the path, which threads a way between barracks and forts and skirts sundry steep glissades, we come to the dock gates, not the dignified gates under the archway, but a pair of working gates which are guarded with equal vigilance by the detachment of Metropolitan police which has them in charge. Nothing passes in or out of those gates without a rigorous examination; now it is the laundry cart, with baskets full of the starched fronts and white collars which are the pride of the British naval officer, or it is a van-load of stores, or a waggon charged with iron castings; everything undergoes the same jealous scrutiny. Sailors and marines pass in and out, but only if their names are on the list at the gate, and of the dockyardmen, as they leave the yard, any one is liable to be tapped on the shoulder and requested to enter the searching-room. For if there may be occasionally a trifle of waste at the top of the ladder, down at the bottom everything is to be accounted for down to a copper filing or a handful of tin-tacks.

Once past the gate, it is evident that everything about the dockyard is going at full swing. There is a great building slip where a fine second-class battle-ship, the "Barfleur,"is being armoured up and plated with ceaseless activity. What a hammering of red-hot bolts, what a ceaseless clang and clatter from the pigmies, who, in little swarms, are putting together this great sea monster! But even more interesting is the sight of one of the most recent additions to our line-of-battle ships, the "Empress of India," completed as to her hull, and now being fitted up in the biggest of the dry docks, four hundred feet long by eighty feet wide, which she fills as tightly as possible. The new type of warship is not so ugly as the old race of turreted monsters; there is even a certain grace and comeliness about her huge bulk, and the swell of her outline is not without a form of beauty. You can see how far her armour of proof extends, which is from the water-line, as she will float with all her stores on board, downwards for eight and a half feet, and extending for twothirds of her length; eighteen inches in thickness backed with teak. Transverse armoured bulkheads complete the sides of the impregnable iron box which is to protect the vital part of the ship, that is, her engines, and the lid of the box is supplied by a three-inch teak deck above. The broadside above the iron belt is protected

to a height of nine and a half feet by five-inch armour-plates, and the central batteries are enclosed by their iron armourplated bulkheads. The great guns have their own armoured towers, with plates seventeen inches thick, but under the new system it is not the towers which move, but the guns, which are mounted "en barbette" above the edge of the tower, but which can be loaded and trained from the shelter of iron-plated shields.

This noble ship, like her sister vessels, will carry an armament which it is hoped will prove the most powerful in the world. The biggest of big guns have fallen into a certain discredit. The hundred-and-ten tonner is generally allowed to be too big for anything, an unwieldy giant, which, if it fails in its one knock-down blow, may never be in a condition to give another. But the new war-ship's guns are to be sixty-seven tonners of thirteen and a half inches bore. If there is any change of purpose it will be probably in favour of a smaller gun carried at the height of twentythree feet above the water-line. Then she will have ten six-inch quick-firing guns carrying a projectile of a hundred pounds, with sixteen six pounder and eight threepounder quick-firing guns, and eight machine guns ready to rain bullets upon any who might try to storm her decks; and she has also seven torpedo tubes for the discharge of these destructive missiles. Her big guns will be worked by hydraulic power, rising over the rim of the barbette tower to deliver their shot-a projectile of twelve hundred and fifty pounds driven by six hundred and thirty pounds of powderand sinking beneath it to be sponged and loaded and made ready for another discharge.

Altogether it would be difficult to imagine a more powerful and destructive sea monster than this latest line-of-battle ship now poised so quietly in the huge dock. Yet it is a startling thought that with all her armament, her defensive armour, her complex machinery, and contrivances of all kinds for speed and power, with her crew of seven hundred officers and men, she might be sent to the bottom like a stone by some rusty little rat of a torpedo boat, could the latter only creep up unobserved and get one in." To keep off the one little rat what elaborate precautions are necessary! There is the full suit of torpedo netting, such as is now lying piled on the wharf, formed of stout iron rings bound together by thick wire.

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Yet those cunning torpedoists are already flattering themselves that they have invented a machine to run through the strongest netting, and the only comfort is that there is an even chance that the new machine becomes entangled and loses itself in the process. Still, like the lover, the torpedo rat comes too near that comes to be denied by the iron netting, and the war-ship's best chance is to dispose of the enemy in time, which she can surely do if she can only see him. Hence the elaborate preparations in the way of electric lights, chambers for which you can see opening out in the vessel's side, so as to sweep the waters in the immediate vicinity, as well as the electric beam from bridge or conning tower.

But both for fighting and manoeuvring the chief element of success and safety lies in swiftness, and to drive this enormous of fighting material through the water requires engines of extraordinary power. The engines of our "Empress" are expected to develope thirteen thousand horse power with forced draught, and she will be able to steam probably at the extreme rate of seventeen and a half knots an hour. No higher speed than this can be gained without sacrificing the fighting and seagoing qualities of the ship. As it is, running a ship at extreme speed with forced draught involves a strain upon the boiler-tubes which experts regard with something like a shudder. The two crucial points which concern most nearly our naval supremacy, and possibly even our national existence, are conveyed in the words "boilers and big guns," and reflections on these two topics are enough to bring grey hairs prematurely upon those charged with the ordering of such matters, did not they generally take a cheerful view of their responsibilities.

