huts like those of the privates, but have
neatly glazad-windows, doors and snug
porches, and are plastered over, and whitewashed
outside quite in the London suburban
style.

All my theories of the noisy recklessness of
camp-life are blown to the winds in a moment.
The greatest characteristic of the camp is its
quietude. In this mud city holding thousands
of men at arms you can hear the plashing of
the sea and the lark high up in the empyrean.
Oft in the stilly day come soft sounds of the
military-bands practising, the tread of the
sentry, a stray horse's hoof, the clanking of a
stray pair of spurs (for this is an infantry
camp). Soldiers brushing their clothes or
cleaning their accoutrements, digging in little
gardens, and doing odd jobs of carpentry,
glazing and housepainting, the dulcet clinking
of bottles and glouglouing of ordinary wines
into glasses, the puffing of stertorous smokers
at their pipes, the scratching of the pen with
which the young corporal is writing home to
his mother; the mazurka air—a reminiscence
of the last camp-ball—which the
bearded sergeant is placidly whistling—these
sounds of a verity you can hear. But no
brawling, no rattling of diceboxes, no roaring
chorusses, no oaths, no fights. The licence of
the camp is a most excellently conducted
licence, and is one that might be granted,
renewed, or transferred, nem.-con., by the
rigidest bench of Middlesex magistrates.

Another little sound I hear. I am standing
in front of one of the officer's huts and watching
his servant who is training some pretty
creeping plant over the door. The officer is a
lieutenant; for his surtout-coat with its one
epaulette is hung on a pole outside. Through
the half-opened door I can just discern a
figure in scarlet trousers in its shirt-sleeves,
and a scarlet kèpi edged with gold lace. On
one arm he wears, not a military gauntlet,
but a leathern article of wearing apparel that
has a heel, a sole, and an upper leather; with
the other he holds a blacking-brush, which he
moves vigorously to and fro. And I hear a
little sound of hissing and friction as of
bristles. And the lieutenant is cleaning his
own boots!

By and by the great thirst question assumes
graver proportions, and I find that thirst can
be assuaged at the Estaminet de Bomarsund,
where one gives to eat and to drink; at the
Vieux Soldat de l'Ernpire; at the Pierre
Napoléon; at the Repose of the Honest
Society, and at Ohé! Marie Jeanne Caunebière,
which last sign requires explication, which I
am not able to afford; for I do not know
who Marie-Jeanne Cannebière was, or why
she should have been addressed with the
interjection Ohé!—anglice: Hi! I find Maria-Jane
represented inside the cafe, restaurant,
auberge, hostellerie, cabaret, cantine,
estarninet, or whatever this camp hotel may be
called, by a very large bearded man in a blouse,
very like a sapper and miner who, fatigued with
gabions, fascines, mining and countermining,
went into the public line for quietness. He
is sleeping in a corner, and I have some
difficulty in making him understand that my
throat desireth white wine which, together
with crusty loaf and some old Roquefort cheese
will make no contemptible mid-day meal.
Rough as the whole apartment is, bare as
the walls are, mud for floor, and planks on
tressels for tables, Maria-Jane supplies that
other one thing needful in the economy of
French life:—some attempt at artistic
decoration. Some tastefully drawn and
coloured scroll-work, rough but vigorous, is
painted along the walls. Over the door
there is a vile (in execution) but meritorious
(in design) representation of the flags of
England, France, and Turkey; and opposite
to it, on the wall, is painted an elaborate and
vividly-coloured frame; in the centre of
which appears, in letters of uniform size by
no means, and in orthography the reverse of
pure,

LES AMIS SON PRIEZ DE SE RETTIRREZ
A 9 HEURS. MOINS VAINCINQUE LE SOIRRE.
—The friends are prayed to retire themselves
at nine hours less twenty-five the evening.

I am the only civilian present among
Maria- Jane's customers. Of the twenty other
pairs of moustaches present all the rest
belong to the twenty-third of the line, the
thirteenth léger, the artillery, and the sappers.
Some are playing dominoes, some piquet;
some drink beer, others wine; all are smoking
vigorously, and though very grave and quiet,
appear to enjoy themselves immensely. How
they can afford to do it out of their munificent
allowance of pocket-money, amounting I am
informed to one copper sou per diem, I am
hugely puzzled to make out. I can
understand the possibility of existing tipon
midshipman's half-pay; I can conceive how
Colonel Rawdon managed to live upon
"nothing a year;" but how my friend private
Tourlourou and his comrades contrive to
drink Bourdeaux, to smoke the Indian weed,
and to play piquet (luxuries of life demanding
at least five hundred a-year in London) upon
a surplus income of a halfpenny a-day is
beyond my ken.

Such was my summer visit. My winter visit
occurred on the morning of the twenty-third
of February, which opened with a fall of fine
snow. At noon it had ceased; and I
left off letter-writing to walk through the
streets of huts which constitute this fresh-
built military town. The soldiers were working
hard to expel from their precincts every
member of Jack Frost's family that had
invaded them. Icicles, snow, hailstones, and
candied sleet, were carried out in barrows,
baskets, biers; and where the work did
not go off fast enough to the men's liking
they seized some of the four-wheeled
carriages called equipages militaires, loaded
them with frozen sweepings, and, themselves
acting the part of horses, dragged the