THE AETILLERY OE JAPAN. 
591 
About au hour's rail took us to the camp. 
A sergeant met us, guided us to where Colonel Kumamoto was, and I 
was introduced to him. 
The colonel told me I had come on a very good day, as it was the 
first day they were to fire live shell. Directly after I arrived the series 
began. I don't quite know what I expected but I was fairly astonished 
at what I saw. I might have been at Okehampton once again. 
The battery which was going to fire, was under cover about four 
hundred yards in rear of its position. When the colonel gave the order 
it was brought up under cover and halted behind the crest of a hill. 
The guns were run up by hand. The whole thing was just as we do it. 
The range finders were on a flank; an officer was sketching the position. 
The battery commander observed for himself and bracketted his target 
and rapped out his alterations in elevation as smartly as possible. The 
colonel with a course of officers (including a cavalry officer) was look¬ 
ing on from a little way off. The sergeant-major was keeping the range 
book. The limbers were taken away under cover, till the series were 
finished. The fire discipliue was very good indeed. They fired a series 
of eighteen rounds and took about ten minutes to do it. They were 
not working against time as it was the first day. 
After the series was over, the commander of the battery had up the 
layers and Nos. 1, and criticised the practice to them. When he had 
finished, the colonel gave a short lecture to him and the other officers 
on the morning's work. The battery had fired at an unknown range 
which proved to be about 1300 metres. The target was very indistinct, 
but the range had been found and some effective shrapnel got in. 
I was introduced to Lieut. Shekuni Soga, who had been ten years in 
France, he very kindly showed me round the lines and barracks, but 
my French was so lame, halting, and mixed with Hindustani, that I 
was not able to grasp all the information he gave me. After I had seen 
all there was to see, the colonel gave me some refreshment in his hut. 
I asked him some questions about the practice and he at once referred 
to the range report which he had been working out, and told me what 
I wanted to know. 
The batteries had been in camp for two weeks and as they had only 
twenty rounds per gun, they had spent those two weeks in drill and 
practice with blank, and only in the last week did they use their live 
shell. 
I was very much struck with the thoroughness of everything I saw. 
I went to the harness store and saw all the spare harness, carefully 
put away in soap and oil. 
All the working parts of the gun are most carefully oiled and looked 
after. 
Of laying which we have only come to consider vital during the last 
ten years, they do more than we do. 
I could not tell whether the shooting was good or what the power of 
the gun was. But I am quite sure that whatever faults they have they 
see and will make it their business to rectify very quickly, and that 
though their gun may not be very mobile and be of low power, they will 
