The walls were scrawled with capital charcoal sketches by R.of the Fourth New Hampshire, and with a good map of the island and its wood-paths by C.of the First Massachusetts Cavalry.

The room had the picturesqueness which comes everywhere from the natural grouping of articles of daily use,--swords, belts, pistols, rifles, field-glasses, spurs, canteens, gauntlets,--while wreaths of gray moss above the windows, and a pelican's wing three feet long over the high mantel-piece, indicated more deliberate decoration.

This, and the whole atmosphere of the place, spoke of the refining presence of agreeable women; and it was pleasant when they held their little court in the evening, and pleasant all day, with the different visitors who were always streaming in and out,--officers and soldiers on various business; turbaned women from the plantations, coming with complaints or questionings; fugitives from the main-land to be interrogated; visitors riding up on horseback, their hands full of jasmine and wild roses; and the sweet sunny air all perfumed with magnolias and the Southern pine.
From the neighboring camp there was a perpetual low hum.

Louder voices and laughter re-echoed, amid the sharp sounds of the axe, from the pine woods; and sometimes, when the relieved pickets were discharging their pieces, there came the hollow sound of dropping rifle-shots, as in skirmishing,--perhaps the most unmistakable and fascinating association that war bequeaths to the memory of the ear.
Our domestic arrangements were of the oddest description.

From the time when we began housekeeping by taking down the front-door to complete therewith a little office for the surgeon on the _piazza_, everything seemed upside down.