took
from them the revolvers (whether the officers fired or not is
disputed), and then conducted them, without doing them any injury, to
their boat. An officer, with an interpreter, was then sent to the
village to ask for the revolvers. They were at once given up, the
villagers stating that they had no wish to take them, but that as one
of their number had been shot already, they objected to people coming
to them with arms.

_July 10th_.--What will the House of Commons say when the bill which
has to be paid for this war is presented? The expense is enormous: in
my opinion, utterly disproportionate to the objects to be effected.
The Admiral is doing things excellently well, if money be no object.

_July 12th_.-We are in a delightful climate. Troops and all in good
health. I shall not, however, dilate on these points, because I am
sure you will read all about it in the _Times_. 'Our Own
Correspondent' is in the next cabin to me, completing his letter. I
leave it to him to tell all the agreeable and amusing things that are
occurring around us. My letters to you are nothing but the record of
incidents that happen to affect me at the time; trifling things
sometimes; sometimes things that irritate; things that pass often and
leave no impression, as clouds reflected on a lake.

[Sidenote: Cavalry camp.]
[Sidenote: Sir Hope Grant.]

_Talien-Whan Bay.--July 14th_.--Yesterday, at an early hour, the
French Admiral and General arrived. It was agreed that they should go
over to the cavalry camp on the other side of the bay, some ten miles
off, and that I should accompany them. No doubt you will see in the
_Times_ a full account of all that took place on the occasion. Nothing
could be more perfect than the condition of the force, both men and
horses. The picturesqueness of the scene; the pleasant bay, with its
sandy margin and background of bleak hills, seamed by the lines of the
cavalry tents; the troops drawn up in the foreground in all their
variety of colour and costume, from the two squadrons of H.M.'s
Dragoon Guards on the right to the two squadrons of Fane's light-blue
Sikh Irregulars on the left; the experiments with the Armstrong
guns--from one of which a shell was fired which went over the hills
and vanished into space, no one knows whither--will all be described
by a more graphic