human
A very capital steak this! I'll trouble you for some fat and a little gravy. We'll have some jollification when we get to sea; but we must get into blue water first; then we shall have less to do. Talking of broiling steaks--when I was in Egypt we used to broil our beef-steaks on the rocks--no occasion for fire--thermometer at 200--hot as hell! I have seen four thousand men at a time cooking for the whole army as much as twenty or thirty thousand pounds of steak at a time, all hissing and frying at once--just about noon, of course, you know--not a spark of fire! Some of the soldiers, who had been brought up as glass-blowers at Leith, swore they never saw such heat. I used to go to leeward of them for a whiff, and think of old England! Ah, that's the country, after all, where a man may think and say what he pleases! But that sort of work did not last long, as you may suppose; their eyes were all fried out, damn me, in three or four weeks! I had been ill in my bed, for I was attached to the 72nd regiment, seventeen hundred strong--I had a party of seamen with me; but the ophthalmia made such ravages, that the whole regiment, colonel and all, went stone blind--all except one corporal! You may stare, gentlemen, but it's very true. Well, this corporal had a precious time of it: he was obliged to lead out the whole regiment to water--he led the way, and two or three took hold of the skirts of his jacket, on each side; the skirts of these were seized again by as many more, and double the number to the last, and so all held on by one another, till they had all had a drink at the well; and, as the devil would have it, there was but one well among us all--so this corporal used to water the regiment just as a groom waters his horses; and all spreading out you know, just like the tail of a peacock.
gpt
Of which the corporal was the rump,
human
You found it warm in that country? inquired the surgeon.
gpt
Warm! exclaimed the captain;
human
I'll tell you what, doctor, when you go where you have sent many a patient--and where, for that very reason, you certainly will go--I only hope, for your sake, and for that of your profession in general, that you will not find it quite so hot as we found it in Egypt. What do you think of nineteen of my men being killed by the concentrated rays of light falling on the barrels of the sentinels bright muskets, and setting fire to the powder? I commanded a mortar battery at Acre, and I did the French infernal mischief with the shells I used to pitch in among them when they had sat down to dinner: but how do you think the scoundrels weathered on me at last? Damn me, they trained a parcel of poodle dogs to watch the shells when they fell, and then to run and pull the fuses out with their teeth. Did you ever hear of such damned villains? By this means, they saved hundreds of men, and only lost half a dozen dogs--fact, by God; only ask Sir Sydney Smith; he'll tell you the same, and a damned sight more.