d footpath on either side. The
encampment, it must be confessed, looked very far neater and cleaner
than that at Aldershot. Why should we refuse to give our late enemies
their due, or to acknowledge our own shortcomings? It is far better
that the rising generation should know that Englishmen are not perfect,
and endeavour to correct the national faults, than to go on blindly
fancying that we are superior in all things to all other nations on
earth.

Our friends, with their guide, first walked into a sergeant's tent. He
and his comrade were very civil, and begged them to take a seat. His
regiment had not been in the Crimea, but they had heard what brave
people the English were. Even those who had been opposed to them felt
no enmity towards them; very much the contrary--they had learnt to
respect them.

The Russian officers who had been in the Crimea, it was said, whenever
they met with any English officers who had been there also, were more
than usually kind and attentive to them. The men's abodes, into which
the travellers went, contained sixteen persons, and very close packing
they must have found it in hot weather. In cold weather they are thus
kept warmer, and, if called to stand to their arms on a sudden attack, a
large body of men can be instantly brought together. The soldiers were
generally fine-looking, intelligent fellows; many of them as fair, and
quite as clean-looking, as Englishmen. Some of the regiments, raised in
northern latitudes, were composed of fine, dark-bearded men, while the
officers were generally good-looking and gentlemanly. These, however,
were crack troops, and were certainly very different from the slouching,
loutish-looking recruits to be seen when no public exhibition is
intended.

Highly pleased with this visit to the camp, they drove back to the city.
On their way they stopped at some public gardens, where their guide
told them a celebrated band of gipsies were going to sing. Harry
declared that the place was called Waxhauloff. Certainly the name did
not sound unlike that word. There was a garden, brilliantly lighted up
with coloured lamps, and at one end there were scenic preparations,
probably for a desperate sea-fight on a pond, for there was a lighthouse
in the foreground and some ships in the distance; and the bills
signified that this was to be followed by a superb display of fireworks.
There was also a large music hall, where a number of people were
collected, li