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military training afforded at Aldershot: there still remain those very important branches for which Aldershot was originally started, and for the carrying out of which a considerable extent of land is essential, viz., musketry, company training, reconnaissance, and field days. For these purposes a large tract of land was purchased between 1854 and 1860, and since then additional property has been acquired from time to time, so that at present it extends, though with many interruptions, over an area about 9| miles in extreme length by 7f miles in extreme width. In addition to this there is the land at Sandhurst and the Staff College, about 6| miles distant, and at Wolmer Forest, 12 miles distant. The musketry practice of the troops at Aldershot is carried out at the Ash ranges, 2 miles east of the barracks, while the Pirbright ranges, alongside those of the National Rifle Association at Bisley, are utilized by the household cavalry and guards, who are encamped there in succession. Suitable land, within an easy march of the barracks, is utilized for company, battalion, and brigade training of infantry, while the mounted branches work over a wider area, and the engineers carry out their practices where most convenient. For field days of the three arms—cavalry, artillery, and infantry—the whole of the War Department property is available. Besides the troops in barracks, during the drill season there is often a considerable force in camp, both regular troops from other stations, and militia and volunteers. Some sixty camping grounds have been specially prepared for them, so that, including the regular garrison, sometimes as many as 40,000 troops have been concentrated at the station for training and manoeuvres. (h. Lo.) Aldrich, Thomas Bailey (1836 ), American author, was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on the 11th November 1836 ; his birthplace being the “Rivermouth” of several of his longer and shorter stories, while the Piscataqua river, the Isles of Shoals, and other scenes familiar to his boyhood, are frequently commemorated in his prose and verse. His early life— partly described in his Story of a Bad Boy (1869), in which “ Tom Bailey ” is the juvenile hero—was spent in business offices in New Orleans and New York, until his literary tastes led him to become a contributor to various newspapers in the latter city. Between 1856 and 1859 he was on the staff of the New York Home Journal, then edited by the once popular poet N. P. Willis ; while during a part of the civil war he was editor-in-chief of the New York Illustrated News, the most graphic of the pictorial recorders of that conflict. These journalistic experiences brought him into close relations with Stedman, Stoddard, Taylor, Whitman, the sculptor Launt Thompson, and many others of the younger writers and artists of the “ sixties,” some of whom essayed to set up a mild Bohemia in the American metropolis. In later years he edited the eclectic (and, for a time, illustrated) weekly Every Saturday, Boston, between 1870 and 1874, and The Atlantic Monthly for nine years, beginning with 1881. Aldrich’s successive books of verse, chiefly The Ballad of Babie Bell (1856), Pampinea, and Other Poems (1861), Flower and Thorn (1876), Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book (1881), Thirty-six Lyrics and Twelve Sonnets (1881), Mercedes and Later Lyrics (1883), Wyndham Towers (1889), and the collected editions of 1865 and 1882, showed him to be a poet of lyrical skill, dainty touch, and felicitous conceit, the influence of Herrick being constantly apparent. He has repeatedly essayed the long narrative or dramatic poem, but seldom with success, save in such earlier work as Garnaut Hall in the 1865 collection. But no American poet has shown more skill in describing some single picture, mood, conceit, or episode. The best things he has written are such lyrics as “ Hesperides,” “When the Sultan goes to Ispahan,” “ Before the Rain,” “ Nameless Pain,” “The Tragedy,” “Seadrift,” “Tiger-Lilies,” “The One White Rose,” “Palabras Carinosas,” “Destiny,” or the eight-line poem “ Identity,” which did more to spread Aldrich’s reputation than any of his writing after the “Babie Bell” of 1856. Beginning with the collection of stories entitled Marjorie Daw and Other People (1873),
Aldrich applied to his later prose work that minute care in composition which had previously characterized his verse—taking a neat, new, or salient situation, and setting it before the reader in a pretty combination of kindly realism and reticent humour. In the novels of Prudence Palfrey (1874), The Queen of Sheba (1877), and The Stillwater Tragedy (1880), there is more rapid action ; but the Portsmouth pictures in the first-named are elaborated with the affectionate touch shown in the shorter humorous tale, A Rivermouth Romance. In An Old Town by the Sea (1893), the author’s birthplace was once more commemorated in plainer colours, while travel and description are the theme of the chapters entitled From Ponkapog to Pesth (1883), though the portrayals are still those of a poet and humorist. Aleardi, Aleardo, Count (1812-1878), Italian poet, was born at Verona, 4th November 1812, and thus soon after his birth became an Austrian subject. Inspired from his cradle with a hatred of the foreigner, he found himself disqualified for the position in the public service to which his rank would have entitled him, and unable to publish his patriotic verses. Arnaldo da Rocca, a narrative poem, nevertheless appeared in 1842, and the revolutionary year 1848 made an opening for his Lettere a Maria. He took an active part in the popular uprising, and was for some time imprisoned. In 1856 he produced the finest of his pieces, an ode to the maritime cities of Italy, and in 1858 a poem on his own misfortunes. After the expulsion of the Austrians from Lombardy he returned to Yerona, published his poems in a collected edition, became professor at the Academy of Fine Art, member of the Italian Parliament, and eventually senator. He died on 17th July 1878. Aleardi’s warmth of patriotic feeling hardly finds adequate expression in his poetry; it is his merit to excel in description, but his fault to substitute description for action. Alefi. See New Caledonia. Alemtejo, a southern province of Portugal, measuring 155 miles long from N. to S., and 60 miles in mean breadth, with an area of 9425 square miles, and population 393,054 ; density, 41 '7 inhabitants to the square mile. The horses in this province embrace the Alter breed, the finest in the kingdom. Marble is found, and there are copper and iron mines. Mineral waters exist at Aljustrel, Cabeqo de Vide, Mertola, Ouguella, Portalegre, Souzel, and Vimieiro. Cloth is manufactured at Portalegre and pottery at Estremoz. The only port is Villa Nova de Milfontes. There are meteorological stations at Evora, Beja, and Campo Maior. Aleppo, (1) a vilayet of Asiatic Turkey, in Northern Syria. The mountain districts, which occupy nearly half the area, are rich in mineral wealth, and the large inland plains are fertile but uncultivated. Mineral springs are numerous. Nearly all the external trade passes through Alexandretta; the average annual value of the exports for 1896-98 was <£1,075,453, and of imports£2,014,012. Population, 995,800 (Moslems and Ansarfeh, 792,400; Christians, 183,400 ; Jews, 20,000). (2) The chief town of the vilayet, situated near the edge of the Syrian desert, in a fertile valley, almost enclosed by limestone hills, through which runs the Koweik {Chains). Its former importance and rapid recovery from repeated disaster were due to its position on the caravan route to Baghdad, Persia, and India. Its large trade led to the establishment of a British consulate and factory in the reign of Elizabeth. The opening of the sea route to India affected its prosperity, but it is still the emporium of Northern Syria, and connected with its port Alexandretta by a carriage road (96
