I spent the night in the regimental doctor's hut, and next day went off to the artillery observation point. It was a clear day and we could see not only our own lines and the enemies', but also some of the Austrians walking about near their trenches. A shell from us sent them scattering back into their burrows, and our guns were then turned on one point after another, the shells, as we could see, always exploding on or very close to the object aimed at; this day, there was only a half-hearted reply. The following day, I saw the guns themselves at work; the place of the battery was not likely to be located. It is very seldom during the war that a Russian battery has been silenced by the enemy. The Austrians, on the other hand, often place their guns on the crests of hills and have suffered severely from the accuracy of the Russian artillery, which is one of the striking features of the whole campaign. There is, further, this difference, that the Russians never fire without a target, whereas the Austrians in the most systematic way sweep whole areas in turn, as a rule doing extraordinarily little damage for the powder expended. One colonel suggested that the Emperor Francis Joseph must have more money than he knows what to do with. In the evening I set out with a party of soldiers for the infantry trenches. With a clear moon lighting the snow-clad slopes we made our way along the more exposed lines; there was no sign of life, though the Austrian trenches could be seen quite near. Passing under shelter we found the Russian mud huts, which take only three or four hours to make and give good cover from weather, bullets and shrapnel, but not from bombs. We sat for some time in an angle of the entrenchments; here several bombs had fallen close to a very exposed hut, in which however, the inhabitants still remained. We passed the night in another hut, which we could only enter in the dark for fear of drawing the enemy's fire. The scouts came in for instructions, headed by a young volunteer who was doing his first work of this kind. Voices went on long into the night; reports came in from various points. The scouts returned about 3 a.m. They had come on a body of Austrians double their force in a wood; they let themselves be nearly surrounded, then threw a hand-grenade with effect and scrambled back to our lines; as the whole Austrian line opened fire the reconnaissance had achieved its object, which was to ascertain whether the enemy had made any changes in his positions. In the early morning appeared an Austrian officer who had made his way across to us. He was smiling so broadly that I saw his smile before I saw the man. He was a Ruthenian and was married to a Serbian, so that all his sympathies were long since on our side; his wife was already under Russian rule in conquered Galicia, and his own great wish was to fight in the Serbian army. The Russian officers made him completely at home at once, putting their breakfast and their servants at his