distances some rille instructors teach you to
commence by firing a litlle short till you get the true
principle of the line.

Soon, the score stood thus:

At two hundred yards—

BLANK: Blue— white— blue — blue— miss
— white.

ST. IVES: Blue— blue— white— white— blue
—blue.

At three hundred yards—

BLANK: Miss— white— white— blue.

ST. IVES: Blue— white— blue— blue.

Now for a specially good one! Powder, every
grain in, gun wiped and ragged out first, bullet
true and well sent home, cap pressed firmly
on nipple, sight looked to for certainty. I am
tolerably sure of the target somewhere; the only
question is about a while, blue, or red. I will
fire quick, just a trifle low, take care to pull the
trigger slowly and without jerk, and not to cast
up the barrel in pulling.

I take a good middle sight, and aim low.
Crack! I am more than sure my aim was true
and careful.

"Hurrah! a red flag: it is a bull's-eye. The
first I ever gained at three hundred yards, and
only my second day's shooting at that distance.

"A fluke," sneers my evil genius of distrust.
"A splendid shot," whispers my evil genius of
self-conceit.

"Decidedly improving," says St. Ives;
"surer and more intelligent shooting, more
understanding of the necessary allowances."

I get fonder of my weapon now, because I
begin to understand better its tremendous
powers, its foibles, its necessities, and to
appreciate its fidelity to all who compel it to be
their slave.

"But now," says St. Ives, "Iet us walk up
and see how the target looks, and what the
tendency of to-day's bullets is."

So up we went, passing, thirty yards off, a
still smoking wad. The great white butterflies
left the pink germander flowers to hover round
us, like fussy parasites, as we walked.

"Very pretty practice, sir," says the keeper,
looking round from where he is kneeling before
the target, busy with his patches.

We examined the target as if it had been a
chart, and we were trying to discover a new
north-west passage. We extracted some curious
facts from that, research. One of my bullets
had entered the same hole as that of one of St.
Ives's, and had merely torn it larger. We had
also a similar tie in the lower pole of the target.
out of which the unanimous pair had gouged
picees of deal as thick as a man's thumb.

We then went to the other side of the target
to see what the bullets had done there. We
found the turf cut in grooved lines some two feet
Iong; in the loose earthen part of the turf the
bullets had torn and twisted the soil into small
superficial rat-holes, but in the chalk and solid
clay they had penetrated deeper and more
longitudinally, and to the depth sometimes of
twelve inches; for. we probed the wounds with
our steel ramrods, and then cut down to the
bullets with our knives. The bullets thus
extracted were in various conditions; some, were
smooth, and fit to fire again at once without even
a greased patch; others, were blunted at the
point. Some were mere flat pellets; others,
jammed into flints, were bruised into quite a
square shape. Considering that nearly all our
stray bullets would, even if they had missed
the head of an enemy's column, certainly have
plumped on the rear ranks, what destruction we
alone (I, too, a mere beginner) might have done
that day from a rifle-pit had that target been
but living invaders of Old England!

We went on shooting, at four hundred yards,
and after a preliminary miss or two, till we
got the range, did well at that distance. At
five hundred I got one centre and several misses,
but then it was getting dusk, and the target,
too, really looked no bigger than a pocket-
handkerchief; besides, it now became very
doubtful where the keeper was.

It was time to go, for the stars were blossoming
out, and the fern owl had begun its strange
cry round the thorn-bushes, at the thousand
yards' distance-post; the sheep were folded, and
the bats were on the wing; the curlew's cry
came mournfully and wild over the downs: yet
still, through the warm odorous dusk of summer
twilight, the indefatigable blackbirds poured
forth their songs, and the rabbits, ever curious
yet timid, could safely trot out now, and sniff at
the torn cartridges.

We shouldered our rifles, packed up our
traps, girded on our pouches, shouted " Good
nignt!" to Lacy the keeper, and were soon on
our way home to the village.

The turf was cool and dewy beneath our feet,
the sky diamonded and pure above our heads,
the fern-owl glimmered through the dusk, the
curlew, in the distance, complained of its
transmigration. To rouse the echo in the fir
woods, St. Ives gave a long, far-reacliing,
quavering Australian " Kooooe!" such a cry as the
Bushmen use for a signal.

"Koooooooi!" answered the wandering mocking
voice, once a nymph, whose love (the story
says) brought it to this strange pass.

How sweet the new hayricks of June smelt
as we passed down the lane where the white
owl flitted! How pleasant looked the lobster
in its crimson shell, hiding in a green ambush of
salad, when I peeped in at my cottage window,
and saw the dear smiling one hurry to meet
us as she heard the garden-gate slam!

A FAIR ON THE GANGES.

AT Hurdwar, in the north-west of India,
about eighty miles from Meerut, there is held,
once a year, a fair at which devout Hindoos,
when the planets are propitious, wash away
their sins in sacred Mother Ganges

To this fair I set off with some friends one
April morning from my cool retreat in the hills,
seven thousand feet above the sea level.
Descending below the line of oaks, blossoming pear-
trees, and huge rhododendrons, passing strings of