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of their respected commander, protector, and friend. What soldier,' our author emphatically concludes, ' can read this without exclaiming, May my last end be like his!'

The second proof which our author gives of the attachment of the native troops of Bengal force to their commanding officer, when his character is worthy of it, refers to an event nearly forty years subsequent, and we rejoice to see that time has made no alteration in the character of feelings that are honourable not only to those by whom they are entertained, but to human nature.

'Meritorious and indefatigable as were the exertions of all the officers who were employed in raising and forming the new corps, (24th, 25th, 26th, and 27th,) it will be no disparagement to them to declare that the 2d battalion of the 25th, under Captain Christie, surpassed the others by its more early appearance of military efficiency and perfection.

Captain Christie was blessed with that happy beneficence of disposition which made it his constant practice and delight to blend paternal kindness and conciliation with the requisite authority as an officer. To use the words of an eye-witness, Captain Christie had raised, clothed, and disciplined the corps with all the tenderness of a parent and the pride and solicitude of a soldier; the commander and the men were proud of each other. But he had barely accomplished this first wish of his heart, in bringing the corps to maturity, when he was seized with a violent illness which in a few days deprived the corps and the service of a valuable and exemplary officer.

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Captain Christie died on the 30th of April, 1805, and was buried at Saintree, on the left bank of the Jumna, between Agra and Muttra. The native officers of the corps, so contrary to their customs and religious prejudices, solicited permission to carry the corpse of their beloved commander to the grave. The whole corps followed the mournful procession with a general countenance of affliction and grief, presenting one of the most affecting scenes I ever beheld. After the funeral ceremony, each Sepoy stepped forward to look into the grave, threw a clod of earth on the coffin, and retired in melancholy silence, the whole corps sorrowing in tears.'*

The novelty and interest of this subject have seduced us far be yond those limits which we had prescribed to ourselves in treating it; and we must therefore pass over those observations which we

Further examples of this feeling are given in the work before us, and we could, from our own knowledge, adduce several proofs of similar attachment in the Sepoys of the other establishments; one will suffice. Major Thomas Little, of the Madras native infantry, whose great kindness and mildness of manners were only equalled by his firmness and thorough knowledge of his duties as an officer, died last year, when the army was encamped in the ceded districts. His corps, a battalion of light infantry, had been reviewed a few days before his death, and was pronounced by the commander in chief, Sir T. Hislop, to be in the highest state of discipline; yet so well had this admirable Sepoy officer (we chuse the term as denoting peculiar duties) preserved the temper of his men, that not satisfied with mourning him they requested leave to erect a tomb to his memory.

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purposed to make regarding the means best calculated to secure the continuance of the attachment of our native troops to their officers and to the service. This is however of less consequence, as the lesson is already conveyed through the facts which we have stated. It is by treating the Sepoys with kindness and consideration, by stimulating their pride, and by attending, in the most minute manner, to their feelings and prejudices, that we can command, as has been well observed, 'their lives through the medium of their affections:' and so long as we can, by these means, preserve the fidelity and attachment of that proportion of the population of our immense possessions in the East, which we arm to defend the remainder, our empire may be considered as secure.

ART. VII.—An Essay on the Principles and Construction of Military Bridges, and the Passage of Rivers in Military Operations. By Colonel Sir Howard Douglas, Bt. F.R.S. Inspector General of the Royal Military College. 8vo. London.

То ensure a lasting peace it is well that the nation should be

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prepared for a war-a preparation best made by scientific and timely investigations of the principles and character of those grand military movements which have, within the course of the last ter of a century, so often agitated nations and subverted thrones. The common soldier, in time of need, is soon trained to his art. He needs but bring courage and strength, the heart and the hand, in which Britons are seldom deficient. But the military art itself depends upon abstruse principles of science, which, though mechanically acted upon with success by many who are not even sensible of their existence, can only be perfectly understood by those who have traced them to their source. It is the duty of every man whose habits and talents may have rendered these researches familiar to him, to place the result within the reach and at the disposal of his country, that in the day of need she may avail herself of them; in fact, great service is rendered to the world in general whenever the use of military art can be brought to supersede that of brute force and violence, since it leads to the decision of campaigns rather by the superiority of intellect than by the amount of human slaughter. A skilful and gallant officer has here given us the result of his experience in accomplishing the passage of rivers, a manœuvre which is frequently decisive of the campaign; and to make good the proposition with which we started, we have only to contrast his ingenious and scientific application of pontoons, rafts, boats, piles, or tressels, with the summary proceeding of a barbarian general encountering a similar obstacle. Mahomet, at the storm of Constantinople, found

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found a substitute in the bodies of his leading division for all the scientific expedients of the engineering art. His ideas on the principle and construction of military bridges are well explained by Joanna Baillie; they are somewhat rude and savage, it must be confessed, but they proved effectual; and, as Gibbon says, the death of the devoted vanguard was more serviceable than the life.' 'Some thousand carcasses, living and dead, Of those who first shall glut the enemy's rage, Push'd in, pell-mell, by those who press behind, Will rear for us a bridge to mount the breach, Where ablest engineers had work'd in vain.'

