Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/97

 84 day than a black felt shako, or the ostrich-plumed bonnet of the Highlander. With these matters, however, the Horse-Guards alone have the power of interfering.

Hitherto Government has contented itself with procuring all its clothing, &c., from contractors; but there are symptoms of its determination to become its own tailor. In one apartment we see Women sewing soldiers’ jackets with the new sewing-machines, and doing the work ten times quicker, stronger and better than it was done of old by manual labour. The cutting-out is also done by machinery, so that, if necessary, an immense amount of clothing could be turned out at a very short notice. The colour and quality of the material has also been vastly improved since the days when the colonel of the regiment clothed his soldiers and kept the cabbage. The cloth of the private’s coat is as good and bright a scarlet as the sergeant’s, and the sergeant’s is equal to that of the officer’s four or five years ago. The Crimean war came just in time to test and prove the utter worthlessness of the old system of clothing the troops; and a walk through this establishment is sufficient to prove that we have at last a Government department that is working well. The credit of organising this immense establishment is due to Mr. Ramsay, the deputy store-keeper general, who has undoubtedly proved that Government officials are capable of carrying on a vast establishment of this kind as successfully as private enterprise, and we believe far more soundly; so that we predict we shall hear no more in any future war of shoes that come to pieces in a week’s wear, or of great coats made of devil’s dust, calculated, like sponge, to let in and retain the water. A. W.

dreaming of the last ball I was at—or the ball I am to be at next—I am not sure which: at all events, I am cooling myself, not alone, in a conservatory after an unusually rapid dance, when crash goes a pane of glass, another, and then another. What can be the matter? I am first so surprised, and then so angry, that I open my eyes by degrees, actually, and find that I am lying on my bed, almost dressed, and that my servant is knocking with much energy at the door. Having become so far conscious, I suddenly remember that Captain V. and myself, having a few days’ rest from our ordinary harassing occupations in the celebrated town of, British North America, have arranged to go on a fishing expedition, pour passer le temps. I also recollect that, in order to make the most of our time, we had agreed to start at one o’clock this morning. So it was in consequence of this arrangement that my dreams were so rudely disturbed. My “waggon” is already waiting at the door—a “waggon,” by the bye, here supplies the place of all the innumerable varieties of one-horse vehicles in use in the “old country;” and the prominent features of mine, which may be taken as a type of the more “refined” class of waggon—are, imprimis, a seat, for two people, with light wooden frame—under this seat, a very light wooden tray, with “splash-board” in front, which supports the feet, and also holds a reasonable amount of luggage, &c., and under this again, four very light wheels. Our luggage, consisting chiefly on this occasion of our rods and fishing-tackle, with two or three flannel shirts, and some tea and sugar in a hamper, as well as rugs and wrappers for night-work, does not take long to stow away. We have, each of us, a little brandy in our flasks, but very little—for tea is the almost universal beverage of every body here, while in the “bush.” Some ten minutes’ driving, up a hill or two, while lamps grow less and less frequent, and we are out of the town, rolling along a road which is as good as an ordinary English turnpike-road—passing every now and then through spots of perfect darkness, where clumps of firs overhang the road on each side, and new again looking over a broad spread of water stretching away from our feet, with a row of distant wooded slopes appearing more and more clearly as the moon slowly rises. I have all the beauties of nature to myself as Captain V. (who did not take the prudent precaution of indulging in a few hours’ sleep before starting), has been dozing, to say the least of it, almost from the time of our leaving the door, and the cigar which he so carefully lighted before he mounted the waggon, dropped from his mouth before we were clear of the town, rather to the detriment of a certain plaid, wherein his extremities were wrapped. Just after sunrise, we come to a collection of wooden huts, all small, all dirty, and possessed each of them, apparently, of at least one pig, which is considered, more Hibernico, part of the family. V. who has just opened his eyes, constrained thereto by a vehement appeal from me, that he would admire a certain sunrise “effect,” has visions of Jamaica floating before him, as he sees some ten or twelve little black urchins, “when unadorned adorned the most,” rushing out to shriek at us as we pass. There is, too, at the door of almost every alternate hut, a peculiarly black matron with some more or less gaudy cotton, wound, turban fashion, about her head, occupied (in addition to staring at us) in squalling at either pig or children, and in nursing an admirable likeness, on a small scale, of herself. I explain to V., as we leave this interesting colony behind, that it is one of the “negro villages” which one meets with in the country, colonised by the descendants of certain emancipated slaves who were incontinently, some years ago, turned adrift into our “British North American” possessions. Some of these, generally, it seems, women, form a considerable part of the “low” population at one or two of the seaports. Others, as we see, “settle” up the country, but I am not aware of their devotion to agriculture, I having met, as yet, with grand success.

How gloriously warm the summer sun is now, as it pours its first rays into our eyes. How it rouses all the children of the forest around us. Now, instead of the quiet of an hour ago, birds are singing all round us, and the grey and zebra-like striped squirrels are running about in crowds along the picturesque zig-zag “snake fences” which mark the road on either side. The road