was upwards of six thousand, and this estimate was subsequently largely increased. The hopeless position of these unfortunates, was, curiously enough, enhanced by an accident. One French battery had suffered severely a few days before, having been badly shelled, whereby it had lost all its officers and had had to change its position. Being at this time still somewhat disorganized, it was late in opening fire, and when it did so, opened at the same range as the other batteries had done some minutes before, thereby directing its fire upon a point that the attackers had already passed over, so placing a curtain of fire behind them. Caught thus between two hail-storms of shell, the massed columns had no escape, and were mown down where they stood. The conditions in the battery during this affair were curious and extremely interesting. Each gun was firing as fast as the shell could be loaded and the round laid, orders being passed by gesticulation as best they could. Behind us the roar of the French batteries grew until it was only by watching for the flashes that we could tell when our own guns had fired. All round the hostile shells were bursting, filling the air with a sweet ether-like vapour that sent a sharp pain shooting through one's eyes until it seemed as if complete blindness must shortly supervene. The tears coursing down the men's faces made strange white tracks through the grime of battle, till the detachments became fierce, ghost-like and terrible, the reeking demons of the pit, striving and sweating that they might slay ever more and more, that the bitter screams of their mutilated victims might swell ever louder into the livid heavens. And the endless succession of ammunition wagons, their drivers clad in gas-helmets till they resembled the Inquisitors of old, lashing their horses into a yet more frantic gallop as they neared their goal, seemed as the shell burst all about them like monstrous chariots of hell. And all the time the French reserves were massing behind us, passing in turn down the _boyaux_ into the threatened trenches, each party as they passed cheering the roaring guns, and winning from the detachments a hoarse shout in return, as for a moment they rested from their ceaseless labour.