lounging on is in each case diminished by an impertinent structure, built, I believe, by certain engineers, who might have been better employed than in putting finishing touches to these grand old mountains. The accompanying sketch shows the top of Mulahacen and the two men highest in position in Spain at the moment. The deep valley of Trevelez to the east of Mulahacen, though not so grand or beautiful as that of Poqueira, is worth a glance, and by it the traveller may descend and decide on the spot the vexed question touching the superiority of its hams over those of Capilleria, its rival in the art of bacon-making-a much disputed point here.

Among the manufactures of Spain her bacon will always take a high rank in the estimation of persons of taste, and among Spanish bacons that of the Alpujarras holds a proud position. More especially the hams. They yield to none in the Peninsula, not even to the famous hams of Montanches, for juiciness, softness, and flavour, and served any way,-boiled, broiled, with tomato sauce after the fashion of the country, or even raw,-there is a subtlety about them that would sap the faith of a Rabbi. The social position of the pig in these mountain villages has perhaps something to do with the quality of his remains when they become an article of food. In the hamlets of the Alpujarras he takes a place in society which is not conceded to him anywhere else, not even in Ireland. In early youth he is the playmate of the children and is treated with that affection which elsewhere is lavished on the kitten and the puppy, and grown up he seems to live free, independent, and generally respected. There is no vulgarity attached to the idea of pig in these valleys. Even the process of converting him into bacon has a touch of elegance and refinement about it: snow, sugar, and the smoke of aromatic shrubs, being the chief

preservatives employed. And then what poetry there is in the titles bestowed upon the product :-" los jamones dulces de las Alpujarras," or, as they are sometimes called, "the sweet hams of Trevelez." Moore might have sung them without any debasement of his muse, for, indeed, there's not in this wide world a bacon so sweet as they make of the Sierra Nevada pig's meat, and the last sense of taste from the palate is gone, when it ceases to relish that juicy jamón. Here, however, they are rather to be mentioned as a valuable element in the commissariat of the pedestrian. With a wedge of sweet ham, a few hard eggs, half-a-dozen Lanjaron oranges, and a bota of Val-de-peñas, he may consider himself free of the country, and wander where he pleases, independent of the posadas, which partake largely of the primitiveness that pervades all things in this district. Not that the Alpujarras when it chooses cannot shake off its rustic simplicity. I reached one of these little mountain villages on the evening of a fete, and as there was to be a "gran baile" in the plaza, I made sure of seeing in such a spot, if anywhere, the national dances and costumes in full perfection. What I did see was a party of ladies and gentlemen in muslin and tail coats polking and waltzing to the genteelest tunes. Once, it is true, there was a fandango, but it was evidently looked upon by the majority as vulgar and behind the age. I remarked it, perhaps, the more, as at the time I was travelling laden with some pounds weight of copper coin, because in the whole town of Orgiba, the capital of the Alpujarras, there was not enough silver to make up the change of an Isabelino (the Spanish sovereign); and but for the lucky discovery that there was a dollar to be seen at the cigar-shop round the corner, I should have had a still heavier load to carry. From the eagerness with which the offer to take the dollar off his hands, at par, was accepted by the proprietor, I am inclined to believe that it had been on view for some time as a curiosity, and that the novelty had at last worn off.

Still, primitive and rude as the Alpujarras posadas are, they are not, after all, as I have already said, so very much rougher than the quarters pedestrians have often to be content with elsewhere, and are for the most part cleaner. The Spaniards, those of the south at any rate, are in the main a cleanly people, with an oriental affection for whitewash and fair linen; and if insect life runs riot in their houses it is not so much a fault of theirs as of the climate they live in. If, however, the traveller objects to posada lodging on these and other grounds, the remedy is in his own hands. Under these glorious skies camping out on the mountain side is a luxury, and sounder sleep may be had on a bed of brushwood than between the sheets of civilization. The brigand bugbear he may treat very lightly; and in fact what should robbers do on mountains where no living thing is to be seen, except vultures and an occasional manzanillagatherer, or shepherd with his dogs and flock? The wolves I am inclined to believe in, because of the size of the dogs and the spiked collars they wear, but the evidence in favour of the existence of human robbers is not satisfactory.

