n tumble about!
Huzza! there's a fellow's head off,--
How the dark red blood spouts out!
And look, what a jolly bonfire!--
Wants nothing but colored light!
Oh, papa, burn a lot of cities,
And burn the next one at night!'
"'Yes, child, it _is_ operatic;
But don't forget, in your glee,
That for your sake this play is playing,
That you may be worthy of me.
They baptized you in Jordan water,--
Baptized as a Christian, I mean,--
But you come of the race of Caesar,
And thus have their baptisms been.
Baptized in true Caesar fashion,
Remember, through all your years,
That the font was a burning city,
And the water was widows' tears,'"

When these lines were written, how little could any man have foreseen
the fate of the poor lad, lying bloody and stark on a hillside of
South Africa, deserted by his comrades, and above all by a degenerate
descendant of Sir Walter Raleigh, who should have risked his life
to defend his charge!

The day after the attack on Saarbrueck compact masses of Germans were
moving across the frontier into France, and the next day (August 4),
a division of MacMahon's army corps was surprised at Wissembourg,
while their commander was at Metz in conference with the emperor.
The French troops were cut to pieces, and the fugitives spread
themselves all over the country. The battle had been fought on
ground covered with vineyards, and the movements of the French
cavalry had been impeded by the vines. In this battle the French
were without artillery, but they took eight cannon from the enemy.
The Prussians, however, being speedily reinforced, recovered their
advantage and gained a complete victory. Wissembourg, a small town
in Alsace, was bombarded and set on fire. There seemed no officer
among the defeated French to restore order. They had never anticipated
such a rout, and were, especially the cavalry, utterly demoralized.

The French army was divided into seven army corps, the German into
twelve. Each German army corps was greatly stronger in men, and
incomparably better officered and equipped, than the French. The
Germans began the war with nearly a million men; the French with
little more than two hundred thousand on the frontier, though their
army was five hundred thousand strong on the official records. The
habit of the War Office had been to let rich men who were drawn
for the conscription pay four hundred francs f