camp-followers do but equal or a little exceed the number of men fit for service, this estimate, which makes them nearly four times as numerous, is entitled to but little credit. The late writer, Orosius, corrects the error here indicated; but his account seems to err in rating the supernumeraries too low.
The fields were trodden down and their produce carried off. The sugar-canes were looted by elephants and camp-followers; the well-ropes stolen to serve as drag-ropes; and if any of the country-people attempted to defend their property, they were cruelly ill-treated. The force increased, too, as they advanced. The horse-keepers' wives with their children joined them, not knowing where else to go.
Launched into that life by the circumstances that I have recounted, I must now describe what I saw there. The first time I had a close view of one of those famous gatherings called theatrical masked balls I heard the debauchery of the Regency spoken of, and the time when a queen of France was disguised as a flower merchant. I found there flower merchants disguised as camp-followers.
"As our division is nearest to the city, I thought they would be sure to turn us out before long, to put out those fires. They must be the work of some of our rascally camp-followers, or of some of the ruffians of the town, who have been breaking into deserted houses and plundering them. Well, the liquor is finished, and there is always interest in fighting a fire."
Word Of The Day