not admitted into the society of its finished brethren until it has been most severely tested.

The proofs through which our yellow friends have to pass are numerous; first, each gun is measured and gauged, externally and internally, and in all directions; then large charges of powder and shot are fired from it, much larger than will ever be required in practice; then, by way of variety, water is forced into the bore of the gun, and allowed to remain about a minute. A few days after this, the sun is made use of, and by means of a mirror, the rays are thrown into the bore, and the very bowels of the gun examined to discover how the water-cure was endured. If any wet parts appear, woe betide our yellow friend, for a piece of wax is then inserted, an accurate impression is obtained of the flaw which must exist in his interior, and his weakness is exposed to unrelenting judges.

If all these examinations be passed in a satisfactory manner, the gun is then sighted, and finished, and takes its place amongst the batteries, when a vacancy occurs.

Having gained this information, we re-enter the department, and note the boring and trimming. Slowly but surely the machinery revolves, whilst two or three men, whose nature appears as hard as that of the metal around them, with compass and rule, occasionally readjust a screw or slightly check a revolving wheel; unrelenting steel chisels scrape and rasp the brass, whilst a groan now and then comes from the interior of a bore, as though the suffering was great. Nothing but strong nerves will do here; we already feel a sort of creeping coming over us; and when a workman, unheard amidst the noise, gently touches us, and asks us to make way, we start, almost jump, in the temporary dread that one of the spiky steel scrapers has artfully approached us, and is about to take a shaving of flesh from the small of our back.

These brass guns, when used, are manned by six or seven men; each man has his special duties, and the several offices are as follows: No. 1 is usually a noncommissioned officer, and has charge of the detachment, takes the aim, and gives the elevation, &c. No. 2 stands on the right-hand side of the gun, near the muzzle; his duty is to sponge out the gun after each discharge, and to ram in the powder and shot. No. 3 arranges the ammunition in his hands, and slips it into the muzzle, when No. 2 has sponged. No. 4 places his finger over the vent during the sponging, so that, when the sponge is withdrawn quickly, a vacuum will exist in the bore of the gun, and any piece of ignited cartridge which might have remained in the bore would hence become extinguished. Accidents seldom occur to the gun detachments, owing to the training which the men undergo before they are trusted with ammunition; but if a small piece of ignited flannel cartridge did by chance remain in the gun, the sponge and its rammer, together with both the arms or hands of No. 2, would be blown away when the fresh charge was rammed into the chamber. When the powder and shot are placed in the gun, No. 4 pricks the cartridge with a sharp-pointed wire, and No. 5 then fires. Nos. 6 and 7 are employed in bringing the ammunition from the limbers to No. 3.

When the word 'load' is given by No. 1, each of the men starts at once and performs his work until the loading is complete. We are informed that four shots can be fired during one minute of time from any of these brass guns, and that our guide, at the time a No. 1, fired from a 9-pounder, at a range of nine hundred yards, five shots in seventy seconds, and, moreover, that one shot of the round struck the target; but this he considers too fast to last,' and likely to endanger the arms of No. 2, or the accuracy

of the aim.

When brass guns are fired for any length of time with rapidity, they droop at the muzzle, and then become unserviceable.

As a proof of the accuracy of the present artilleryfire, our guide informs us that, in a fight between some guns manned by the royal artillery, and some manned by the mutinous sepoys, near the village of Moocha, in India, our guns, at a range of six hundred yards, fired three rounds, during which the sponge-staves of two of the sepoys' guns were cut in two by our shot, and consequently that loading and firing were rendered impossible, until fresh staves could be procured; in the meantime, however, nearly all the sepoys around the guns were killed or wounded. When such results are obtained, it is evident that compass, rule, and machinery must perform their work without a fault.

