The last of our visits is to a "Charge-House." There are several of these, where the powder is kept in store. We approach it by a path through a plantation. It lies deep among the trees--a most lonely, dismal sarcophagus. It is roofed with water--that is, the roof is composed of water-tanks, which are filled by the rain; and in dry weather they are filled by means of a pump arranged for that purpose. The platform at the entrance is of water--that is to say, it is a broad wooden trough two inches deep, full of water, through which we are required to walk. We do so, and with far more satisfaction than some things we have done here to-day. We enter the house alone; the others waiting outside. All silent and dusky as an Egyptian tomb. The tubs of powder, dimly seen in the uncertain light, are ranged along the walls, like mummies--all giving the impression of a secret life within. But a secret life, how different! "Ah! there's the rub." We retire with a mental obeisance, and a respectful air--the influence remaining with us, so that we bow slightly on rejoining our friends outside, who bow in return, looking from us to the open door-way of the "house!" With thoughtful brows, and not in any very high state of hilarity, after the duties of the day--not to speak of being wet through to the skin, for the second time--we move through the fir groves on our way back. We notice a strange appearance in many trees, some of which are curiously distorted, others with their heads cut off; and, in some places, there are large and upright gaps in a plantation. Mr. Ashbee, after deliberating inwardly a little while, informs us that a very dreadful accident happened here last year. "Was there an explosion?" we inquire. He says there was. "And a serious one?"--"Yes."--"Any lives lost?"--"Yes."--"Two or three?"--"More than that."--"Five or six?" He says more than that. He gradually drops into the narrative, with a subdued tone of voice. There was an explosion last year. Six different houses blew up. It began with a "Separating House,"--a place for sizing, or sorting, the different grains through sieves. Then the explosion went to a "Granulating-House," one hundred yards off. How it was carried such distances, except by a general combustion of the air, he can not imagine. Thence, it went to a "Press House," where the powder lies in hard cakes. Thence, it went in two ways--on one side to a "Composition Mixing-House," and, on the other, to a "Glazing-House;" and thence to another "Granulating-House." Each of these buildings were fully one hundred yards from another; each was intercepted by plantations of fir and forest trees as a protection; and the whole took place within forty seconds. There was no tracing how it had occurred.