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to the arsenal. For more than a century it has been the depôt for the ship-building timber. In 1821 sheds were erected to cover it, and in 1836 the building of the present establishment was commenced. The most important part of it will be found close to the water's edge, consisting of three groups of five building-slips each, which render it feasible to build fifteen ships of the line at once; as also two docks. As these docks, owing to the absence of ebb and flow, had to be formed in water at least thirty feet deep, the engineers had enormous difficulties to contend with. Each dock cost 1,650,000 francs, or about the price for building and equipping a three-decker.

A chain of fortifications encloses these succursales of the great arsenal. A portion of the Lesser Mourillon roads is reserved for ships of war, which get ready for sea here, after they have been equipped in the arsenal. A height is crowned by Fort Lamalgue, which commands the roads and the entire town. It consists of a bastioned parallelogram, surmounted for two-thirds of its length by a cavalier. This fort is armed with 200 guns, and supplied with bomb-proof casemates.

The panorama obtained from this height is one of the prettiest to be found all around Toulon, which is rich in pleasant views. The eye can survey from this point the entire system of fortification for town and harbour to the north and west, Forts Sainte-Catherine, Artigues, Faron with its tower, the forts and works of Saint-Antoine, Fort Malbousquet behind Castigneau; to the east, the very recently constructed fort on Cape Brun, and Fort Sainte-Marguerite; to protect the roads, in addition to the two last-named, Fort Lamalgue with its detached works, Fort Saint-Louis, Grosse Tour, Fort Balaguier or Petite Tour, Fort Aiguillette, Fort Napoléon or Petit Gibraltar, and, lastly, the tremendous battery on Cape Capet, strengthened by four other batteries flush with the water. These works mount altogether 800 guns; nearly all command and support each other in turn, and the most daring enemy would find it a hard task to inflict any injury on Toulon or its arsenal.

We cannot quit our subject without paying a visit to the new marine hospital St. Mandrier, built at the foot of the peninsula of Capet, not far from the coast. It is one of the largest buildings of its class; nothing was neglected which could add to the comfort of the patients or the object of the institution. Three main buildings form so many sides of a quadrangle, the fourth being enclosed by an iron railing, and in the centre are two enormous subterranean cisterns, containing 10,000,000 litres of water. In order to prevent the spread of any contagious disease from one building to the other, they are isolated, and only connected by flying-bridges. Each building has three stories, and each of the latter has externally a gallery of 21 arcades, a style of building which, while adding to the magnificence of the edifices, is very useful to temper the cold in winter and the heat in summer, without interfering with the ventilation or the light. In addition, these verandahs form a pleasant promenade for patients not strong enough to descend to the court-yard.

The two side buildings are reserved for patients, each containing 500 beds. The central building serves as residences for all the officers, and contains the offices, surgeries, laboratories, kitchens, and all the other departments, as well as rooms for sick officers. Behind the building towers Cape Capet, planted with trees and bushes of every variety. A portion of these. park-like grounds has been walled in, and the convalescent are

allowed to walk in it. The chapel, which contains some very fine carved work, was entirely built by the galley-slaves.

A few remarks about the French fleet, and our subject is exhausted. We are all of us aware how much the present emperor has done to pull up his navies; but a perfect idea of it can alone be obtained by a visit to the French naval ports, more especially Toulon. Since 1853, the ministry of marine has published no statement as to the actual condition of the fleet, and other countries are still, to a certain extent, in the dark as to the real strength of the French marine. This strength becomes perfectly evident when you see with your own eyes the enormous stock of materials, which is visible not only in the ships, but at every step through the magazines. Louis Napoleon, in augmenting his fleet, has kept ever before him his wish not merely to make a powerful navy, but also a rapidly prepared reserve in case of accident. Hence he has avoided the great mistake of his uncle, of risking everything on one stroke. Defeats like Aboukir and Trafalgar can no longer drive the French off the sea; and within a month an equal fleet would be got in readiness again. There is no want of crews to man it either; the lists of the "inscription maritime" display to us 145,000 men, sufficient to man 100 ships of the line, with their requisite complement of frigates and corvettes, although France at present has only 64 ships of the line. Hence we think that Louis Napoleon has fully carried out his designs, and is prepared, at any moment, to try a fall with us for the supremacy of the ocean. The only way to prevent it is increased activity in our own arsenals. And that such will be displayed there is no reason to doubt. Sir John Pakington showed the way in which it could be done, and his successor has only to follow his lead.