We quit the boring department, cross over a road, and enter a vast iron-roofed building, in which some six hundred or seven hundred men are at work. A dull noise, caused by revolving wheels, here salutes us; but all appears well greased, and as though things moved comfortably. Our attention is first directed to the engine, which is situated in a room on the left of the door by which we entered. This is in itself a spectacle-its movements perfect, and its power unquestionable. From the engine-room we pass towards a square sort of machine, on the upper part of which are four wheels, or rather narrow drums; on each of these drums are coils of lead-rope, about the diameter of the Atlantic cable. The machine is in motion, and we notice that rifle-bullets continue dropping from the lower part of the machinery into a box placed for their reception. At the first glance, we cannot trace the connection which exists between the lead-rope above and the bullets below; but whilst our guide is explaining that this is the Minié-bullet machine,' we observe the working of the wonderful process.

The leaden rope passes from the drum above into a hole lower down in the machine. Every revolution of a wheel causes about an inch of this lead to protrude from the hole. As the lead protrudes, two iron fingers, with a most bland don't-mention-it sort of motion, close on the piece, hold it for an instant, descend, and the piece of lead is separated from the rope, as though it were a piece of soapy cheese instead of metal. We peep amongst iron bars and wheels, and find that the iron fingers drop the inch of lead into a sort of case, where it is quietly forced into a mould, gets a nick from another bit of iron, and tumbles down a Miniérifle bullet, with its hollow end complete, in which is a mark to indicate what machine performed the work.

A lover of machinery might pass an hour in examining this simple and beautiful engine; we have only time to observe that four instruments are at work on each machine, that each instrument drops about forty bullets per minute, and that four machines are in motion. A process of multiplication enables us to conclude that, during the ten minutes which we have passed in looking at these machines, something like six thousand bullets have been formed-and if but one bullet in five hundred proves fatal, that the deathwarrant of about a dozen men has been signed during the time.

We are next attracted to some small machines, which appear to work without any aid other than a small boy-these are busily employed in making small wooden cups which fit into the Minié bullet. The neatness with which the work is performed is marvellous, and we are informed that these cups cause the lower part of the bullet, when it is fired, to expand, and thus to do away with windage-windage being the space between the sides of the bullet and the bore of the gun.

We are enabled to walk down the centre of this large building by means of a passage, whilst on each side we notice huge iron shot, some being scraped, some having holes bored in them, and some being fitted with brass screws; these, we are informed, are shells, and obtain the following account of them.

Shells are hollow shot, and are used for one or two purposes: first, they are presented to an enemy as a mine; that is, they are filled with powder, fired into an enemy's town, and arrangements made so that they burst after they fall into the ground, or into houses. They also serve to convey musketry-fire to a distance, for being filled with bullets, they travel like solid shot to the distance of a mile or more, then burst, and scatter bullets and pieces of shell upon the selected quarter; in this form they are called shrapnell-shells. They also serve to give the enemy a sort of backhander, when he is sheltered behind a parapet, &c., as when they burst, the splinters will fly in all directions. The details necessary to obtain these pleasant results, although of everyday occurrence to my guide, were still like Greek to me, so I was led to ask the following questions:

How do you arrange so that the shell shall burst at the required time?

By what means do you discover the distance of the object at which you are firing?

And why are some shells fired at much higher angles than others?

Shells are burst by means of fuses. Here is a fuse: you see an opening down the centre of this piece of wood; well, in that opening a composition is placed, and is driven hard by means of a mallet. The composition consists of saltpetre, sulphur, and mealed powder. When the fuse is complete, it is like this (shewing me a fuse which appeared like a lead-pencil, about one inch in diameter-the lead part being represented by the composition). Now, this fuse burns like all others-at the rate of one inch in five seconds of time; therefore, ths of an inch in one second. Now, we know how fast our shot travels; so when we want the shell to burst at a certain spot, we bore a hole in the fuse, so that the flame from the composition may thus reach the powder in the shell; we drive the fuse like a cork into the shell, and away they go. The flame of the powder in the gun lights the composition on the top of the fuse, and the shell bursts in one, two, or three seconds, according as we bored the hole at ths, ths, or ths from the top. You see these circular marks on the fuse; well, these are justths of an inch apart, so we can make the hole correctly at once.

With regard to judging the distance at which an object may be, we are informed that very few individuals are 'good hands' at it; but that the authorities are now cultivating this branch of education amongst the non-commissioned officers of the army. Our guide says that he finds a pencil, which he shews us, very useful in this matter, for a man at a thousand yards looks as big as a small mark which he has on his pencil when he holds it at arm's-length. On his pencil are several marks, which he says enable him to judge of any distance up to twelve or fourteen hundred yards, provided he can see a man.

