I caught them at this innocent pastime and they allowed me to photograph them and give them wine at eight cents a quart which we drank out of a tin stovepipe.

They drank about four feet of stovepipe or thirty-six cents' worth, then they danced and sang for me in a circle, old men and boys, then drilled with their carbines, and I showed them my revolver and field-glasses and themselves in the finder of the camera; and when I had to go they took me on their shoulders and marched me around waving their rifles.

Then the old men kissed me on the cheek and we all embraced and they wept, and I felt as badly as though I were parting from fifty friends.

They told my guide that if I would come back they would get fifty more "as brave as they" and I could be captain.

I could not begin to tell you all the amusing things that have happened in this one week.