than a ride" mind, gentlemen, I say a ride, I didn't say a walk”. round the Habugastalowe. Avis aux voyageurs,-sleep at Gampolatake coffee at a quarter before five-ride seven miles to the crossing just above the junction-ascend to the village of Habugastalowe, and continue on till you cut in on the path from Kotmale-take it, cross the saddle, canter up to the peak on the right, and come down to the Mahavilla-breakfast under a tree by the river side-bathe, or kill time according to your own sweet will, and ride to Gampola to dinner,when, if you don't drink my health, may your second glass of claret go wrong, and, in the emphatic language of my departed friend, Major D- make you "sneeze your d-d ungrateful guts to fiddlestrings." We had a delicious swim, and from-hand-to-mouth breakfast, a good feed at Gampola, and a sleep, which the genius of repose might have envied, at Kandy. I take it to be about thirteen miles from Poosilawe to Pasbage, good ones, and twenty odd into the metropolis.

We went to Colombo on the 21st May, and were near a fortnight of June at Caltura, of which I do not approve. Give Caltura, or any given solitary cell in the fort of Colombo, a stiff sea breeze through it, and the man is not fit to live in the tropics who objects to its climate; take away the breeze, and there is little to choose between them. Now, at Layard's house at Caltura there was not half so much sea breeze as at my Colombo cottage; and as to excursions, I did not like them. The General, however, picked out a very pretty site on which he talks of building. We returned to Kandy on the 26th July.

Another trip to Habugastalowe on the 10th and 11th August, and a breakfast with the first Adigar between Ootooankande and Fort King some days previous, were all the particularities of August. On the 1st September I visited Amanapora on the old Kandy road, and was disappointed; but Dodannelle, halfway between it and Kandy, was a treat. It is a temple surrounded with iron trees, an avenue of which leads up to it for some distance. A capital spot for a Kandy pic-nic. I went with the General and Fraser to Medanwelle on the 13th, one of the posts in Doombera during the rebellion, and we had a pretty ride over the grassy knolls, and by the sheltered village nooks, in coming home by the Trincomalee ferry. We went to Colombo on the 24th, and did not return to Kandy till the 8th November. On the 23rd November I gallopped up to the Nuwera-ellia, where the General arrived on the 26th. Towards the end of the following month the General resolved to visit Fort Macdonald, and Lillie and I asked leave to take Aleutnewera (Wallapane) in our way, having heard a flaming eulogium on its beauty from Kelson.

It was lucky I had not hitherto listened to any of his vehement laudations before we had determined to take this trip, for-from the terms in which shortly after I heard him expatiate on a spout at Maturatta, as "a splendid thing! a glorious spout! a magnificent thing!" and casting his eyes upwards, and waving his hand around, as if to embrace the universe (above which he extolled it), "the finest thing in the world!"-I began latterly to entertain in some slight degree a wholesome doubt of the absolute correctness of his superlatives. It was, however, scarcely within the power of his eloquence to do more than justice to the beauties of this walk. We started on the 26th

December, and proceeded on the Maturatta road as far as Candopoly, where, having crossed the stream under the round hillock at the end of the plain, we struck to the right and soon entered the jungle, through which the Wallapane people had voluntarily opened a path to the elephant plains. To this spot we followed the fresh track of an elephant, which could not have travelled above an hour before us. The jungle path of about four miles was not to be complained of, and on emerging from it, and ascending a knoll on the left hand, we had a glorious view of Dodonata to the right, the Raygal on the left, and in front a sweep of miles of green hills, bounded by the distant ridges which separate Weloya from Bintennē and Vedah country.

Five miles of easy walking brought us to the holy Kotna, a ruined field-work, whence the descent to Aleutnewera is very steep and beautiful, and may be about three miles. People must mind not to take the right-hand and the better path at the fork, before reaching Holy Kotna, as it leads to Madulla. We descended the hill, wrapped in mist and rain, which completely robbed us of the prospect, and, on arriving at Aleutnewera, some minutes before Lillie, I found myself alone, not a servant having arrived, which, after a walk of eighteen miles-the last three through pelting rain, and halting in an unknown and somewhat unwholesome country, where the creature comforts are necessary to resist certain combinations of the earth and sun against the lives or livers of the palefaces—was by no means agreeable. But patience and a footbath in a delicious little stream supported me, till Lillie's philosophy, somewhat ruffled by the chafing of a pair of drawers, which made him look like an animated colossus of Rhodes, as he came down the hills with his legs apart (like open compasses), came to reinforce my own, and we complained in duet, and roared aloud for the dignitaries of the valley. They came, promised food, when "all went merry as a marriage bell," when, oh, charm on charm, the fog dispersing showed us the lovely scene, as "it became more lovely" by the apparition of a loaded coolie, staggering under the oppression of our chairs and table. All was now right. The people had taken the wrong path, and been all night on the road to Madulla, where Lillie's servant picked up a very ugly fever.