With regard to some of the shells being fired higher than others, he tells us that the high ones are fired from mortars at an angle of 45°, and the range is increased or decreased by adding powder or the reverse; whilst with howitzers, the elevation of the piece will give an increase of range, the charge of powder being always the same.

Shells are cast of sufficient thickness to withstand the shock of the explosion of the gun, and at the same time thin enough to be burst by a small charge of bursting-powder.

to act against ships, as the wooden might be broken off by the collision.

Shot and shell, iron and wood, are being scraped, shaved, and formed into all sorts of shapes, for the sole object, as it appears, of destroying human life. A feeling of melancholy comes over us as we contemplate the building in which so much skill and talent have been displayed, and then consider the purpose for which it has been erected.

We pass on to some machines which are hard at work punching small crosses out of copper sheets. This, we are informed, is the first state of a percussion-cap. The crosses are then taken to another machine, where a nipple presses on their centre, and completes the shape. Some of the machines do this work at once, both punch out, and press into shape. The caps are then arranged on a frame or brass plate, in lots of 1000, and are placed underneath two steel plates, which are separated by a sheet of paper; these two plates and the paper have holes corresponding to the cap-plate. The upper plate can be moved on one side, thus destroying the communication. The holes are then filled with a composition of mercury, chlorate of potash, pounded glass, sulphur, and saltpetre; the plate is moved a little, the communication restored, and the charge is then instantly dropped into each of the thousand caps.

The frame with the caps is then taken to another machine, and placed under it; a large wheel is spun round, and the composition in each cap pressed firmly down, the pressure being about forty pounds on each cap.

The frame is then placed under another very simplelooking machine, to allow each cap to obtain a dose of shell-lac and spirits of wine, which is given by means of a number of small ends, which are dipped into the composition, swung over above the caps, and with a blow, deposit the drop into each cap. An arm regulates the brass frame, so that a fresh row is brought each time under the ends.

After the caps are dried, they are arranged by small boys in lots of twenty-five. These boys, as we look at them, work with redoubled vigour; arms, body, fingers, and head, appear as though moved by wires. The caps are flung, five-and-twenty at a time, into brown paper, which is then doubled up by one boy, and thrown to another, who ties it up; these parcels are then arranged in a box, and are ready for serving out.

We have scarcely time to do more than glance at many other interesting performances which are going on around us-boys and men, wood and iron, are all hard at work; and we cannot forget that they are working at machines which are for the purpose of destroying life. Still the individuals do not appear more fierce than men usually are they work as calmly as though employed in making the elixir of life.

We make our exit on the opposite end of the building to that by which we entered, and walk towards the river Thames. Here we see piles upon piles of shot and shells of every size. Some huge shells are lying on the ground, and boldly assert in white figures that they are twenty-six hundredweights and some odd pounds in weight. These are the 36-inch shells belonging to the large mortar at present under trial at the Woolwich marshes.

Shells, I am informed, are always spoken off with regard to their diameter, while shot are indicated by weight. Thus we speak of 5-inch, 8-inch, 10-inch, 13-inch shells, while shot are called 24, 32, 56 pounders. The 13-inch shell weighs 198 pounds, and will contain nearly eleven pounds of powder; with a charge of seven pounds of powder, it will range 2100 yards, and should have a fuse of about 5%

We ask our guide, as a test of his memory, what he would do with a shell for a 9-pounder gun, supposing a body of sepoys were at the distance of a mile from his battery.

He at once informs us that if the shell were a 'spherical case—that is, a shell filled with bullets he would give it one inch and two-tenths of fuse, and give the gun about 7 degrees of elevation; this length of fuse would cause the shell to burst about forty or fifty yards before it reached its destination.

And what would be the effect produced on the sepoys?'