If we ask any Frenchman the character of Cherbourg, he will unhesitatingly reply that it is a "port d'agression." This expression can only refer to one power. Cherbourg is the embodiment of French feelings towards Englishmen, the result of a hatred which has been fostered for centuries. Louis XIV., that embittered foe of England, laid the first stone of the great work, although he intended it principally as a defensive measure. Napoleon I. intended Cherbourg as offensive, and the impulse he gave to the works was only checked by his overthrow. Louis Napoleon, faithful to the traditions of the Empire, has carried out his uncle's will with great energy, and this energy reveals the true feelings of the nephew towards his powerful rival. He proclaimed peace to the world when he was crowned emperor, but the feverish haste and terrific exertions he made to raise the military strength of his country, augment his fleet, and complete Cherbourg, sufficiently prove that his thoughts were directed to another object, which, though not expressed, was openly announced in his works. His error was in converting the completion of Cherbourg into a demonstration, and seeking in it a triumph. The consequence has been the formation of a Channel fleet.

From Toulon we have nothing to fear so long as Malta and Gibraltar are kept at a proper state of efficiency: to disarm Cherbourg we must press on the fortification and harbour works of Dover. Till these are completed, the safety of England against French invasion depends on our Channel fleet and our close attention to the movements of Louis Napoleon.

LITTLE GRAND AND THE MARCHIONESS;

OR,

OUR MALTESE PEERAGE.

PART I.

It was a raw night before Sebastopol. We were sick to death of watching and waiting, seeing other men go down in the trenches and never getting another row with the Muscovite devils, drinking chopped hay for coffee, and never coming across our foe. We were sick to death of it, and pining for action, like harriers kept in kennel, listening to the baying of luckier hounds drawing the covert near by.

We had had a paper hunt in the morning, that had done us a little good; and now we were sitting, half a dozen of us, of all three arms, round Fred Powell's fire, drinking some splendid Glenlivet his brother had sent out to him (and that, wonderful to relate, had come to hand); talking over the girls at home; of how the Villersley had done poor Fitz into matrimony, and Loo Montressor been jilted by Tom Batson; of the October Meetings, and the pot of money Brandy Bailey, the leg, had made on Queen of the May, and what Belgrave, of the Guards, had dropped backing Britomart; chatting of all the old folks at home; of bygone fun among the stubble and turnips; of the Grand Military across Brixenham Brook; of Woolwich and Chatham luncheons; of bright, gay London drawing-rooms, and hospitable country-houses in the hunting season,-talking of them all over our short clays, till we swore in hearty earnest of having no better news to send home. We talked of them till we almost saw the bright eyes and smelt the sweet scent of the freshturned furrows, and heard "Yo-i-icks!" ring over the wide Northamptonshire pasture land. We talked of them till Powell got a fit of the blues, and smoked in silence. (He is a stern, strong fellow, is Fred. We call him Dare Devil in Ours, but he is as spooney as a boy over a girl he is engaged to a pretty little thing he could put in his pocket.) The whisky went round gloomily, while our camp fire crackled, and the wind roared, and Chapman's Battery boomed out into the night.

"By George, I like campaigning very well!" cried Vavasour, of the light division, stretching himself, "but I just wish I could knock the balls about for an hour or two.

Oh dear, what will become of us?

Oh dear, what shall we do?

We shall get the blue devils if some of us

Don't find out something that's new!"

"I wish we were at the Café Régence," suggested Hamilton, of the 100th P. W. O.'s Hussars.

"Or waltzing dear little Ponsonby down Woolwich mess-room," said Hardinge, of the Horse Artillery.

"Or rattling the ivories in Leon Deval's sanctum," observed Joueur, of Ours.

"As we can't be in any or either," began Stuart, of the Rifles, "and

there are no women för Dare Devil to make love to, which he'd like best of all, let's do something or other. Can't we fish up some stories as that cute young lady Fatima did? Anything's better than silence. There's lots more whisky, and it's too early to turn in. Come, Gus, find up something-no matter what. Tell us, if you don't know anything better, of your first love, or the first time you made a fool of yourself. They're synonymous, though, I believe. Fill your glass, and fire away, old boy, pro bono publico, as the man may say who'll have pluck enough to shoot Nap. III."

I did as I was told (I leave the thirst for "pressing" to young ladies who pique themselves on their voice, and, to draw attention to it, declare they have such a cold they could not get a note out), filled my pipe, drank some more whisky, and raked up a tale of my puppyhood, which, with a few interpolations, I tell as I told it round Powell's tent fire.

All first things are voted the best: first kisses, first toga virilis, first hair of the first whisker; first speeches are often so superior that members subside after making them, fearful of eclipsing themselves; first money won at play must always be best, as it is always the dearest bought; and first wives are always so super-excellent that, if a man loses one, he is generally as fearful of hazarding a second as a trout of biting twice.

