The next day the mood persisted. I had nothing to do, did not feel like doing anything in particular and yet felt restless. The weather was perfect. I set off afoot for a place not far from my cottage, not far enough to be called a long walk, where a big gray crag or small cliff like an inland promontory, a spur of a forested mountain, towered up from the southeastern side of the Flaminian Highway. At that point the road was the boundary of the Imperial estate; the crag lay outside it, and, at that part of its foot which projected farthest, was not a hundred yards from the highway. The mountain rose a thousand feet or more from the meadows along the road. The crag was full three hundred feet high. It was perfectly possible to toil up the steep wooded slope of the mountain and walk out on either of two bush-covered shelves which ran round the crag. From the lower of these, where it belted the front of the vertical cliff, there was a fine view down upon the highway and along it both ways; from the upper more of the highway could be seen; from the very top of the crag, which was bare except for two clumps of gnarled trees and starved bushes near its brow, the view included a full two miles of the highway in each direction. I climbed the slope to the lower shelf and ensconced myself where I was shaded from the sun and had a clear view of the road both ways. From my coign I watched the traffic. I judged that the northern supply of arena- beasts was already overtaxed. The procession of wagons was no longer continuous. They came now in trains of a hundred or so with some miles between the convoys. Just as I settled myself no beast-wagons were in sight, the road-traffic was normal. An Imperial courier dashed into view from the south, tore past at full gallop, and vanished northwards; three family travelling carriages, also bound north, pulling to the side of the road to let him pass; as did a train of a score of mules laden with charcoal. The first sign of arena-beasts which I saw after I settled myself to watch was a string of eight elephants, each with a turbaned mahout rocking on his back, and seven each with his trunk clasping the tail of the elephant before him. This was the second batch of elephants I had heard of; the former, I had been told, came by way of Ateste, since the elephants could swim the Po and all the other rivers had strong stone bridges. These looked well after their four hundred mile tramp and fit for the hundred and odd ahead of them.