A smile comes over the bronzed face of our guide, as much as to say that he wished he could see the effect in reality; and he tells us that this 9-pounder shell contains forty-one bullets, which, together with the splinters of the burst shell, would go plop amongst the sepoys like a charge of small-shot amongst a covey.' Referring to the four shots per minute and the six guns in a battery of field-artillery, we feel no surprise that this branch of the army is, at the present day, that which may alone win a battle; for one thousand bullets per minute, in addition to the splinters of the shells in which they were conveyed, thrown with accuracy to a distance of a mile, would, we imagine, cause even braver men than our sepoy enemies to consider that discretion is the better part of valour.' My guide knows these particulars by heart; and he informs me that when the shell bursts, the splinters will sometimes fly back 800 yards, such a case having occurred during his own experience in the Crimea.

We note, as we pass on, some green guns standing on green skeleton-looking carriages-these are Russian trophies. Stores filled with harness, saddles, and equipment of every description, are on each side of us; these we pass by with only a glance, and also a new building in which there are some very handsome gates, formed from the captured Russian guns, and a very tall chimney. This building is for the purpose of casting iron guns, which were formerly supplied from Carron..

The next place we visit is like a huge carpenter's shop; this is the carriage department, in which guncarriages, ammunition-wagons, hospital-carts, &c., are made. The most remarkable object here is a saw, which appears like a piece of tape, and which runs round two wheels. This saw cuts wood into any shape-will cut one's name and address out of a solid block of oak in a very few minutes; V. R., very neatly cut out in wood, lies on a sill near, and attests the power of the instrument. The spokes of the guncarriage wheels are also formed by a most ingenious instrument. An iron spoke serves as a model, and a wheel rests against this and regulates the movements of a rapidly revolving iron scraper, which cuts from a rough piece of wood a spoke exactly similar to the model. The felloes and spokes were formerly pressed together by means of hydraulic-presses, but there appears some doubt about the success of this method. We quit the arsenal, much gratified by our three hours' visit, but still impressed with the idea that the time may come when human nature may have so much advanced, that this establishment will be a relic of past and barbarous ages, and men will be able to traverse the earth, from east to west, and from north to south, and it shall be that whosoever meets a man shall meet a brother and a friend.

Upon expressing these opinions to a companion, we are assured that we have taken a wrong view of the arsenal; that if we look back upon past ages, we shall find that when men used bows and arrows, there was much greater slaughter than now, in the days of Minié bullets and shrapnell-shells. He tells us to hear Shakspeare, who says, speaking of Agincourt:

This note doth tell me of ten thousand French
That in the field lie slain;

and yet, during all the siege of Sebastopol, we had not more than one-third of that number disposed of by bullets. Therefore, the more shot and shell that are turned out at Woolwich, the greater number of lives will be saved in future wars; and that when the weapons used are even more deadly than Minié bullets and spherical case, there will probably be a great decrease in the slaughter. This is a problem not difficult for us to comprehend; and we determine in future to look upon Woolwich as the Peace Society's depôt; the arsenal, as the special work of a Humane Society; and shot and shells as the real Life-preservers.

A SUMMER IN THE CLOUDS. HAVE you ever been at Cauterets, madam? Cauterets in the Pyrenees? the highest town, worthy of the name, to be found in Europe? No. Nor you, sir? Never. Well, I thought as much, for Cauterets is out of the tourist's beaten track, and the bold Britons who yearly inundate the continent with insular gold and insular French, have not yet found out the little, quaint, old-world watering-place.

Yet, I would not be understood to say that Cauterets is absolutely and entirely unknown to our wandering countrymen. Where, indeed, is a nook so retired as to be quite beyond their reach? Where is a gorge so savage, a desert so blank, a mountain so bleak, as to repel the travellers of our nation. They go about, critical, undaunted, destroying illusions, falsifying proverbs, trampling down prejudices, all over the world. The old impregnable fortresses of nature are stormed by them one by one. No peak so high, no glacier so slippery, but the English foot must clamber and slide there-Mont Blanc is scaled by it, with guides and without them, by day and by dark, from the north and from the south. Even Ararat was not safe. True, it had been held inaccessible for ages; true, the Ark alone was said to have got a footing on its summit. But a party of intrepid Cockneys arrived, scrambled up the untrodden solitude' as they would up Richmond Hill, and Ararat's prestige is ruthlessly snuffed out for ever.