The cultivation at Aleutnewera on the steep mountain sides which form its magnificent ravine is beautiful, and most creditable to the people. They have, however, a never-failing supply of water in the numerous streams which go tumbling down in the recesses of every cleft to the Yackatna, where, far below, it sweeps away in foam and murmur to mingle with the Mahavilla. I know nothing more striking than to see precipitous hills like these turned to such beautiful and blessed account, whether they gladden the eye with their incomparable verdure, or dazzle it like a million mirrors set in the mountain side. In many parts, the cultivated flat of the step was not five feet in breadth, and the upright side of the successive terraces nearly as much. A khare on the point of a shoot of the ridge, at some hundred yards from the rest-house, commands a noble view down to the bottom of the chasm, and of the wildly clustering hills on both sides of the Mahavilla. The pliar Mahamedanuwera rock, near which the king was taken, is right opp see, in the distance. The cover through which we passed to the khare, red full of game.

We passed a pleasant night, thermometer under 70°, and next day retraced our steps as far as the elephant plain, whence we proceeded by the Maturatta road over Dodonata to Fort Macdonald. An elephant had crossed our path on the ascent from Wallapane, between our afternoon and morning walks, but we saw nothing of him. The crest of Dodonata, which we reached at noon, treated us to a glorious view over Oova, and, from a knoll to the left of the path we saw, far as the eye could reach, over Wallapane, Weloya, Doombera, and Bintennē. Lillie fancied he saw the sea, I did not, but I would have given £5 that Fraser and his theodolite had been with us. We remained at Fort Macdonald (where the General and Watson joined us, soon after our arrival on the 27th) until the 5th of January, diversifying matters with a little shooting, when I bagged a pea-fowl, and a ride to the Boorlandē plains, under the bend of mountain from the Idalgasina to Totapella. We crossed the Doodgool (of which hereafter), the Cooda-oya, which comes down by the present Fort Macdonald road, another stream between it and the Boorlande-oya near our destination, with a beautiful country of downs and deep ravines between them all the way. downs have a larger sweep at Boorlandē, and, though it looks bare and bleak, I should have thought it a better convalescent station than Nuwera-ellia. The distance is about ten miles from Fort Macdonald, and we were back to a late dinner, for which a furious drenching whetted our appetites.

The

The climate of Fort Macdonald was superlative, the shooting comparative, but the dullness positive. The General proposed to return to Nuwera-ellia by the short cut alluded to in my 1831 trip, and we started with this intention, but having reached the top of the rock hill, it rained so heavily, looked so black, and really so steep, that, after a council of war, we determined to strike off, follow our horses, and come up the old road; by doing which, as afterwards appeared, we did very foolishly, walking fifteen miles when eight would have done our business; but, as the thing was uncertain, and looked difficult, I feared the General would find it too much, but he walked twice the distance as well as Lillie or I, and under as infernal rain as man ever trudged in. This was done, and Nuwera-ellia reached on the 5th January.

(To be continued.)

MILITARY PROMOTION AND HIERARCHY IN FRANCE.

SECOND ARTICLE.

THE PROMOTION LISTS.

WE left off our subject in our former article, we think, at the brief description of the manner in which promotion is conferred upon the military or naval members of the Imperial or Royal families; but we forgot to state that even when promotion is conferred on any member of them, it must be in due accordance with the tenth article of Marshal Soult's famous law of the 14th of April, 1832, which says—"THAT NO OFFICER

CAN BE PROMOTED TO ANY OF THE GRADES HIGHER THAN THAT OF COLONEL IF HE HAVE NOT SERVED FOR THREE YEARS AT LEAST IN THE IMMEDIATE

LOWER GRADE." Now, as his Imperial Highness, Prince Jerome, had

run the gauntlet through all the previous grades under the reign of the First Emperor Napoleon, without, perhaps, seeing much active military service, it was natural, we repeat it, for the present Emperor to confer upon his eldest relative the title of MARSHAL, since, we may say, he had passed, de jure, de facto, through the subordinate grades, at an epoch when military promotion in France depended EXCLUSIVELY on the appreciation, discrimination, and will of the ruler of the realm, and not, as now-a-days, upon the all-sage articles of the military codes, decisions, laws, rules, and regulations. His Imperial Highness's grandson, M. Jérôme Napoleon Bonaparte, of Baltimore, was lately, it is true, appointed a cornet in the 12th Regiment of French Dragoons, without the previous ordeal of passing either through the ranks or some one of the military schools, and this fact may be cavilled at. But every objection will disappear when it will be borne in mind that the young gentleman had just issued from the first American military school, after the due course of some years' study, and had actually received his commission. This we have seen done for the admission of foreign officerstudents into the famous School of Application at Metz, as we have mentioned in our "History of Military Schools and Colleges in France," published in this periodical not many months ago.

