Then I wandered
about the city, and was lost in the vicinity of Holborn; so that for a
long while I was under a spell of bewilderment, and kept returning, in
the strangest way, to the same point in Lincoln's Inn Fields. . . . .
Mr. Bowman and I went to the Princess's Theatre in the evening. Charles
Kean performed in Louis XI. very well indeed,--a thoughtful and highly
skilled actor,--much improved since I saw him, many years ago, in
America.
ALDERSHOTT CAMP.
April 1st.--After my last date on Thursday, I visited the National
Gallery. At three o'clock, having packed a travelling-bag, I went to
Bennoch's office, and lunched with him; and at about five we took the
rail from the Waterloo station for Aldershott Camp. At Tamborough we
were cordially received by Lieutenant Shaw, of the North Cork Rifles, and
were escorted by him, in a fly, to his quarters. The camp is a large
city, composed of numberless wooden barracks, arranged in regular
streets, on a wide, bleak heath, with an extensive and dreary prospect on
all sides. Lieutenant Shaw assigned me one room in his hut, and Bennoch
another, and made us as comfortable as kind hospitality could; but the
huts are very small, and the rooms have no size at all; neither are they
air-tight, and the sharp wind whistles in at the crevices; and, on the
whole, of all discomfortable places, I am inclined to reckon Aldershott
Camp the most so.
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