A work useful in itself comes with peculiar grace before the the subject and the duties of the author; and from an officer of Sir public when there is an especial propriety and connection between Howard Douglas's rank and character, selected as he is to superintend the Royal Military College, we receive, with peculiar satisfaction, a practical manual, founded upon scientific principles, for facilitating some of the most important operations of war.

An invaded country may be protected either by a line of artificial fortifications, or by the natural barriers of mountains and rivers. It is against the last obstacles that invaders are usually obliged to contend; and the generals whose names stand highest in military annals have gained their fame as frequently by surmounting the natural difficulties opposed to their progress by rivers, and the defensive lines which they cover, as by victory in the open field. In these cases the necessity of forcing a passage, or establishing communications by military bridges, is so obvious, that the first hostile invader upon record, whom we take to have been no less a person than Milton's Satan, immediately proceeded to secure the advantages which he had gained, by establishing a military bridge extending from the gates of his own fiery dominions, through Chaos, to our own terrestrial globe. Sin and Death formed on this occasion the corps of pontooners, and their formidable operations are thus recorded.

'Deep to the roots of hell the gathered beach

They fastened, and the mole immense brought on,
Over the foaming deep, high-arched, a bridge
Of length prodigious, joining to the wall
Immoveable of this now fenceless world.'

The importance of Sir Howard Douglas's subject, in a military point of view, did not, indeed, require to be enhanced by quoting the example of the author of war and fighting' amongst us; but the case appears so strictly in point that we could not suppress it, especially as it seems to have escaped the gallant author's extensive researches.

The

ast edition of Du Buat's work, with Prony's Théorie des Eaux Courantes.'

In general, however, this correct and clear statement of an im›ortant theorem is likely to be of practical advantage to the civil as vell as the military engineer; and Sir Howard Douglas remarks hat in exploring rivers in unknown countries it will also aid the raveller to ascertain the declivity of the stream, and the elevation of the country through which it flows, by merely measuring the velocity and width, and taking its several depths. These observations repeated from time to time, and carefully noted, may afford a mode of levelling which will supply the occasional want of experiments by the barometer.

The discussion of these principles in hydraulics occupies the first section in the work before us. Having laid down general rules for ascertaining the nature and force of the element to be surmounted, Sir Howard Douglas gives in separate sections an account of the various expedients which war's vast art' affords for surmounting them. Pontoons of course occupy the first section, and accurate tables are given calculating the weight borne for every inch of immersion, and thus at once ensuring to the engineer the information necessary for his profession. Directions for constructing the pontoons, and for laying them where they are to be used, are also given, with many valuable practical hints against the means of destruction to which the enemy may have recourse.

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The next section respects bridges of boats, and contains a description of that which was constructed by the Duke of Wellington for repairing the bridge at Alcantara, and that for passing the Adour in 1814; of both which operations excellent plans are given. An account of the splendid movement by which the left wing of the British army, under the present Lord Hopetoun, crossed that river, is, to us at least, one of the most interesting of the historical illustrations by which Sir Howard has judiciously enlivened his work, and we willingly select it as an example of his style of narrative. It had been designed to make a lodgement on the opposite bank by men transported over, during the night, upon rafts formed of pontoons: but morning broke before a raft could be formed, and thus this memorable movement was destined to take place in open day-light.

A few men were first pushed over in the row-boats attached to the pontoon train, and drove away the enemy's piquets;-rafts of pontoons were immediately constructed, but not being found to answer, owing to the great strength of the current, boats and pontoons used as row-boats, when the tide was slack, were employed to reinforce, as fast as possible, the small force sent over in the first instance. During all this time demonstrations of an intention to pass the river opposite to the enemy's

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Du Buat has considered the effects of tenacity, friction, &c. in obtaining his final expression; but it may be remarked, that the velocities computed with mg =V, are all nearer those found by experiment in the River de Hayne, than those resulting from the other equation. Thus, .. in the following table, the velocities found by experiment are in the first column; those computed from V=

297 (√r−0.1)

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then any two of the quantities V, r, b, will readily give the third; thus

V2 b
a2

putting a = 3067; then r = when V and b are given; and

=

a2 r

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when V and r are given.'-pp. 15—17.

In this note Sir Howard Douglas has proved the important fact, that in some cases the velocities computed from the expression 297 ✔r are nearer those found by experiment than those resulting No6 297 (r-01) from the final expression V= -0.3V (r-01.) b-hyp. log. √b+1.6 But it ought to be noticed that a general rejection of the corrections for tenacity and friction, merely because the velocities computed from the pure expression agree more nearly with those found by experiment in one particular river, may lead to inaccuracy. It would have been more satisfactory to explain the nature of the corrections, and to compare the results yielded by the whole expression with those found by actual experiment in various rivers, leaving the practical engineer to decide every case upon its own peculiar circumstances. That this is the more accurate view of the subject must be obvious, when it is considered that the corrections must necessarily vary according to the character of particular rivers. The correction for tenacity, for example, occasions a more sensible diminution of r, the mean radius, (the area of the transverse section divided by its perimeter,) in small than in large rivers. And we may also notice that the correction as given in Du Buat's fifth chapter, forb the square root of the slope, ought to have been illustrated and explained. An extension of this useful and, so far as theory goes, fundamental department of the work would also be desirable, and ought to exhibit a collation of the doctrines of the

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