a functionary inferior both in neatness and
solidity to the nobler "Peeler" of home—now
walks us round a set route. It is plain that
this duty bores him, and he evinces no great
anxiety to show us all the workshops or ateliers.
Nevertheless, we see what we can, and with the
impressions now to be recorded.

Cherbourg Dockyard is more remarkable
for convenience, happy adaptation of new
precautions and discoveries, than for size as a
building port. A French naval officer is pretty
sure to remind you of this, and to caution you
against thinking of it as of the great historic
ports of Brest and Toulon. The chief impression
on the mind is of the beauty and airiness of
the workshops, not of the number of vessels,
which is comparatively small.

Naturally, the basins are first visited, the
Avant-Port on the right opening into the sea,
and communicating with the Napoleon the
Third Basin inside to the left, and the Bassin
Charles Dix, further on ahead towards the west.
We repeat, that ships can always enter,
which is very important when we come to try
and estimate what the chief use of Cherbourg
is, viz. as a place of support, refit, renewal, to
a French Channel fleet.

The Avant-Port has little to interest us, the
above fact once duly remembered. In Charles
the Tenth's basin, we find several vessels, such as
the Tourville line-of-battle ship, and the Forte
frigate. The last is getting ready just now for
the Chinese expedition. She is rather old, and,
what is odd in these days whether in France or
England, has never been fitted with a screw.
The Tourville is below the newest standard of
two-deckers; but a fine ship for all that. She
is in commission (or "armé"), and, on going on
board, we find men working at her. The other
most noticeable men-of-war afloat in the basins
are the Impétueuse,a large frigate, and the emperor's
beautiful steam yacht Aigle. But, in none of
these, is there anything peculiar to Cherbourg,
or illustrative of any distinctions between the
French and English navies. The general features
of a man-of-war my reader knows already;
and Cherbourg's real characteristic is, that it is
a fortified workshop and anchorage. A casual
observer, seeing so moderate an amount of ships,
would probably think the noise made about the
place exaggerated; but that is not the way to
look at it. Glance at the Rade, where two great
fleets could ride protected by the breakwater,
and then cast your eyes round these roomy
basins, these lofty ateliers, and remember that
at this moment five thousand workmen are more
or less busy here every day. Such is the
number; and a great amount of matériel they
must accumulate in the course of a twelve-
month. Yet one sees no marked signs of
preternatural activity either; whether in the
dockyard, the streets, at the railway station, or in
the Digue. Work goes on steadily, and France
grows stronger, and that is all—which the public
will probably think enough.

To return. Of the basins, the Napoléon,
opened last year under her Majesty's auspices,
is the most remarkable. It is provided with
five slips for the hauling up of vessels, which
can here be taken into dry dock also, and
examined and repaired at leisure. A dry dock
—as we had once before occasion to remark—
is just like a gigantic bath, inside which the
vessel is propped up till the repairs are over,
when the water is admitted, and floats her out
again. Every convenience of this sort exists in
tfie Bassin Napoleon III.

Between and around the basins, and facing
each quay, are the various buildings devoted to
manufactures or stores—buildings deserving
great praise for their roominess and airiness.
There is a workshop for each special production,
and on a fine scale. Thus, there is the
Atelier des Cabestans, the Atelier des Machines,
the Atelier de la Fonderie, roofed with zinc, &c.
The new god, Steam, is ruling at Cherbourg as
with us. Enter one of the lofty workshops
and you find him dominant. Machinery is
whirring and burring away. Down come
thundering hammers, shaping and turning iron, or
wheels spin and hiss for the merciless mutilation
of wood. One of the best departments of
Cherbourg Dockyard is what we call the Blacksmith's
Shop, where, amidst unceasing clang and glare,
red-hot iron is teased and bullied into a score of
forms. One of the departments to be improved
is the rope-making one; for which their arrangements
are still only provisory. And one of the
newest plans is a great bakery, which is
advancing rapidly, and will cost a large sum.
Already that building presents an appearance
which excites the universal curiosity of strangers;
who, perhaps, wonder at the promise of an edifice
devoted to purposes so prosaic, forgetting that
bread helps to victual fleets, and that fleets mean
(must mean, in the long run) war.

But it will require another paper to complete
our survey of Cherbourg; the rather as we have
some observations to make on the personnel of
the French navy.

WAS IT A DREAM?

I DON'T think it was a dream. It was more
like a vision; that is to say, it stood connectedly
between my thoughts before and after, and there
was none of the incoherence that pertains to
dreams; none of that dislocation which places
people where they could not have been, and
represents events as occurring in impossible
places. At all events, I will tell how it
happened, and you shall call it what you please.

I live, that is to say, I pass my summers,
which last, thanks to the climate, eight months
of the year, in a little cottage in an island
in the Mediterranean. There are only a few
peasants and a few sheep besides myself
inhabitants of the spot; so my life is, as you
may imagine, somewhat solitary and lonely. I
like it, however. My winter visits to Rome,
Naples, or Venice—I rarely go northward—
suffice to keep me up with the world and its
doings. I have friends in each of these cities,
who welcome me, as a quiet, unexacting, and