such enterprise. The heavens open, and there is a sudden deluge.
Immediately it is a case of all hands to the trench-pump! A better
plan, if you have the advantage of ground, is to cut a culvert under
the parapet and pass the inundation on to a more deserving quarter. In
any case you need never lack healthful exercise.

While upon the subject of mines, we may note that this branch of
military industry has expanded of late to most unpleasant dimensions.
The Boche began it, of course--he always initiates these undesirable
pastimes,--and now we have followed his lead and caught him up.

To the ordinary mortal, to become a blind groper amid the dark places
of the earth, in search of a foe whom it is almost certain death to
encounter there, seems perhaps the most idiotic of all the idiotic
careers open to those who are idiotic enough to engage in modern
warfare. However, many of us are as much at home below ground as above
it. In most peaceful times we were accustomed to spend eight hours a
day there, lying up against the "face" in a tunnel perhaps four feet
high, and wielding a pick in an attitude which would have convulsed
any ordinary man with cramp. But there are few ordinary men in
"K(1)" There is never any difficulty in obtaining volunteers for the
Tunnelling Company.

So far as the amateur can penetrate its mysteries, mining, viewed
under our present heading--namely, Winter Sports--offers the following
advantages to its participants:--

(1) In winter it is much warmer below the earth than upon its surface,
and Thomas Atkins is the most confirmed "frowster" in the world.