MUZZLE-LOADING ENFIELDS 103 



will not mind the egotistic remarks at their expense ; 

 indeed it is plain from the terms of the letter that 

 Stuart Wortley's performance was a very remarkable 

 one. I remember the subject of those verses. It was 

 " Belshazzar's Feast," and I also remember that Stevenson, 

 with true Stevensonian solemnity, began his effort with : 



Illud erat tempus quum vis Chaldaea vigebat, 



but of what I or anyone else wrote I have preserved not 

 the faintest memory. 



Yet we did think a lot of that competition. In an 

 earlier letter, dated 7th April, I see that I wrote : 



Can you tell me a good motto to put on the back of my Fifth 

 form Verse and Prose ? If you like you can send me 3 yards or 

 so of black and blue half-inch ribbons to tie them up with. Take 

 care it is before Saturday, as we show up the Prose then. 



The result of this disappointment and humiliation 

 for it appears to have struck me as such was that I 

 stuck to school all right that year, and there was plenty 

 of less harassing work for example, in the Rifle Corps, 

 which numbered eighty-six, including officers and N.C.O.'s. 

 I have the list before me, and among the privates there are : 

 Allison, Stuart Wortley, Kynnersley, Selous, Gallwey, 

 Francis, Still, Parker, and others whom I do not remember 

 so well. 



We had long muzzle-loading Enfields, the bullets of 

 which would have blown a hole the size of the palm of 

 your hand in a man had they hit him, for they were 

 lengthy and had a steel cup in the base which spread them 

 immediately on impact. It is strange that any reasonably 

 accurate snooting could be made with such ponderous 

 weapons, more especially as you had to stand up at the 

 first four ranges, 150, 200, 250 and 300 yards. It was 

 not so difficult if you fired at the target as with a shot- 

 gun at game, but after being put through position drills, 

 and made to screw the left elbow down, and stick the right 



