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hmus, raw and healthy. After that, he rapidly deteriorated, losing spirit with every battle, until he became at last a thoroughbred coward. Seven or eight greasers to one filibuster was said to be good fighting, at one time; but now three or four to one was thought to be great odds; and before the game ended, I hear, they were become equally matched, man for man, almost. But, whatever General Walker said in his speech, this class of weak ones were not always the deserters. It required some little energy or strength of legs, with which these were unfurnished, to go over to the enemy at San Jorge, or walk down to Costa Rica; and the fact was, that from the first many of the healthiest and liveliest men, whose defection could least be borne, were leaving,--not from fear, mainly, but because by this proclamation they were offered the first opportunity to escape from a disagreeable service to which they thought themselves bound by no tie of love or honor.
It was now about time for a steamer to arrive at San Juan on the Pacific with the California passengers; and the next day, or the second day, perhaps, succeeding the battle at San Jorge, General Walker said to General Sanders, in his quiet, whining way,--"General Sanders, I am going to take two hundred and fifty riflemen and the rangers and go down to San Juan to bring up our recruits to Rivas; and if three thousand greasers are on the Transit road, I intend to go through them." Accordingly, the riflemen, the ranger regiment, and a small party of artillerymen with one of the two brass howitzers, met in the _plaza_, and set out on this expedition at midnight, with Generals Walker and Sanders both in the party.
The route of the detachment was the one I have mentioned before as inland through the forest, and striking the Transit road some miles west of the lake and Virgin Bay. It was firmly believed that we should meet the enemy somewhere on the Transit road,--since the hills through which it passed offered many excellent barricading-points, and it would s