CHAPTER VIII MISTAKES AND FALSE NEWS We must now return to our arrival at Say. Although the days there were most of them monotonous enough, they brought their little ups and downs, and we received news now and then, of which, under the circumstances, we naturally sometimes exaggerated the importance. It would be wearisome for me as well as for the reader to give an account of what happened every day during our long winter at Fort Archinard, My notes were written under various difficulties and in very varying moods, reflecting alike my exaggerated low spirits when things went wrong, and my excess of delight when anything occurred to cheer me. Consecutive pages of my journal often contradicted each other, and any one reading them would imagine they were written by two different persons ; 356