the hut is thoroughly awakened at five o'clock
A.M. by the sound of bugles arousing the men
for the day. The officer seldom makes his
appearance before the hour of ten A.M., having
nothing to do before the parade duty at eleven
A.M.; but the men are considerately beat into bed
at the almost infantine time of half-past nine at
night, and they are punctually beat up in the
morning to be stirring with the lark.

The hut of a subaltern may be described in
its outline as part of a coal-shed, a corner in a
black, tarred wooden block that is all ground
floor. These huts are built of rough, unseasoned
planks, too thin to keep out the cold in winter,
or the heat in summer. The temperature, even
at five o'clock on a July morning, is that of a
bakehouse shortly after the batches of bread
have been drawn. The sun finds means to come
through the slender roof, if it does not appear
in actual beams upon the floor.

The taste of a young officer may lead him to
decorate this cupboard in any variety of style,
but the size of the area to be decorated will
impose a limit on his fancy. There is room for
a small iron bedstead, a table, a washstand, a
chest of drawers, and two chairs; which will
leave about a square yard of flooring for exercise
and the toilet. A fireplace and one small
six-pane window complete the fittings of these
huts, which look like the lodgings let to single
young men about Stepney, at two shillings a
week, or the summer-houses that used to be
erected in the grounds of the market-gardeners
at Hoxton.

A "block,"  as it is called, contains six
compartments, each one of which is considered to
be sufficient for a sub-officer's sleeping quarters.
A captain takes two of these cupboards; and a
field officer the whole block of six.

Standing upon the brow of the hill at the
highest part of the South Camp (on the other
side of which lies Aldershott Town), and looking
towards the north, the whole encampment
lies in a hollow bow before you. At your side
is the hut of General Knollys, the commander-
in-chief at the camp: who saw a night attack
about five-and-forty years ago. The ostensible
design of Aldershott is the practical education
of the soldier and his officer.

The huts of the South Camp are arranged in
alphabetical lines, or rows, for the sake of easy
reference, and they stretch down the gravelly
slope, towards the north, in many broad black
parallels for full half a mile, until they reach
the sandy flat that lies between them and the
North Camp, on the further ascent. This flat is
divided by a canal that is crossed by a pontoon
bridge supported by tubs; the real artillery
glowing red pontoons lying high and dry at the
side, looking like gigantic German sausages of a
light and brilliant hue. A winding gravel
pathway crosses this desert for nearly a mile,
and then you enter the corresponding black
lines of the North Camp huts, which look
thinner from the distance, and ascend for another
half mile upon a more moderate slope.

A line of these huts, in which, perhaps, the
officers and men of two different corps may be
quartered, is constructed in divisions, each one
of which is exactly like all the rest.

There is a bread-hut, a meat-hut, and a library-
hut; a men's school-hut, a children's school-hut,
which latter looks like the national schools in
many small villages. There are a number of
officers' sleeping-huts, placed back to back, and
also a number of men's sleeping huts, in the
same position. There is an orderly hut, and a
guard-hut, the latter provided with several cool
though dismal cupboards, that are called cells,
in which are confined the refractory privates
who have fallen under the too tempting dissipation
of Aldershott Town. There is the women's
wash-hut, at which stray pedlars' carts, that
are passing through the country, are observed
to stand, without any visible driver, for a very
long period of time; there is the family hut, for
the married men, and the long canteen, facing
the yellow, burning, gravelly road, where the
soldier indulges in a little half-baked conviviality
during the middle of the day. There is the
armourers' hut, a brick edifice, with a fluted zinc
roof; the shoemakers' hut: in which a number
of soldiers are at work, with cobblers' shirts,
and military legs; and there is the tailors' hut,
where our future field-marshals are sewing on
a button, or repairing a yawning rent. There
is a hut that is labelled "Ablution," which is
very good language for a building containing a
long bench and a number of bowls, where the
common soldiers go to wash. There is an officers'
mess-room hut: a long, black wooden building
containing many small windows adorned with
crimson curtains; and there is a non-commissioned
officers' mess-room hut, in which the
corporals and sergeants are accustomed (when
single men) to refresh their exhausted bodies.
There is a cook-house hut, a fair-sized fluted
zinc building, which is filled with steaming ovens,
containing many shapes of beef, a roaring
furnace, a number of perspiring half-military greasy
cooks, presided over by a stiff corporal who
orders the addition of a little salt, or the
uncovering of a pannikin, as if he were leading on
to glory. From the open doors of this dinner-
magazine is wafted a fragrant breath of onions
and cabbage: a perfume that carries you in
imagination to some of the back streets of Paris
on the noon of an August day.

At the back of the cook-house hut is the
Quartermaster's store hut, a precisely similar
fluted zinc building, that looks like a railway
goods depôt, being devoted to boxes, packages,
and bags. The hospital huts are placed by
themselves, being distinguished by white-painted
doors. They hold about a dozen beds each;
and some of the .French circus-like Pierrot
convalescents are lounging about them, as they were
lounging about the red-bricked Elizabethan
hospital in the town. These are the main
features of a line of huts, at any part of the
camp.

Still standing upon the hill by the General's
hut, and looking across the camp, you can see
to your right, towering above the huts, the shed-