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A Night in the Water.
Yes, that was a pleasant life on picket, in the delicious early summer of the South, and among the endless flowery forests of that blossoming isle.

In the retrospect I seem to see myself adrift upon a horse's back amid a sea of roses.

The various outposts were within a six-mile radius, and it was one long, delightful gallop, day and night.

I have a faint impression that the moon shone steadily every night for two months; and yet I remember certain periods of such dense darkness that in riding through the wood-paths it was really unsafe to go beyond a walk, for fear of branches above and roots below; and one of my officers was once shot at by a Rebel scout who stood unperceived at his horse's bridle.
To those doing outpost-duty on an island, however large, the main-land has all the fascination of forbidden fruit, and on a scale bounded only by the horizon.