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the different methods of moving the targets being simple and effective. Why our people at Hythe did not take a hint from the German system was at the time a puzzle. We certainly are a conservative nation in all military matters except dress: perhaps the constant changes in that respect are supposed to make up for stagnation in the others! Some of the wrinkles I got on the Exercierplatz I was afterwards able to turn to account during my next command in Australia. The interior economy of the German regiments was also explained to me when going over their barrack-rooms and cook-houses.

There were some very interesting bits of military history to be worked out along the Rhine Valley near Freiburg. In a short paper I was able to turn professional light on to the much-vaunted march of Moreau through "the Valley of Hell" and the terrible Black Forest. The Valley of Hell-Höllenthal -is a beautiful gorge, seven miles in length, connecting the Valley of the Rhine with the broad open country on the east. The forest-covered, undulating hills on each side of it could easily have been cleared, had they been occupied, which was not the case.

In military geographies the Black Forest is, or was, represented as an almost impassable country: it may have been so two or three hundred years ago, but now it is seamed with excellent roads. The well-kept open forest is practicable everywhere for infantry, and in many places for wheels; the slopes almost everywhere are easy. If France and Germany are ever at war again, and the French at all successful, I believe the Belfort trouée will be made use of for an advance across the Rhine, more especially if Switzerland were friendly.

There are innumerable beautiful walks about the bend of the Rhine which I thoroughly enjoyed, not only on account of the scenery, but also by reason of their military interest to me. I was told that when Von Moltke was in the same district, examining the frontier, a policeman arrested him for trespassing. Von Moltke went quietly with the policeman, when some of the general staff came up and congratulated the man on making a capture which all the armies of France had been unable to effect!

I did not do much in trout-fishing until I heard of Bad Bol on the Wutach, at no great distance from Donaueschingen, where there was a most comfortable little hotel, the charge for board and lodging being only 4 marks per day: the cost of a trout ticket was 10 marks a-week, and well worth the money. Now that the Bad Bol fishing has become a commercial concern, both hotel and fishing charges are possibly different from what they were when I was there.

During my sojourn in the State of Baden I was particularly struck by the pleasant, well-bred, courteous manners of the country - people. The officials also, although bureaucratic to a degree, and apparently living on red-tape, were always polite, and did their best for the foreigner. Since then, while travelling in other countries, I have met with what is now so common, viz., the German tourist, and should say that few of them come from South Germany.

When

On the weather beginning to get cold we went south to Cimiez, near Nice, for the winter. there I could not help noticing the difference between the German and French military training. In the north every one was in grim earnest, as if war were almost in sight. It was not so in France. It was

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almost painful to me one day-France being our old ally-to see a company, which was supposed to be receiving instructions out in the country in outpost work the two officers were walking about on the road, well away from their men, who were skylarking!

My only chance of forming an opinion on the Italian army was from those perfect soldiers-the Sardinians in the Crimea; but by permission from Rome, I went over the dockyard at Spezzia. From what I saw and heard there, I gathered that the Northern Italian makes a good sailor, which is not the case with the Southern Italian: they are evidently two distinct and different races.

The system I had tried for the battle-training of regimental officers having been approved of, I thought it my duty, on returning to London, to deliver a lecture at the United Service Institution, giving full details of the work: the majority of the headquarter staff did me the honour of attending. The next day I got a note from the military secretary saying he wished to see me. I thought it might be to point out that I was rather too advanced in my ideas, but that was not the case. It was to inform me that, owing to the Indian regulations, I could not hold the appointment which he wished me to have in that country, but he could offer me the post of commandant of the Australian forces in Victoria, with the local rank of major-general. I was under the impression that in such a position I should be expected to do a good deal of entertaining in a very expensive part of the world, and therefore was afraid I could not accept his very kind offer; but on the military secretary informing me that if an Australian Contingent

were sent on active service to the north-west frontier of India, I should have the command of it, I replied, "On these terms I shall be delighted to go without any pay at all!" I may mention that the pay and allowances of a general officer given me by the Victorian Government proved to be sufficient. Although I found the cost of living in Australia to be greater than in England, the amount of entertaining was much less than a district command would have required at home.

CHAPTER XXV.

VICTORIA.

IN October 1889 I embarked with my wife and the eldest and youngest of the family for Australia. The first, our only girl, then saw her native land for the last time. She died very suddenly in Melbourne, and life to us ever since seems somehow different from what it was before,-light went out of it which can never return.

The first place we arrived at in Australia was Albany, a magnificent harbour, but at that time without even protection against a gunboat. As this was a coalingport of great importance, one of my first cares was to write a memo showing the absolute necessity for at once protecting Albany. Correspondence connected with the defence of Albany and the coaling-port of Thursday Island, on the north-east coast of Australia, had been going on between the Australian colonies and the Colonial Office for ten years, but nothing had come of it. Fortunately there was a strong Minister of Defence at Melbourne, Sir Frederick Sargood, who took the matter up, and finally got all the colonies to agree to furnish the money for building the necessary forts and barracks. The Home Government was to supply the guns, the colonies providing everything

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