It is a large brick building, recently put up, and contains every appliance known to athletic training, most of the apparatus having been imported from New York. The interior is bright and airy, handsomely decorated with flags, stands of arms, and trophies, making an attractive room in which to work. Just at the left is a smaller building for instruction in the use of the sabre and foil. Surrounding the buildings are large fields for out-of-door exercise, one side being a turf parade for walking, running, jumping, and the many drills in the use of the arms and legs. When the weather permits, the classes in bayonet, single-stick, and dumb-bells are taken to this field. On the other side of the buildings are all sorts of stationary apparatus similar to that inside; on that side also there are walls to scale, heights to climb, besides the ordinary bars and ladders. The best apparatus that the recruits use is a great frame that looks as if some one had started to build a house, and dropped the work as soon as the scaffolding had been finished. It is a square framework about fifty feet high and forty feet wide; from it hang ropes, ladders, poles, sliding-boards, and all kinds of devices by which ascent and descent can be made. The apparatus is of great value in training the eye as well as the muscle, for the recruits are put over it at double time, and the slightest false step would mean a bad fall and broken bones. It was the invention of Colonel the Hon. J. S. Napier, who has been in command at the gymnasium for some time, and to whose efforts are due the perfection of the system of training given, not only to the recruits, but also to all officers and men who care to continue their physical training. [Illustration: 1. Colonel Napier’s frame for recruit-drill at Aldershot.] [Illustration: 2. One of the exercises in British recruit-drill.] The most useful drill given to recruits is the use of the “shelf.” This, as the name indicates, is a huge shelf on the side of the gymnasium wall. It is so high that a man cannot reach it as he stands on the floor, and to mount it he must have the assistance of one or more of his companions. The aim of the shelf drill is to train the men to go over walls and obstacles where there is nothing for them to use in pulling themselves up. In working together, one man makes a rest of his hands and gives to his comrade a “boost”; then the man thus assisted clambers up to the shelf, and turning, pulls up the man below him.