You will comprehend the sentiment which associates your image with the sadness of the present hour. It is one of those periods when the sickened mind turns from all common objects, and clings to the remembrance of those we hold most dear. Having just returned from the funeral of one of my comrades, who died in the adjoining chamber this morning, and whose remains I have this evening followed to the grave, I find that the heavy depression of my spirits admits of no relief from the immediate circumstances around me: I take up my pen, therefore, to seek alleviation in an appeal to the bosom of friendship and of sympathy. I had before experienced the impressive solemnity of a military funeral, but the awful gloom, connecting with the procession, had not weighed upon me with all the affliction of the present moment. Of six gentlemen who accompanied me from Barbadoes, as assistants in the hospital department, three had died, one was sent to England with invalids, and the other two had, for some time past, resided in the same house with myself. Early this morning I was called from my bed to visit one of these, who had been a very short time ill, and was taken worse in the night. You will believe that I lost not a moment in putting on my clothes, and hastening to his room; but, on reaching his bed-side, I found him a corpse! The case of this young man shows the very perilous situation of Europeans in this climate, and proves with how much truth it may be said that to-day we are well, to-morrow in fever, and—next day in the grave! Nor do health and vigour give any security; for he who to-day boasts the greatest strength, to-morrow, perhaps, is stretched in his coffin.

Most of the officers of the garrison attended the funeral, and, when following the corpse in slow and doleful procession, with the band playing the dead march, and the minute-drum beating in hollow sound, the agonized feelings of the occasion became still more poignant from the conviction that, perhaps, before another day had passed, others of us might be extended at the side of the comrade, whose loss we now deplored.

I have before remarked to you, that from the strong tendency of such awful ceremonies to spread dispiriting apprehensions among the living, it is desirable that the parade of military funerals should be dispensed with, in a climate where the troops may, at all moments, be under feelings of alarm from the peril of disease; yet may it be a question, with some, how far it would be politic to deprive the soldier of this last and honorable mark of distinction; the sentiment attaching to which is, no doubt, one among the many causes which lead to noble and heroic conduct.

Among the soldiers of our own battalions, its disuse has been found both wise and necessary; for if it were to be employed on all occasions, in this climate, it might call those in health too often to the performance of a distressful duty, and become a painfully frequent memento to the sick; the effect of which, added to the common apprehension with respect to disease, might produce a degree of depression, which no means could remedy. Still among the Dutch troops the practice is continued; for it were easier, perhaps, to overturn the Alps, than to do away the prejudices of the Hollanders. Questions of expediency yield to questions of usage, and it must be proved to be a glaring injury, indeed, to the living, before a Dutchman could consent to forego an established observance to the dead.

It is remarkable, that among the papers of our deceased comrade, we find an unfinished letter, begun only a day or two ago, to his father, in which he speaks of being uncommonly well, and gratefully offers thanks to the Deity for the blessing of such excellent health.

Soon after he expired, a man called who had some business with him, and on being told that he was dead, would not leave the house, but insisted that we were deceiving him, saying that he had seen him in the town perfectly well “only a day or two before!”

It is a long while since we received news from your side the Atlantic; but a single paper is now brought to us by the captain of a ship from Glasgow, and you will not be surprised to learn that it is worn to shreds, by passing through the hands of the whole garrison.

After being for some weeks without fresh animal provisions, it has happened that the hospital has been supplied with them several times within the last few days: but, unhappily, their action upon the bowels of the sick, has more than counteracted the benefit which they might have derived from them. Aware that this was not an unfrequent occurrence, we had endeavoured to guard against it by issuing the fresh meat only in small portions at a meal, yet, from their stomachs having been so long unaccustomed to it, and from the debilitated state of the patients, the laxative effect was very considerable, nearly the whole of the convalescents having been attacked with a troublesome diarrhœa.