to him—and listen they will, sooner or
later.

A few weeks had passed away, and I again
took a walk out of St. Omer. Things had
greatly changed in the interval—the trees
were thickly covered with leaves, the fields
were heavily laden with corn. Once more I
passed the bridge which spans the bed of the
industrious Aa. The extraordinary trough
was still by its side, and a soldier was busy
pumping it full. And then down the opposite
hill came troops of horses—two by two—
to take the draught which they could not
otherwise get without considerable risk of
drowning. The blossoms of the furze were
faded and gone—no yellow outline defined
the hills. The knoll on which I had beheld
those tranquil cows chewing the cud, was
now occupied by a numerous herd of animals
of quite a different species and family. Drummer
boys were perched all over it, on the
summit of every anthill and clod, practising
rataplan and the devil's tattoo, till I have no
doubt their wrists had enough of it. They
do not prevent the silly sheep from feeding
quietly just below, any more than the rumours
of war make nations rise to put down great
conquerors. I drove up the zig-zag road,
meeting omnibuses in the service of the camp,
baggage carts, canteen vehicles, soldiers in
their shirt-sleeves out for a little amateur
reservoir-making, mounted officers in full
uniform, and officers' wives come to give their
opinion. By the way, what very capital fellows
those French officers' wives do seem to
be! On the hill-side were men toiling with
wheelbarrows full of mould and green turf—
all for amusement's sake, as will be seen by
and bye; others were laboriously causing to
mount milk-white blocks of chalky lime-stone.

The camp at last has changed its aspect;
all is flutter and fanfaronade. The hovels are
full; the streets are crowded; a stranger
is no longer looked on with suspicion. An
extempore chapel has been raised, more like
a large summer-house open in front than
usual religious edifices, before which the
troops may see mass, if, as is probable, they
cannot hear it. But fun, rather than devotion,
is the order of the day, not even excepting
duty. What an alteration in the externals
of the place! Scarcely a single shed can be
seen that has not its own little garden before
it. This indeed displays true wisdom, to
make yourselves as comfortable as you can,
even in an adverse and temporary fix. One
stout-hearted Australian discoverer, whenever
he halted for the night in the desert interior,
used to convert his sleeping-place into a
leafy bower, and to plant lilies before the
door, although he knew that in all probability
he should never see that spot again.
That was the height of adaptive philosophy.
Here, there are ten thousand men placed in
a strait which most folks would call uncomfortably,
sleeping on hurdles covered with a
mattrass, and consenting to things which no
furnished apartments on earth would have
the face to propose to a  tenant; and yet
their care is judiciously bestowed on the embellishment
of their narrow and short-tenured
lodging. The tiny parterres at the
camp therefore are not only admirable
specimens of toy gardens, they are excellent
examples and practical lessons of the art of
making as good a use as possible of the circumstances
under which we happen to be
placed.

These little horticultural plots lie just
before the door of each shed or cabin. Let us
walk along the front row of huts, and we
mark an infinite variety of taste and style.
Flowers, fountains even, sun-dials, "Laramé,"
(a sort of pantaloon) with his mill, and other
mills; fortifications mounted with chalk
cannon and tenanted by little chalk houses;
miniature streams turning water-mills; ornaments
tastefully cut in chalk; A I'Empereur
and A I'Impératrice, in ornate white
letters laid on the turf; sanded walks;
mountains serving as the reservoirs of hidden
springs to supply the aforesaid fountains and
streamlets; eagles, crosses of honour, hearts,
and what-nots neatly carved in turf and
brought out into relief with moss and gravel;
greenhouse plants; monumental gardening
with inscriptions to the memory of a general,
a friend, or the fragment of a battalion;
patriotic and military mottoes—Honneur et
Patrie, Valeur et Discipline.

The camp is gay; but after all it is imperfect,
though less so than our own display
at Chobham. There, there was hardly a
single thing to remind the visitor of the shady
side of warfare. But the plain of Helfaut
holds beneath its busy surface one hint that
all has not been always so bright. The
commune of Wizernes still possesses a number
of caves (though many are closed) called
muches, in which the inhabitants used to
hide themselves when war was made in real
earnest. In the eighth and ninth centuries
these compulsory retirements became so frequent,
that the very cattle got to know the
meaning of the alarm-bell, and came to the
muches of their own accord as soon as they
heard the warning signal. But English ideas
about peace and war would be considerably
modified if Great Britain were, for once in a
while, the scene of an actual and business-like
battle. Helfaut, I repeat, is incomplete;
Chobham was more so.

For, this is my view of the case:—An
exhibition of any art or process, in order
to approach perfectness as a means of instruction,
must give a series of facts and
things, and not the mere surprising result.
We must have, as at the Crystal Palace, the
raw silk and the power-loom as well as the
resplendent brocade. We ought to have the
power of inspecting both the ore, the
roughly-smelted metal, and the glittering
ornaments of diamond-like steel. But camps