transmit the signals which are given to
them by word of mouth from the officers;
a farrier; four shoeing smiths (each horse
requires twelve sets of shoes a year);
two wheelwrights; and two collar-makers,
with some others. Of the horses, two each
are allowed to the officers; there are four to
spare; and the rest are attached, with their
riders, to the nine-pounder guns for firing
solid shot; the twenty-four-pounder howitzer
for firing shells, which accompanies them;
the ammunition waggon; the store limber
waggon; the store cart; the forge waggon;
and the rocket and spare gun carriages. The
list of the articles carried with the guns
and waggons is a long one. Round the gun
and limber (the limber is the hinder part of
the gun carriage, containing ammunition for
immediate use, and which, like the tender to a
locomotive engine, can be detached from the
trail of the gun-carriage) are placed felling-
axes, bill-hooks, grease-pots, ropes, spades,
pickaxes, buckets, lifting-jacks, swingle-trees
to which the traces are fastened, a prolonge or
drag-rope, port-fire, spare sets of horse-shoes,
tent-poles, pegs, picket-posts, reaping-hooks for
cutting forage, mauls, camp-kettles, blankets,
and corn-sacks,—all of course packed in
the most perfect apple-pie order. Among
the contents ot the various boxes attached
to each gun-carriage—near-box, off-box,
middle-box, and so on—are corkscrews,
files, funnels, fuse-boxes, knives, linch-pins,
wallets, pincers, saws and a setter, scissors,
needles, and a homely bale of worsted;
accompanied by solid shot, cartridges,
shrapnel shells, bursters, quick-match and fuse-
bags, with other inflammables. Close to the gun
are boxes containing a slow match, a set of
priming irons, a tin primer—a gun-lock,
ten flints, two punches, two spikes, a
sponge-head for the gun cleaner, and
thumb-stalls; which are flanked by a
wadhook, spare sponge, hammers,
hand-spikes, wrenches, and pincers. So much
for the gun-carriage and limber. Upon
looking at the ammunition-waggon we see
a little magazine with duplicate supplies
of every sort of munition—seventy or
eighty solid shot, abundance of cartridges,
port-fires, tubes, shrapnel shells, fuses, and
other scientific appliances for mowing down
"good tall fellows" in the most decisive
manner. The very sight of these would
have utterly extinguished the dandy lord
who tried the patience of Hotspur, when
"dry with rage and extreme toil," after a
hard fight. All are carefully stowed away,
according to the homely Teresa Tidy maxim,
which is the soul of military arrangements—a
place for everything, and everything in its
place. To these are added store cart and store
limber waggon carrying supplies of rough
iron, wood, and leather, for repairs; also
tools and miscellaneous necessaries and
light baggage. The forge waggon carries
smiths' tools, bellows, iron, shoes, and coal.
There is besides a spare gun-carriage with
stores, besides a rocket-waggon. Twelve-
pounder rockets are destructive against troops
at eight hundred to a thousand yards range,
and against buildings at six hundred yards.
They are especially useful to frighten horses;
but they require careful management;
without which they are as destructive to
friend as to foe. In this train the heaviest
load is a twenty-four pounder, on carriage
complete, for which ten or twelve horses are
required. The wonderfully rapid evolutions of
this expert corps ought to be witnessed on a
review-day at their head-quarters, Woolwich.
On one occasion, we are told, a troop advanced
five hundred yards (more than a quarter of a
mile) fired two rounds, retired five hundred
yards, and fired one round, in three minutes
and four seconds. To appreciate this feat it is
necessary to remember that, besides getting
over the ground, at each halt the guns have
to be unlimbered, loaded, pointed, fixed and
limbered up again. A ricochet fire should
be tried as much as possible; that is,
the shot should be made to graze the
surface at a ground-hop, and then fly
off again—like a boy playing at ducks
and drakes in the water. It will sometimes
hit the ground ten, fifteen, twenty times, and
more. The most elevated positions are not
the best for artillery, for the greatest effects are
produced at a height equal to one-hundredth
part of the range of the shot.

When carrying a non-commissioned officer,
the weight of the man and his appointments
is reckoned at two hundred and forty pounds.
This is less than for a heavy dragoon-horse;
which, on ordinary occasions, carries two
hundred and sixty-three pounds, exclusive of six
pounds ration for the man, and twenty pounds
ration for the beast. Troop horses are not
altogether teetotallers. they find a wine-
glass of spirits in half a pint of water a
very refreshing cordial. They are very fond
of sweets also. In the Peninsular war,
they throve remarkably well on a daily
ration of eight pounds of sugar and seven
pounds of hay, with no corn. When their
drinking-water is hard, a knob of clay mixed
with it softens it.

Six horses with a nine-pounder can march
four miles in one hour and a half, or sixteen
miles in ten hours, allowing for periodical
halts. The trot is put at the rate of seven
miles, and the gallop at eleven miles an hour.

Captain Lefroy gives, in his Hand Book
for Field Service, some good rules for
choosing a military horse, followed by useful
chapters on the diseases to which he is
subject, and rules of age. The latter beginning
with, "As a horse never dies of old age"
sounds like a cruel doom; but it is true
that he generally dies by the hand of the
executioner, either in the battle-field or
in the knacker's yard. The formidable list
of equine infirmities will remind the reader
of the practical knowledge Shakespeare