So, of course, there are English at Cauterets; a few. The ascent to it is of itself remarkable. You may know the Alpine passes well, you may be familiar with tumbling torrents, milky avalanches, and black pine-woods quivering to the roar of the cascades, and yet be amazed by the Pyrenees. They look so arid, hoary, and inhospitable, beneath a hot blue sky that would astonish a Switzer. The ascent to Cauterets by the post-road, up the narrow vale of Argelès, is no work fit for town-made axles and delicate springs. See-here comes the diligence, broad-wheeled, solid, and strongly hung with sabots, and chains, and mécanique ready to the conducteur's hand, and all the six or eight horses straining, tugging, slipping painfully as they jolt, haul, and jerk the big vehicle up the inexorable hills. Better trust to the diligence, and leave your London-built carriage behind at Pau or Bagnères. So! you have taken my advice. Quite right! We have the coupé to ourselves, you see, and a famous prospect. What a jolt! Mercy! another. Can wood and iron, to say nothing of human bones and sinews, endure such dislocating wrenches, and survive? To be sure. Look at those deep ruts, those broken boulders in the way, the work of last week's inundation, or the last débâcle of stones that fell from the mountain. The cantonniers are hard at it, poor fellows, with shovel and pick; but it will take days to repair the damage done in an hour; so up we go, thumping, bumping, leaping, with an elasticity quite amazing. Up we go, the driver flogging, the horses panting and gasping, the diligence swaying and lurching. This is Baréges, famous for its healing

Night has stolen a march upon us as we contemplate these things; for owing to the high peaks, the days are shorter at Cauterets than in the lower world; and thus, the nearer you ascend towards the sun, the less you see of his radiance. There, the snow is rosecoloured, pinkish, violet, gray, almost black. In a few moments more the summits will have no more light on them.

Down come the clouds, and we had better house ourselves while we may. House ourselves, did I say? It is no such easy matter. Some of us are hardy, some are rich, but how few there are who unite the purse of Fortunatus to a hermit's scorn of luxuries. Let us enter some of these marble-fronted houses, and inquire for a lodging. Heyday! have we got into Spain without knowing it? Here is the same bare discomfort, the same bleak absence of all we are used to deem indispensable to civilised life, that distinguishes the Peninsula. Large rooms, with doors that won't shut, and windows that gape like dead oysters; no carpets, no bells, no sofas, no lookingglasses, sundry little beds, a few cane-chairs, and a clock that has indicated half-past twelve for a score of years. Noisy staircases, a carpenter below, a locksmith above you, a kitchen of Homeric proportions, reeking with garlic from the savoury podridas simmering on the fire-such is the appartement proposed to you. Perhaps I was wrong to say 'proposed,' for lodginghouse-letters at Cauterets are not accustomed to offer, to advertise, and recommend their domiciles; they are better used to listen calmly to the requests of the houseless stranger who seeks a roof and a bed on any terms. Even the screaming hand-maidens who are to wait on you, and whose language is a polyglot of Basque, Spanish, and Catalan, seasoned with a sprinkling of French, are by no means eager to insure a new tenant for the wealthy proprietor of the casa. But at last you get a hearing. What? twenty francs a night for that doghole of a double-bedded room opposite the saw-mill! forty francs for two narrow cells that overlook the marble-cutter's yard! twelve for the loft with a truckle-bed in it! Nonsense! the people must be joking. Let monsieur try elsewhere, if he pleases. So monsieur tries, and tries again, and wears out shoe-leather and patience, and always the same story-from ten to forty francs for one room, per diem. Let us try the inns. There are plenty of them. At one or other of the hotels there takes place a ball almost every night ball at which the ladies shall appear dressed as for the Tuileries, and yet those hotels are worse than the roadside inns of Italy. Again, fifteen, twenty, thirty francs for a bedroom! You express a wish for a sitting-room. The natives hold up their hands and burst out into a hearty laugh that makes you feel ashamed of yourself as an unreasonable Sybarite.

