"I started again at 6.30 this morning, and got here, without stopping, at 1 o'clock; nothing but soldiers, horses, and baggage, besides sick men by the hundreds, hospitals filled. I never saw such a sight. To-night I am going to Treves, and then on to Metz, via Saarlouis and Saarbruck, as the road via Vionville is not open on account of the French holding it. I will write from Metz and let you know my movements. I mean to attach myself to the English Ambulance, if possible, for a while, if I can see anything more by doing so." And again on November 13, from Brussels: "From Luxembourg I went on to Treves, Saarbruck, Metz, and then round by Ottange, through Belgium to Brussels again. I went to Gravelotte and several battlefields, and picked up heaps of things, most of which I have got with me; but as nothing is allowed to go over the French frontier, there was a difficulty about passing. I met a man named Caldecott in the service, and he and I travelled together all the way; we drove across the frontier with our things, and so got them through. Metz is in a terrible state; nothing to eat or drink, or place to sleep. I could not write, as all postal communication is stopped, and most of the country round Metz a desert. "I shall come by the coach Thursday night, so if you could send the cart to Shipley to fetch my things, I will just walk over." {32} [Sidenote: 1871-3] Writing on the day following his return, his sister gives Stephen a rchauffé of the traveller's tales: "Metz is not injured in the least, but is full of soldiers, and that is why there was no place to sleep in there. When Willie left, the shops were open and provisions coming in. Willie travelled with another Englishman in a waggon with a poor starved horse, and was going about in this way for four or five days. The cold intense; deep snow. He saw 25,000 prisoners going into Germany, packed in trucks, forty officers and men in a truck like cattle, and snow among them. He slept in a hospital three nights, 1,700 men in it. "I do not think, from what he says, that travelling is over safe--that is, on the French side. The sentries are very sharp; an Englishman who was foolishly travelling by himself, and at night, and could speak no language well, was shot a month ago. "Willie is glad he went; he met an old gentleman who knew grandpapa at Saarbruck." It is much to be regretted that the daily impressions of this tour were not recorded with the accuracy of the Kashmir trip, but 1867 seems to have been the only year in which he kept a journal. We hear nothing of how he contrived to get anything to eat, or to get about at all, in a region stripped of supplies by the armies that had passed through; but the interesting fact remains that he did visit this ground, and reappeared at home on Thursday, November 17.