From Pembroke a short run by train, and a ten minutes' walk through dull, workaday streets lands us at the dockyard gates. Before passing through, a constable politely relieves the visitors of such parlous _impedimenta_ as fusees, lucifer matches and the like inflammables. Thence we are handed on to a stalwart sergeant, who without more ado pioneers us around the constructing sheds. Work is now in full swing, and the ring of riveters' hammers and clang of resonant metal combine, with a thousand other ear-splitting sounds, to swell an uproar fit to awaken the Seven Sleepers. By dint of stentorian shouting, our _cicerone_ explains the various details of construction; now descanting on the special merits of a swift 'torpedo-catcher,' anon describing the internal economy of a half-completed gunboat. Meanwhile weird, Rembrandtesque effects of light and shade are seen on every side, as the men ply their heavy labour in the gloom of the iron-ribbed hull. Thence we pass onward to a gigantic shed, lofty as a cathedral, with its forefoot planted in the sea. Here the rudimentary ribs of a huge ironclad swell upward from the keel-plate, resembling the skeleton of some antediluvian monster of the deep. Farther on we come to long ranges of spacious workshops, crammed with machinery of the latest types propelled by engines both ancient and modern. By means of these, thick metal plates and beams are shaped and fashioned as easily as wood in a carpenter's shop. Here lies a massive bronze casting weighing many tons, destined to form the ram of H.M.S. _Renown_; yonder a metal plane shaves off golden spirals, much like the 'corkscrew' curls of other days, from a plate of solid brass. In another direction a strapping mechanic is bringing a steel plate to the requisite curve, by means of herculean blows from a heavy sledge. Pass we now to the iron foundry, where a gang of workmen are about to draw the glowing metal from the furnace. The scintillating mass is hitched on to a movable crane, and borne away to be manipulated between a pair of massive metal rollers. After several successive squeezes, it emerges in the form of a huge armour plate. Now, too, the Nasmyth hammer is much _en évidence_, its mighty strokes shaking the solid ground as we approach; yet so docile is the monster that the engineer cracks a nut beneath it, to the no small astonishment of the visitors. Nor must we omit a peep at the wood-working shops, where the circular saw sings at its work the live-long day, shearing the roughest logs into comely planks with wonderful precision, while skilful hands fashion and frame the various parts required. All these multifarious handicrafts, carried on in extensive and inflammable structures, necessitate an efficient fire-extinguishing apparatus. This is maintained in a separate building, and is kept in apple-pie order, ever ready to fight the flames in case of an outbreak of the devouring element. * * * * *