like church of the South Camp, and, further on,
the shed-like church of the North Camp; the
white, gleaming, cup-shaped tent of the Royal
Artillery, who are roughing it under canvas, and
in the distance, across the common, an enclosed
racket-ground, which looks like a large stone
dust-bin. To the extreme left are the distant
tents of the guards, brought out in pleasant
relief against a green back-ground of foliage.
Trees are by no means plentiful at or near
Aldershott Camp, any more than grass, and very
few of the hot, dusty elevations can boast of a
top-knot, or a whisker of verdure.

I pursue my survey, by walking through the
camp, and discover a telegraph-office hut, a fire-
brigade hut, a post-office hut, and a luggage-
office hut. The latter belongs to the South
Eastern Railway Company, who are commencing
great railway works in connexion with their line
to this camp, an important, although a quiet,
and, as far as the country is concerned, an
inexpensive step on towards the perfection of the
national defences. Close by this building is a
privileged yard, conducted under military law,
for the hire of Broughams, dog-carts, and the
ubiquitous Hansom. There are certain camp-
followers which dog the steps of the soldier,
wherever he goes, from the General-in-Chief, to
the lowest private in a regiment.

Towards nine o'clock in the morning the
sounds of many military bands of music begin
to be heard, and the shrill whistle of the fife
comes from the open windows and doors of huts,
as well as the more mellow tone of the clarionet.
Bodies of men, in different uniforms, appear in
oblong masses upon the burning stony slopes,
and artillery soldiers driving heavy waggons or
field trains, pass along the cross-roads from side
to side. Heavy dragoons in thick, muddy,
unbraced trousers, and very dirty shirts, with
bronzed faces, chests, and arms, appear with
pails and cans from behind the tarred huts, and
disappear again. A company of bugle-youths
plunge out from a side lane, followed by a little
girl child, who strides widely to keep step with
them. Children play about the red-hot gravel,
regardless of sun-strokes, amusing themselves,
in one instance, with a worn-out battered shako.
Stern warriors are seen through laundry-hut
windows, nursing babies amongst the baskets of
clothes, or drinking tea out of large blue saucers.
Other stern warriors come out attired in all the
regulation glory of thick, warm, close-fitting
costume, with the glass standing at one hundred
degrees in the shade—even keeping to that
wonderful instrument of military torture, the
immortal stock. For two hundred years this
ingenious, unbending variation of the old cravat
has gripped the soldier by the neck, and there is
no prospect, at present, of its relaxing its hold
It has many things to recommend it. When a
regiment, from overwork, or an insufficiency of
food, presented a sickly appearance, by obliging
the men to tighten the stock as much as they
could bear without suffocation, a ruddy glow
was produced in the face, and every sign of a
full habit of body. These instruments of clothing,
before now, have been made of black horse-
hair, tolerably hard, and transformed into a
collar as firm as iron by the insertion of a slip
of wood, which, acting on the larynx, and
compressing every part of the neck, gave the eyes a
wonderful prominence, and the wearer an almost
supernatural appearance of healthy vigour. The
present military stock is not quite as bad as
this, although it is bad enough.

A squad of raw, unformed lads is marched
out for drill, showing the material that the
recruiting sergeant is driven to gather together with
the Queen's shillings, in default of better youths,
or men. They drop out of the ranks, even on an
ordinary field-day, and on real and active service,
they would die, like children, at the roadside.
They have been plucked too early for the game
of war, and they are as worthless as all untimely
fruit.

A sombre-looking soldier is walked slowly
down one of the lines, carrying a bag in one
hand and a can in the other, and followed by a
shabbily dressed woman, who is nursing a sleeping
child. His head is bent down, and he has
no remark to make, as she pours some low, ceaseless
story of wrong and suffering into his ear.

By this time I thought it right that I should
pay a visit of condolence to my friend,
Lieutenant Hongwee, who had been compelled to
pass the night in dismal communion with a
whisky-bottle, at the regimental guard-house
of the Royal Antrim Rifles. I looked
round the apartment. Two Windsor chairs
(the everlasting regulation chair all through
the army), a dirty table, a fireplace, and
deal shelf, were all the furniture. A bit of
composite candle had burnt out and guttered
down in a champagne bottle, and the shutter of
the window at one end of the hut was kept open
with a short rusty poker. The bare walls were
ornamented with fancy cartoons, mottoes, and
initials, drawn by idle, yawning heroes, with
pieces of burnt wood; and the few pegs that
were intended to support any superfluous
outdoor military gear, were cut to pieces with sword-
thrusts. The floor was blackened with accumulated
dust, and the whole place, which was about
ten yards long and five yards broad, looked like
a good dry skittle-ground, without the skittles.

"My poor friend," I said, with compassion,
looking at a tin machine that resembled a
number of large shaving-pots and boxes rolled
into one, "what have we here?"

"Don't allude to it," he said, with a sudden
spasm, "you see my dinner-pan."

"Your what?" I asked.

"My dinner-pan," he answered. "To add to
the needless torment of the wretched officer on
guard, his messman—his club steward, whom
he liberally pays—declines to send him his
proper food. His regimental servant goes up to
the mess-room, and brings down the concrete
structure now before you. The bottom of the
can contains the soup, a greasy broth; a box
above contains potatoes and peas floating
together in more greasy broth; the next step in
the pyramid is another box, full of a dry and