394 
THE MILITARY FORCES OF QUEENSLAND. 
I was fortunate enough to arrive in Brisbane at the time of the annual 
camp of continuous training which is held at Lytton, a place at the 
mouth of the river about twelve miles from Brisbane; this camp is 
attended by the Defence Force proper, which consists of Field and 
Garrison Artillery, Mounted Infantry, Infantry, and Medical Staff 
Corps, and also by the Volunteers and Cadets. The camp lasts for 
six days, and the number of men under canvas this year reached a total 
of nearly two thousand; this, however, does not represent the whole 
strength of the force, as smaller camps are also held annually at Towns¬ 
ville and Rockhampton, for the benefit of those troops whose districts 
are too remote to allow of their attending the larger one at Lytton. 
The Regular troops take no part in the training of this camp, all the 
men being employed in fatigues, and as staff servants during the week ; 
it is their duty also to lay out the camp and to strike it at the conclusion 
of the operations; they have their own separate camps at other times 
during the year. 
Through the kindness of Colonel Gunter, the Commandant, I was 
attached to the force for the week as Assistant Artillery Staff Officer, 
and consequently had an excellent opportunity of seeing how the train¬ 
ing was carried on. I witnessed the manoeuvring of the Mounted 
Infantry under Colonel Ricards, and also had the privilege of assisting 
as umpire at the Field Firing of the Moreton Regiment; the men were 
keen and soldierlike, the former regiment being well mounted, and of 
course extremely good horsemen, and the work generally seemed re¬ 
markably good, considering the infinitesimal amount of training they 
can get during the year. But it was of course in the work of the Field 
Artillery that I took most interest. They carried out their competitive 
practice according to the rules obtaining at home, with a few modifica¬ 
tions introduced by Major Byron, the Artillery Staff Officer, to make 
the conditions more suitable for the special circumstances. Major 
Byron, who also acted as Chief Umpire, will be remembered by many 
officers in the Regiment, as having taken part in the Long Course of 
1891, in the final examination of which he took the first place. 
The Field Artillery consists of two four-gun batteries, one armed with 
12-prs., and the other with 9-prs.; the smartness, in drill and turn out, 
attained to by both of them can only be explained by the extreme keen¬ 
ness of the men themselves who can show such good results on the, at 
best, somewhat fragmentary training which is all that the Government 
will allow them. The first series for both the batteries was from the 
nature of the ground exceedngly difficult, and the light was so bad 
that it was very hard to pick up the target with the naked eye. Owing 
to this, and also to the fact that the layers of the 12-pr. battery were not 
highly trained, as indeed it was impossible that they should be, in the 
use of the telescopic sights, the damage done to the targets at this series 
was quite inconsiderable ; at the other two series, 58 out of the 90 dum¬ 
mies were hit in the case of the 12-pr. battery, the number of rounds 
fired being 18 and 16 respectively; with th 9-pr. battery, 44 dummies 
were hit and the number of rounds was 13 and 21. It would be hardly 
fair to compare this with the practice made by Royal Artillery batteries, 
but when the following points are taken into consideration, I think that it 
