ly south the harbor opens, its waters of a brilliant yet soft blue, transparent and reflecting objects floating upon it with startling vividness. To the east the shore sweeps around in graceful curve to another headland-fortress-topped and with light-tower on its brink. forming a little peninsula, covered with tree and bush, green from the water's edge. The air is soft and balmy, the sky without a cloud, and the sea, out from the harbor's entrance, stretches, glassy and shining bright, save where the long swell casts purple shadows in the hollows, as it rolls directly into the bay, and the Yorktown rocks slowly from port to starboard and from starboard back to port again, gently and softly as a cradle. But a cable's-length or two away from us the Atlanta's sides shine silvery white in the sunlight; while between us and the head of the harbor, where the high masts of the flagship and the Boston point upward, the black iron hulls of the Frenchmen are mirrored in the limpid depths. One or two fishing boats-dark specks on the glittering waves in the offing-are moving out; and here and there among the olivetrees on the steep hillsides, where pretty villas and farm-houses peep out, blue smoke from early fires, thin and hazy, rises straight upward and melts into

the clear air.

Eight strokes on the bell of the

pets sound, and, like so many firecrackers on the "glorious Fourth," rifles pop on the Frenchmen, as the flags are raised on both fleets.

The "first lieutenant " has his sword on as he stands by the hatch leading below, giving some directions to the ship's writer, and one or two of the other officers are coming up the ladder, buckling their belts or drawing on their white gloves. In duck working clothes and watchcaps the men are gathering forward; the bo's'n's-mate on the forecastle is superintending the rigging up of a whip, while some of the men are taking apart the carriages of the fieldpieces which stand on either side of the deck. The marines-belts on, rifles in hand-stand together near the port gangway; from the armory apprentices are bringing up firearms and equipments; some of the sailors are putting on their brown leggings or strapping their cartridge or cutlass belts around their waists; while in such of the boats as are still hanging from the davits one or two of the men of their crews are busied getting them ready for the day's work, and all hands are bustling about not to be behindhand when the signal to embark comes from the flagship-a brigade from our squadron being ordered to land for shore drill.

Soon the bugles sound, the whistles pipe, away go the boats' crews. The

steam launch lies smoking at the starboard ladder; the guns-Hotchkiss and Gatling-hoisted up by the whip, are lowered into the boats in the water alongside, and in a jiffy the men, armed as infantry and artillery, have taken their places, and we are soon gliding along, one boat after the other, towed toward the shore by the little steamer. We pass the Atlanta, her crew swarming over the sides; and, coming from the Chicago and Boston, we see the long lines of cutter, launch, and whaleboat, flags flying, well-armed crews filling them, swiftly crossing the harbor to the landing-place on the eastern side, a lovely little cove, where an old stone pier juts out into the water, and where, by the courtesy of the French Government, our forces are permitted to land. As we come up to the pier, one after the other the boats discharge their loads. The cannon are lifted out, the long drag-ropes manned, and the batteries formed; the infantry companies "fall in" quickly and move off along the shore toward a winding path leading up the precipitous hillsides. Quite a respectable force it is, too, with the bluecoated marines and white-clad sailormen, making up a body of infantry several hundred strong, four batteries of artillery with the best and newest types of ordnance, and a detachment of pioneers and hospital corps.

Drums rattling, trumpets sounding, the infantry advances in long, solid columns, winding up the hillside between dark green hedges and stone walls, wheeling to the right on the hard macadam of the highway, until, out from under the overhanging branches of the trees by the high walls that surround the lovely gardens of a pretty villa, the troops debouch on to a breezy, brushcovered plateau that forms the top of the peninsula. The artillery follows close behind; Jackie is used to hauling, and the heavy little fieldpieces are jumped along up the steep hillsides like nothing at all.

What a glorious picture, as stretching in front of us, where the land beyond there stops abruptly, the sea sparkles and ripples in the sunshine, royally purple in hue, in glowing contrast with the sapphire sky, which, cloudless, rises

VOL. VIII.-64

like a dome above. To the left and rear, sweeping in a bold curve eastward, the coast trends away; Beaulieu clusters in garden and olive groves, orange and rose trees, palms gracefully drooping feathery branches over green hedges; huge cliffs tower, naked and grand, from the white curving road on the strand, and high mountain-tops raise mighty crests heavenward. Down below, every stitch of canvas spread, a bark is speeding over the sea," and far on the distant horizon to the southward a hazy streak of smoke marks the passage of some steamer bound for Corsican harbors.

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Off to the right and left of the road the batteries wheel. Away go lines of skirmishers, dotting the dark plain with spots of snowy white; bugle-calls ring out, commands are shouted, the artillery carriages rattle on the stony road. Jackie is "soldiering" with a vengeance, not in his signification of the term, by which he would imply that "soldiering means shirking hard work, but in true military style scrambling over rock and bush in the advance or retreat, or prone upon the ground on the skirmish line, pegging away at an imaginary enemy, on the whole, it seems, rather enjoying the novelty of his work than otherwise. To be sure Jackie's methods-his careless air, his loose movements, his flowing garments-contrast with the trim appearance and the precision and regularity with which the soldier does his work; but there is a devil-may-care recklessness about the man-of-war's-man-an activity and vim in "getting there"that is purely his own, and will probably serve its purpose, as far as the sailorman is concerned, fully as well as if he were compelled to observe every nicety of detail of the drill. Be that as it may, it is a fine lot of fighting material that composes this brigade, and the admiral may well be proud of his command- -as no doubt he is-as he stands there by the roadside, taking no active part in the proceedings, but with his keen eyes closely observing the progress of the manoeuvres and noting every movement for future blame or praise.

Drums rattling, trumpets sounding again, the brigade returns to the shore and the men are speedily embarked