THREE:Ferry led Kendall and me into the woods, the other two remaining. We found rising ground, and had ridden but a few minutes when from its crest we looked upon a startling sight. In front of us was a stretch of specially well farmed land. Our woods swept round it on both sides, crossed a highway, and gradually closed in again so as to terminate the opening about half a mile away. Always the same crops, bottom cause of the war: from us to the road an admirable planting of cotton, and from there to the farther woods as goodly a show of thick corn. The whole acreage swept downward to that terminus, at the same time sinking inward from the two sides. On the highway shone the lighted rear window of a roadside "store," and down the two sides of the whole tract stretched the hundred tent-fires of two brigade camps of the enemy's cavalry. Their new, white canvases were pitched in long, even alleys following the borders of the wood, from which the brush had been cut away far enough for half of them to stand under the trees. The men had quieted down to sleep, but at one tent very near us a group of regimental officers sat in the light of a torch-basket, and by them were planted their colors. A quartet of capital voices were singing, and one who joined the chorus, standing by the flag, absently yet caressingly spread it at such breadth that we easily read on it the name of the command. Let me leave that out.

THREE:"At one place we looked into a little den where some people were smoking opium. They were lying on benches, and were very close together. The room wasn't more than eight feet square, and yet there were a dozen people in it, and perhaps one or two more. The guide told us it was a mistake to suppose that they smoked opium as we smoke tobacco. We stand, sit, or walk while smoking; but when a Chinese uses opium, he always reclines on a bench or bed, and gives himself up to his enjoyment.[Pg 325] Men go to the shops where opium is sold and lie down on the benches for a period of pleasure. Sometimes two persons go together, and then they lie on the same bench and take turns in filling each other's pipe.