From the bottom of the Trevelez valley he may, if so inclined, reach Granada by the way of Ujijar, and the mountain track across to Guadix; but the eastern side of the Alpujarras is comparatively bare and uninteresting. The cream of the district, in fact, lies between Durcal and the Trevelez valley. A far finer path by which to take leave of the Alpujarras is that over the Col de la Veleta, the depression in the ridge on the west of the Picacho, which may be reached from either Lanjaron or Capilleria. There, from the top of the pass almost until he reaches it, he has Granada full in view as he descends the mountain. On this walk, for the first and only time, I found the inconvenience of carrying a knapsack in Spain. It would not have mattered in Switzerland or the Pyrenees, where people are used to it-nay, rather like it; but to appear in mountain trim on the Alameda of Granada, up which my road inevitably lay, just at that period of the evening when the full flood-tide of fashion swept to and fro in all its pride beneath the branching elms, seemed to be, in a land that knows not knapsacks, a measure somewhat too strong. Perhaps it was the thought was weak. At any rate I sat down to wait till it was dusk, and waiting till it was dusk, slept till it was dark, and resumed the march on Granada with no clearer notion of the way than that, as Granada lay low, stumbling downhill was more likely to be right than stumbling up. I came upon a house at last, but it was a house with a dog. When Byron says,-" "Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark," it is to be presumed he means a watch-dog secured by a stout chain and collar. Because, if the night is dark and the dog is loose, and his honest bark may at any moment be followed by his, no doubt, equally honest bite, the sound the poet speaks of is not a sweet one. So I felt, at least until the owner of the dog, somewhere out of the darkness, called him to order, and then informed me that Granada was only a legua y media further on. I had been hugging the belief that it was only half a league. I got into Granada at last, just as the town was shutting up for the night; but the example is worth something as showing as forcibly as The Universal Spelling-Book could, the evils of loitering, and especially what a mistake it is to loiter in Spain, where distances, no matter how measured, are always deceptive.

The tourist who has been through the Alpujarras, and up and down the Sierra, need not, however, consign his knapsack to his portmanteau on his return to Granada, for further west there are fresh fields and pastures new for the pedestrian.

177

Breech-Loading Rifles.

DURING the year which has elapsed since we noticed the position of affairs with regard to the introduction of breech-loading rifles for military service,* considerable progress has been made by England, as by most other nations; and the subject has reached a stage at which it will be interesting again to review what has been done, and to note the development which the subject has now attained.

It will be within the recollection of readers of this Magazine that as far back as 1864, a committee of officers appointed by the War Office, of which General Russell was president, reported that it would be desirable to arm the whole of the British infantry with breech-loading rifles. The inquiry to which this recommendation gave rise branched off into two distinct and perfectly independent parts. One, the conversion of the existing arms; the other, the determination of the best pattern of breechloader for future manufacture. With the history and the issue of the first branch of the inquiry people are now pretty well familiar. It resulted in the adoption in the spring of 1866 of the Snider system of conversion, with a coiled brass cartridge designed by Colonel Boxer.

We should not care to recall the ignorant and unjust clamour which was raised on the introduction of this arm and ammunition, the alarming prophecies of failure, and the manner in which the slightest and most unimportant difficulties were magnified into grave defects, condemnatory of the system, were it not that it would be impossible otherwise to do justice to one of the most satisfactory features of the year's progress, viz. the complete success which has attended the introduction of the Snider system; and the confidence with which the arm and ammunition are now regarded by the whole army.

It reflects the greatest credit upon all concerned that, in spite of a tolerably vigorous opposition, the conversion of the Enfield rifles has been persevered with at a rate which has given us at least 200,000 of the arms and nearly 30,000,000 rounds of the ammunition in less than a year from the date of commencing manufacture ;-that notwithstanding the enormous pressure requisite to produce these results; notwithstanding the novelty and intricacy of many of the processes of manufacture; notwithstanding the slight causes upon which failures or accidents depend; notwithstanding the issue of the arms in many instances (as in Canada and Ireland) to men entirely uninstructed in their use,-no failure whatever has taken

*Cornhill Magazine, September, 1866.

place, and not a single accident of any consequence has had to be recorded.*

Of the slight changes which experience has recommended in the arm and ammunition, it will be sufficient to say, first, that except in the case of about two million rounds of the first pattern of cartridge, the base of which proved too weak, the introduction of the different changes has not involved the supersession of preceding patterns; and, second, that these changes, in addition to the increase of efficiency which they have respectively effected, have almost invariably tended also to decrease the cost of production. Thus, iron has been substituted for brass for the base of the cartridge; the quantity of brass in the cartridge-case has been diminished; the weight of the bullet has been reduced; the construction of the anvil has been improved.

The following sketch of the latest approved construction of cartridges, will form a companion to that which we gave last year of the first pattern of ammunition :

The changes in the arm have consisted mainly in an alteration of the depth of the recess for the cartridge-bore, in a slight alteration in the form of extractor, with a view to facilitating extraction, and in the recess

The first pattern of cartridge, with the Potêt base, was found to be unreliable, and one or two breech blocks were blown open in Canada, to which station the bulk of the ammunition of this pattern had been sent. But the defect had been noticed and corrected before these mishaps occurred, although too late to admit of strengthened cartridges being supplied to Canada, on account of the communications having become closed by the ice. In the spring of this year the unsafe ammunition was recalled; and it is improbable that a single round of it exists, except in the form of blank cartridges, into which it was converted on its return to this country.