about four p.m.
However , at 4 P.M. we had worked up alongside of the Commodore , when the old skipper gave our friend such a rating , that I do n't think he will ever forget it . On the day following our being fired at , I was sent , being a good Spaniard , along with the second lieutenant -- poor Treenail -- to Morillo 's headquarters . We got an order to the officer commanding the nearest post on shore , to provide us with horses ; but before reaching it , we had to walk , under a roasting sun , about two miles through miry roads , until we arrived at the barrier , where we found a detachment of artillery , but the commanding officer could only give us one poor broken-winded horse , and a jackass , on which we were to proceed to headquarters on the morrow ; and here , under a thatched hut of the most primitive construction , consisting simply of cross sticks and palm branches , we had to spend the night , the poor fellows being as kind as their own misery would let them . Next morning we proceeded , accompanied by a hussar , through dreadful roads , where the poor creatures we bestrode sunk to the belly at every flounder , until about four p.m. , when we met two negroes and found , to our great distress , that the soldier who was our guide and escort , had led us out of our way , and that we were in very truth then travelling towards the town . We therefore hove-about and returned to Palanquillo , a village that we had passed through that very morning , leaving the hussar and his horse sticking fast in a slough . We arrived about nightfall , and as the village was almost entirely deserted , we were driven to take up our quarters in an old house , that seemed formerly to have been used as a distillery . Here we found a Spanish lieutenant and several soldiers quartered , all of them suffering more or less from dysentery ; and after passing a very comfortless night on hard benches , we rose at grey dawn , with our hands and faces blistered from musquitto bites , and our hair full of wood ticks , or garapatos .