anxious friends at home can form no idea of the trials we undergo—wading streams, clambering over rocks, laboring through the valleys [where] the sand causes our animals to sink up to their knees. Then our frugal meals, hard bed, and perhaps wet blankets…I have no taste for this mode of life—it contains not a single charm for me. It is labor, labor from morning till night. I’m tired of this business. I wish it was over…This is a soldier’s fare, but I am sick of it.”
