CONCEALMENT IN WARFARE. 



145 



would be tolerably sure to notice the failure, and to correct bis 

 aim with fatal certainty. 



In those days, therefore, concealment was rather ridiculed 

 than praised, the power of the new arm not being as yet appre- 

 ciated. I well recollect, in the earliest days of the Volunteer 

 movement, hearing a Volunteer captain declare, amid the 

 cheers of his company, that " he had never sneaked bebind a 

 tree in all his life, and was not going to begin now." 



In the present day, the power of the missile has been 

 developed with such astounding rapidity, that to be exposed 

 to the fire of rifles or cannon is almost certain death. Indeed, 

 the only safety of the defence lay in the fact that the smoke 

 soon rendered very accurate shooting impossible at long ranges, 

 and that at short ranges, if a man got a bullet through his 

 body, it mattered little to him whether the missile were a 

 spherical musket-ball or a conical rifle-bullet. 



Just, then, as forts have latterly sunk into the earth for the 

 purpose of strength, so have our modern soldiers found that 

 the true principle of modern warfare is never to lose sight of 



reduytus (magnified). 



cuckoo-spit, 

 spider-crab. 



MASKING GUNS. 

 BIRNAM WOOD. 



the enemy, and never to allow the enemy to see yourself or 

 the disposal of your troops. 



