the right and left— bands going and coming, the
heavy roll of the drums before us, the distant
and near cries of the vast crowd—all under a
sun, searing as a burning-glass, overwork the
mind. My temples throb, and I am faint, and
the march has only just opened! Some
thousand fighting men or so have passed. Why,
there are fifty thousand waiting behind for
their vivas and their flowers!

I catch the rumbling of artillery. "Les
Rasés!" shouts the crowd. The cannon that
ploughed up the Austrian rear must be saluted.
Ladies' pocket-handkerchiefs to welcome these
hoarse-throated monsters! Well, it is not a time
to moralise; my business is cheering. The
excitement is upon us all. What with that
Zouave drum-major's lusty drummers, what with
the bugles and the bands, what with the shouts
of tens of thousands of people which have been
ringing in my ears, I cannot hold back to
speculate why those rifled cannon should be
cheered.

Then a Marshal of France, with one arm, a
serious, sallow man, lifts his empty sleeve to his
hat, as the people shout to "Hard-as-leather!"
Here he is back from the war with his corps
d'armée behind him, bearing tattered flags.
"Les drapeaux!" shout the crowd, and then
men almost fall upon their knees and worship
these picturesque rags, which bring the sweat
and heat of strife vividly before you. Men's
eyes start, to drink in the story of every tear, of
every spot, upon the beloved tricolor. Bosoms
swell as the Austrian colours are borne along.
Regiment succeeds regiment, all scarred and
worn by war. For each there is a new welcome,
and for every marshal a loud cheer and a bed of
flowers. It is astonishing to find, as hour after
hour passes by, that the cheers last, and that
there are more flowers. And still, again and
again, artillery rumbles in the rear of each corps
d'armée, and the flags are worshipped, and men
and women of the crowd dash at intervals into
the middle of the battalions, and hug and kiss a
bronzed brother or friend. Here a national
guard throws himself into the arms of a captain
of chasseurs; there, a blouse salutes the tawny
cheeks of a sapper of the line.

Every corps d'armee has its nickname.
Magenta's corps is Victory, and when proud
Magenta passes, the people cast themselves
frantically on his path, and worship the hero
of the war. Canrobert is affectionately saluted,
at the head of his corps, which is wickedly
called Hope. Then follows, with the bâton
of a marshal, Neil, nicknamed The Spoilt
Child. Very few cheers meet him. The crowd
must be hoarse and weary at last, with the
shouting, the dust, and the sun, so that there is
very little enthusiasm left for the cavalry, which
brings up the rear; there is none left when, as
the poor fellows pass, a deluge falls upon tens of
thousands of unprotected people. The gamins
are driven by the storm from the house-tops;
the women packed upon the pavements laugh,
and gesticulate, and shrink back under cover
somewhere; but still thousands hold their
ground in the great bath, and give a faint
welcome to the dripping dragoons.

It is fortunate that the rain has come to put
out the raging fever. The national guards,
with the water eddying from their shakos upon
their bourgeois noses, are cool enough now, as
they close round the last horseman of the army
of Italy, and shamble off in a broken line to their
quarters.

GREAT EASTERN POSTSCRIPT.

WITHIN the last twenty years there has arisen
a new profession. It hangs upon the skirts of
literature without being literature. It requires
a strong chest, a power of doing without sleep,
of sleeping upon shelves, stones, clay, or hurdles,
an observant eye, an even temper, and a good
memory. It is the profession of seeing and
describing everything in the character of " our
own correspondent."

The men who follow it with love and determination
are not cold, calculating men; they
are men who live only in action, who feed only
upon excitement. They belong to the same
race who have wandered over parched deserts,
who have sailed out into unknown seas, who have
thrown themselves amongst howling savages,
who have sat over powder mines to gather
information, and to spread it, when gathered,
before an ever ravenous public. The risks they
run are measured in thousands of pounds
sterling by careful actuaries; the pay they receive
is liberal, but no more in proportion to this risk
than the twopence halfpenny (or one quarter of
a day) which the common soldier is paid, when
he storms a battery, or throws himself upon a
hundred bayonets. Their enterprise is
undoubted: their political economy is utterly
rotten. A crown of glory is always ready for
their hot and impulsive heads:—a foolscap
garnished with fevers, broken bones, corns, bunions,
dirt, and chilblains.

A dabbler in this eccentric profession, I speak
from some experience. I began with a giddy race
on a puffy locomotive, I may end with being blown
out of the mouth of a cannon to describe the
sensations. I have done many wild things in
my time, and I am still alive to do some that
are wilder. My last essay was in the experimental
trip of the Great Eastern, and I have
returned in the full possession of all my limbs,
if not. in the full possession of all my faculties.

Before these pages can possibly be laid before
the readers of All the Year Round, there will
not be one of those readers unfamiliar with
almost every incident of the voyage. As
my purpose, however, is strictly to record what
I saw with my own eyes on board the ship,
and not what was brought to me by well-
meaning friends or well-instructed messengers,
it is possible that my Great Eastern Postscript
may not be wholly uninteresting, or without
value.

The first thing that puzzled me in the voyage
was the refusal of the directors to permit my