But of all first things commend me to one's first uniform. No matter that we get sick of harness, and get into mufti as soon as we can now; there is no more exquisite pleasure than the first sight of oneself in shako and sabretasche. How we survey ourselves in the glass, and ring for hot water, that the handsome housemaid may see us in all our glory, and lounge accidentally into our sisters' schoolroom, that the governess, who is nice-looking and rather flirty, may go down on the spot before us and our blue and gold, spurs and buttons! One's first uniform! Oh! you must remember, old fellows, the exquisite sensation locked up for us in that first box from Sagnarelli, or Bond-street.

I remember my first uniform. I was eighteen-as raw a young cub as you could want to see. I had not been licked into shape by a public school, whose tongue may be rough, but cleans off grievances and nonsense better than anything else. I had been in that hotbed of effeminacy, Church principles and weak tea, a private tutor's, where mamma's darlings are wrapped up and stuffed with a little Terence and Horace to show grand at home; and upon my life I do believe my sister Julia, aged thirteen, was more wide awake and up to devilry than I was, when the governor, an old rector, who always put me in mind of the Vicar of Wakefield, got me gazetted to the old Five Hundredth, as crack a corps as any in the service, as you do not want to be told. By George! I've seen a trifle of life since that. However, that is not to the point. I had seen little enough then, locked up in the doctor's study, and I joined, one of the most green young innocents that ever rubbed macassar into his upper lip futilely, but with maniacal perseverance, hoping against hope for the down that would not come.

The Five Hundredth were just then at Malta, and with, among other trifles, a chest protector from my father, and a recipe for milk-arrowroot from my Aunt Matilda, who lived in a constant state of catarrh and of cure for the same, tumbled across the Bay of Biscay, and found myself

in Byron's confounded "little military hothouse," where all of you, some time or other, have roasted yourselves to death, climbing its hilly streets, flirting with its Valetta belles, drinking Bass in its hot verandahs, clanking spurs in its palace, cursing its sirocco, and being done by its Jew sharpers.

From a private tutor's to a crack mess at Malta! from a convent to a casino could hardly be a greater change. Just at first I was as much astray. as a young pup taken into a stubble-field, and wondering what the deuce he is to do there; but as it is a pup's nature to sniff at birds and start them, so is it a boy's nature to snatch at the champagne of life as soon as he catches sight of it, though you may have brought him up on water from his cradle. I took to it, at least, like a retriever to water-ducks, though I was green enough to be a first-rate butt for the other young chaps for many a day, and the practical jokes I had passed on me would have furnished the Times with food for crushers on "The Shocking State of the Army" for a twelvemonth. My chief chum, tormentor, and initiator was a little fellow, Cosmo Grandison I believe his correct cognomen to have been, but in Ours he was Little Grand to everybody, from the Colonel to the baggage-women. He was seventeen, and had joined about a year. What a pretty boy he was, too! Such a handsome young dog, with his fair curls and his blue eyes, with all the devilry imaginable in them. All the fair ones in Valetta, from his Excellency's wife to our washerwomen, admired that boy, and spoilt him and petted him, and I do not believe there was a man of Ours who would have had heart to sit in court-martial on Little Grand if he had broken every one of the Queen's regulations, and set every general order at defiance. I think I see him now-he was new to Malta as I, having just landed with the Five Hundredth, en route from Scinde to Portsmouth-as he sat one day on the table in the mess-room as cool as a cucumber, in spite of the broiling sun, smoking, and swinging his legs, and settling his forage-cap on one side of his head, as pretty-looking, plucky, impudent a young monkey as ever piqued himself on being an old hand, and a knowing bird not to be caught by any chaff, however ingeniously prepared.

Simon," began Little Grand (my St. John, first barbarised by Mr. Pope for the convenience of his dactyles and hexameters into Sinjin, being further barbarised by the little imp into Simon)-" Simon, do you want to see the finest woman in this confounded little pepper-box? You're no judge of a woman, though, you muff-taste been warped, perhaps, by constant contemplation of that virgin Aunt Minerva-Matilda, is it? all the same."

"Hang your chaff," said I, "you'd make one out a fool."

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'Precisely, my dear Simon; just what you are!" responded Little Grand, pleasantly. "Bless your heart, I've been engaged to half a dozen women since I joined. A man can hardly help it, you see; they've such a way of drawing you on, you don't like to disappoint them, poor little dears, and so you compromise yourself out of sheer benevolence. There's such a run on a handsome man-it's a great bore. Sometimes I think I shall shave my head, or do something to disfigure myself, as Spurina did. Poor fellow, I feel for him! Well, Simon, you don't seem curious to know who my beauty is ?"

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