With boilers in our minds we come upon the "Blenheim" in one of the great basins, a splendid new ship built by the Thames Shipbuilding Company. She is one of the new first-class fast cruisers intended to travel twenty-two knots, or, in the language of common life, over twentyfive miles an hour. The "Blenheim," in her trial between Plymouth and Falmouth, actually accomplished that speed within a fraction of two-tenths of a knot; but her boilers went wrong under the strain put upon them, and thus we have her at Chatham looking out for new boilers, while the former boiler-tubes are piled up alongside. The "Blake," too, is another fine

ship of the same class, noble in appearance and design, and of the same kind is the "Royal Arthur," launched by the Queen last year at Portsmouth, and there fitting up.

These ships are only a few feet shorter than the first-class battle-ships three hundred and seventy-five feet against three hundred and eighty-but finer in their lines and without defensive armour. Their engines are protected by a kind of turtle back, a sloped steel deck that is all along, extending upwards on each side from six and a half feet below the water line to eighteen inches above it. These ships are designed as a kind of ocean patrol, to protect our commercial routes in time of war. They carry a heavy gun at bow and stern; but their chief destructive power consists in ten six-inch quick-firing guns, a new departure in the species, of the most formidable character.

Indeed it is amazing to see all the array of cruisers and battle-ships with which Chatham's magnificent basins are- not crowded, for they would hold the navies of the world with little crowding-but lined from end to end, a good mile long of battle-ships and cruisers, mostly of the best and newest construction. Conspicuous among them all is the "Benbow," with her huge one hundred-and-ten ton guns standing out conspicuously "en barbette." She is a fine-looking fighting craft, and if those enormous guns held out she ought to be able to sink anything afloat. There are several ships, too, of earlier modelsthe old "Ajax," as she is affectionately called in the yard, and the "Monarch "which may yet do good service, and two queer-looking monsters, the "Hydra" and "Glatton," which, as they say, can find their way by themselves anywhere between Chatham and the Nore, but are not to be trusted far out at sea. A cluster, too, of handsome ships are the torpedo catchers, as they are popularly called, their mission, it is supposed, being to run after torpedo boats and catch them. do; but they are also prepared to torpedo anything else that may come in their way of a hostile character, as they are well supplied with Whitehead tubes, and are fitted up with all kinds of electric apparatus, the rest of their armament being small quick-firing guns. They can run their twenty-one knots an hour at high pressure, but it is questioned whether their hulls are quite strong enough for their powerful engines. These smart vessels bear names

This they may

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that are also light and smart, such as "Gossamer," 65 'Skipjack," and Sharpshooter." Shakespeare might be consulted for future nomenclature, and we might have Titania's body-guard, "Cobweb," "Moth," and "Mustard-seed."

There is no specimen at Chatham of the Torpedo Mother, such as the "Vulcan," which we saw last year at Portsmouth one of the strangest craft afloat, fitted up as a complete building aud repairing depô for torpedo boats, with huge cranes instead of davits that will haul up your torpedo boat, engines, stores, and crews, with as little ado as if it were a cock-boat; and a ship which can keep the sea, too, and steam eighteen knots an hour, and which may be counted on to introduce the beauties of torpedo warfare to the most remote corners of the globe.

It is altogether a full mile from one end of the Chatham basins to the other, and going round each of the three, with the various ins and outs, involves a walk of about three miles. Starting at one end, what a pleasant view there is; the tide having come in, and the river placid and brimming full, with old Upnor Castle all patched and plastered up, but sound and habitable still as Queen Elizabeth knew it, and in better repair probably than the Dutch left it, after they had burnt our ships and knocked over our feeble defences. It is a green and tranquil spot, retired and quiet, although the shore is thickly lined with Government wharves and storehouses; but as the place is crammed full of explosives of various kinds there is a certain propriety in keeping it quiet and select.

The conspicuous feature of the other end of the line is a huge crane, tested to carry one hundred and fifty tons, and if there is anything in the way of a Woolwich Infant to be lifted, this is the machine that has to tackle it. Here are the lock gates that lead into the tideway, where the big war-ships come out when they are commissioned, and salute this flag and that, and steam away amid the gruff thunder of the guns. Even now there is a waft of thick smoke from one of the huge funnels in the basin. It is the "Narcissus " getting up her steam, ready to go out and join her companions in the channel. It is not always that the big ships can get out of the Medway. The Government dredges are busy enough, but if they keep the channel clear they don't succeed in deepening it much; and yet what enormous quantities of good Kentish mud has

been dragged up out of the river-bed in course of years. All this big island which lies beyond the dockyard basins has been made from a sour, desolate marsh into good terra firma, out of the mud dredged up from the river channel. What a quantity of land there is still wasted among the oozy channels of the river! The district was probably better looked after, as a whole, during the empire of the Romans, when there was a large population settled about here, with extensive potteries along the river-bank, of which many relics have been dredged up.