a

We must e'en dine in the public salle, though a fine odour of garlic makes it detestable to northern olfactories. What can we have for dinner? Stringy animal fibre, unripe fruit, thin soup, cheese, and a few potatoes; but do not imagine that the bill will be proportioned to the meagreness of the cheer. Are there no vegetables? Monsieur forgets we are more than 3000 feet above the sea. No eatable meat? What! at 3000 above the sea? Is all the bread bad? Does fruit never ripen? Can the vineyards of Médoc send to Cauterets no wine a little less sour than vinegar? Monsieur, we are 3000 feet and more above

O yes, I know; thank you. There are no shops the gay booths excepted - save of the humblest class. Tea is ten shillings a pound; sugar, dear in proportion; writing-paper, about two sous a sheet. It is 3160 feet above the sea. It is too high for civility, though not, alas! above the reach of fleas. If you expect letters, you must go

and fetch them, and jostle for half an hour in a crowd that besets the post-office. No letter-carriers exist-3000 and odd feet above the Atlantic. If you quit your inn for a lodging, the landlady will scold you in good round terms for your want of politeness: for the etiquette of Cauterets is to stay where you first settle yourself, fleas, garlic, noise, and extravagance notwithstanding. Yet one need not always grumble. We have slept, in spite of the fleas ; and if our dinner was meagre, the cream and butter at breakfast do honour to the mountain dairies. The town is all alive, picturesque, noisy, swarming. Troops of ladies and their attendant cavaliers are starting on horseback for the Pont d'Espagne, or the Lac de Gaube, or the Cercle of Gavarnie.

The whole street is full of lean wiry horses, all over red tassels and fringe, plunging, pawing, and capering, as the long whips of the guides marshal the cavalcades. Every one seems good-humoured, talking and laughing loudly. There go a party of adventurous sportsmen, each with two guns, one on each shoulder, like Robinson Crusoe in the pictures; and theatrical figures they are, all gaiters, sashes, pouches, belts, and dirks. They are proceeding, under the tutelage of certain professional hunters, to chase ibexes, bears, izzards, or what they can get. What they can get is generally nil, for day by day bands of these heroes leave the town, bristling with weapons, and much encouraged by the waving of ladies' handkerchiefs, and return without having achieved even the slaughter of a tomtit. There pass the valetudinarians on their way to the waters of the hot spring-and is that, can it be, our old friend Guy Faux, borne on men's shoulders? No; it is only a respectable old lady in a wonderful open sedan, being in fact an uncovered beehive, perched on poles, and in which those who love not to walk or ride are carried along as if in triumph. Here come a band of Spaniards who have brought over huge baskets of live poultry for sale. What a race of giants they seem among the low-statured, squarebuilt French; and how strange are their turbaned heads, sandalled feet, bare, sinewy limbs, sash-begirt waists, and striped cloaks of black, white, brown, and orange, bequeathed them by their Moorish ancestors.

Here are criers innumerable: negroes selling Madrid chocolate, Turks with sherbet, and two showy confectioners in fancy uniforms, each with a tin can full of hot pastry. Listen! while one of them chants, not unmusically:

Des pains au lait,

Des petits pains au lait ;

the other is bawling out that his cakes are real Bordeaux cakes, and have that instant arrived from that famous city, all hot, all hot, all hot; which, as Bordeaux is a couple of hundred miles off, seems rather a bare-faced assertion; but the French will believe anything. Later in the day, we shall have games of strength among the peasants, and dances on the green, and fireworks. But the grand attraction consists in the races. Such races! a Newmarket jockey would hardly believe his eyes. There are flat-races, hurdle-races, and so forth, for the mountain ponies; races of men in sacks, of women with pitchers of water on their heads, and of blind-folded people. But the great lion of the races is a hurdle-race, in which the riders are peasant-girls in their ordinary costume. At every leap, nine-tenths of the fair jockeys are unhorsed; and the scrambling, rolling, and remounting, the laughter, cheers, and excitement of the spectators, make the scene excessively animated, if not well adapted to our insular notions of decorum.

Enough of Cauterets. And yet I must quote one more trait. Look at that mountaineer leading by a