At the present day the Promotion Lists, the Ancienneté Lists, and the Lists of Aptitude to all special functions, are drawn up in every regiment, each year, at the general inspection. The Minister of War alone appoints the period of the year when the services of every militaire are to be inscribed on those lists; but it is only those militaires whose conduct permits, and whose length of service is complete, as well as in accordance, in every way, with the code, who are inscribed on such lists, and the formalities are so simple that the youngest soldier of the army is thoroughly acquainted with them. The colonel and officers of each regiment select the candidate non-commissioned officers, but it belongs to the Minister of War's special functions to select the candidate officers of all grades; and should, perchance, any year elapse without there being any departmental and colonial general inspections, the Minister of War issues orders to all the lieutenant-generals commanding divisions of infantry, cavalry, artillery, &c., to proceed, on a certain fixed day, to the formation of such lists, according to the constituted articles of the military code. The same mission is confided to the commandants of the different military schools, to the Directors-General of the Génie and Artillery, commanding the various staffs, and to the heads of the Gendarmerie Legions. Nor has a provision been forgotten to be made for such portions of those corps absent on service abroad: no; as each division marches back into the French dominions, supplementary lists are drawn up, and receive immediate attention from" qui de droit," the War Minister.

PROMOTION OF CORPORALS, BRIGADIERS, AND SUB-OFFICERS.

The captains in each regiment draw up the Promotion Lists for the above. They inscribe on them only the names of those militaires under their orders whom they think fit for, and capable of fulfilling, those functions, and who must also fulfil the conditions, sine quâ non, for obtaining promotion. Those lists, when completed, are handed over by

the captains to the Chefs-de-Bataillon and d'Escadron, who, after having annoted each candidate therein, and added thereto their own recommendations, transmit them to the lieutenant-colonels, joining thereto at the same time another list composed of the sub-officers whom they judge fit for fulfilling the functions of adjutants. The lieutenant-colonels deposit those different lists, with their own observations, into the hands of the colonels, who, in their turn, and with their own hands, draw up, according to those notes and proposals, the general Promotion List of each regiment, in the hierarchical order of the grades and employs. This done, the colonels submit those documents to the inspector-generals, who fix definitively upon the choice to be made, after having previously deducted the names of such as they think not totally worthy of immediate promotion, and assured themselves that those whom they have maintained, fulfil every condition required. Such lists are acted upon after the general inspection reviews, made yearly, or half-yearly, by the Maréchaux-de-camp and the lieutenant-generals; but should vacancies occur in the intervals, and the service of the regiments be en souffrance, the colonel of each regiment, aided by his staff, can nominate to such employs, after having previously informed the commandant of the division of the why and the wherefore. The original and Supplementary Lists are then copied out, the former being deposited at the general head-quarters, and the latter remaining in the archives of the regi

ments.

The Promotion Lists, drawn up for the different working companies, or compagnies hors rang, are done so, under the special superintendence of the major, who, as we said in our first paper, is exclusively attached to the Council of Administration, and under whose direction those companies work. But they are neither prejudiced in their rights, nor disappointed in their expectations, and a private, working at the last, the lathe, the board, or the anvil, is as sure of promotion, when his turn comes round, as if he were upon the tented field, exposed to the casualties and undergoing the privations and sufferings of war. However, few companies of workmen go to the field of battle, except the gunsmiths and the men attached to the ambulances, or transportable infirmaries and hospitals, where they are most efficiently aided by those administering angels from heaven, " THE SISTERS OF CHARITY," an institution which honours not only France, but humanity at large. The services of those pious and devoted Christian ladies, who abound now all over the civilised and uncivilised worlds, are not only such as were rendered by the good Samaritan, but partake of a more self-denial and heroic character. On the field of battle, as well as in the amputating and healing wards, are those Heaven-inspired ladies to be metsuccouring the dying and the wounded, comforting the suffering, encouraging the operated upon, and tendering to all. Death has no terrors for them, and their life consists in incessant acts of devotedness. We have had the advantage of admiring, on two memorable occasions of our life, the truly charitable labours of the Sisters of Charity. The first was during the siege of Antwerp, which lasted four and twenty days, although the operations were carried on according to the regular arts of war established by Vauban and others, and by an invading army of the bravest French troops, commanded by Maréchal Comte Gérard and U.S. MAG., No. 314, JANUARY, 1855.

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