But retracing the way towards the dockyard entrance, a succession of busy animated scenes meet the eye. Here on board one of the battle-ships is a portable forge and derrick, and a huge armour-plate is being lowered into its place on a revolving turret; there it is a question of sending on board the steel fittings of some monster gun. Great cranes are at work, with the clank of chains and the rattle of machinery. In some newly fitted cruiser, sailors in working dress are putting in finishing touches of paint here and there, where their sense of the fitness of things may prompt them. For these cruiser men are proud of their craft, and will spend some of their spare time in embellishing their favourites, and, indeed, it is pleasant to note a tone of pride and confidence throughout. The men employed are proud of their yard, which they justly think can compare with any, whether at home or abroad. They are proud, too, of the ships they have turned out, of the despatch with which they have been got ready, of the good work put into them.

Yet it is a useful contrast to turn aside from the activity of the present, and view certain relics of the past. In one deserted corner is to be found a melancholy line of strangelooking half-dismantled ships, failures of one kind or another, yet containing an immense amount of expensive material. The dockyard knows their berth as Rotten Row, and would like to see the end of the old scarecrows, which the rats make playgrounds of, but which no other living creature cares to enter. But there is another set of antiquities of more agreeable aspect. Good solid old three-deckers, such as the "Pembroke," used as a depôt for crews paid off, and waiting for other ships. Why poor Jack, after a long cruise, should be compelled to inhabit one of these wormeaten old hulks, which cannot be very airy or healthy, is a thing past comprehension,

when you think of Joe the marine in comfortable roomy barracks, with no cockroaches or bilge water to trouble him. But as antiquities these old wooden ships are pleasant, with their port holes and towering sides. And next to the "Pembroke" is an old French corvette, the "Fonte," which they say was captured in the old days of "Nelson and the Nile." And among these curiosities is the "Algiers," one of the first line-of-battle ships fitted with steam power, of which we used to think a good deal in the Black Sea in the days of the old Crimean War, as she could crawl along without a wind at some four or five knots an hour.

Now we are once more up to date in the midst of a vast machine shop, fitted up with the best and most scientific machinery, where plates of steel and iron are being cut and pared and punched holes in, like so much writing paper. And with the noise and clamour of all this in our ears, we reach the comparative calm of the dockyard gate. The long lines of huge funnels, of spars of all kinds, of derricks and cranes, of big guns and huge turrets, recede in the distance. We have seen a noble fleet in process of being fitted with every scientific appliance that can add to its fighting and manoeuvring power; cruisers which will cover the seas as with a cloud, huge ironclads which are being armoured for the battle which we may hope will long be deferred. We have plenty of ships coming on of the newest and best; the only doubt is whether we have the sailors to man them, should the case arise of any sudden need for their services. But that is a point about which Chatham has nothing

to say.

But one thing is plain; with all the wealth of machinery and appliances that make Chatham Dockyard the best place in the world for fitting out war-ships, we should take especial care to guard it from any sudden coup de main by land or sea. We do not want any successors to the Dutch in the Medway, and a scheme of complete defence for this splendid depôt of naval strength should not be to seek in the hour of danger and turmoil.

A last view of the dockyard we get from the esplanade in front of the good oldfashioned Fort Pitt, looking down on the double reach of the river, where strings of barges are tranquilly floating down with the tide, and a few trading ships anchored in the stream. The declining sun throws out the lines of old-fashioned, red-bricked

storehouses of the Georgian period, and lights up the haze of steam and smoke from the busy workshops beyond. And now we hear the gruff bark of a gun, and now a bugle-call from some barrack yard. But the prevalent sounds are the joyous whoops of the children just released from school, and the baaing of some sheep, pursued by a frolicsome terrier dog. And so the suggestions of peace and war are mingled in our last impressions of Chatham.

CURIOUS DIVERSIONS.

ONE of the most curious diversions I ever beheld was a sort of game-if anything so solitary can be called a gameinvented by a little brother of my own. He would decide on two European nations, laboriously enter into the study of their varying regimental uniforms, and then proceed to supply them with armies. This he did by tearing great sheets of paper into thousands of little bits, on each of which, according to nation and regiment, he imprinted the image of a soldier. Í have noted the fallen leaves of a forest in late autumn, and I have watched the breakers far, far out at sea, through a breezy afternoon; but neither of these phenomena has conveyed to my mind the sense of infinite numbers which, as the months rolled by, did those torn papers. I used to furtively watch him from behind a book in a sort of awe-struck amaze. He was a quiet, delicate little fellow, to whom school was but a name, one of a clever family of brothers, each thinking his own thoughts and going his own ways, after the fashion of clever families, and there seemed something to me almost magnificent in the lonely grandeur with which he pursued these stupendous preparations. But patience and self-reliance such as his will bring anybody through anything, and so the armies were created at length, every regiment packed into its respective newspaper. And now the war began, but without any of the hubbub usually incident on such events. There was a lofty composure about this little fellow which the rulers of the nations have altogether failed so far to emulate. He ate a good breakfast quite calmly, and toiled upstairs with the military strength of two kingdoms reposing serenely between his blue-bloused arms. Very methodically-it was a work of some hours-he next covered the floor of an empty room with his soldiers, and then at