If we would act upon the advice of these writers, we must digress as little as possible from the “Commentaries,” but without restricting ourselves to a literal translation. We have, then, adopted the narrative of Cæsar, though sometimes changing the order of the matter: we have abridged passages where there was a prodigality of details, and developed those which required elucidation. In order to indicate in a more precise manner the localities which witnessed so many battles, we have employed the modern names, especially in cases where ancient geography did not furnish corresponding names. The investigation of the battle-fields and siege operations has led to the discovery of visible and certain traces of the Roman entrenchments. The reader, by comparing the plans of the excavations with the text, will be convinced of the rigorous accuracy of Cæsar in describing the countries he passed over, and the works he caused to be executed. CHAPTER II. STATE OF GAUL IN THE TIME OF CÆSAR. (See Plate I.) [Sidenote: Geographical Description.] I. Transalpine Gaul had for its boundaries the ocean, the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean, the Alps, and the Rhine. This portion of Europe, so well marked out by nature, comprised what is now France, nearly the whole of Switzerland, the Rhine Provinces, Belgium, and the south of Holland. It had the form of an irregular pentagon, and the country of the Carnutes (the _Orléanais_) was considered to be its centre.[40] An uninterrupted chain of heights divided Gaul, as it divides modern France, from north to south, into two parts. This line commences at the Monts Corbières, at the foot of the Eastern Pyrenees, is continued by the Southern Cévennes and by the mountains of the Vivarais, Lyonnais, and Beaujolais (called the Northern Cévennes), and declines continually with the mountains of the Charolais and the Côte-d’Or, until it reaches the plateau of Langres; after quitting this plateau, it leaves to the east the Monts Faucilles, which unite it to the Vosges, and, inclining towards the north-west, it follows, across the mountains of the Meuse, the western crests of the Argonne and the Ardennes, and terminates, in decreasing undulations, towards Cape Griz-Nez, in the Pas-de-Calais. This long and tortuous ridge, more or less interrupted, which may be called the backbone of the country, is the great line of the watershed. It separates two slopes. On the eastern slope flow the Rhine and the Rhone, in opposite directions, the first towards the Northern Sea, the second towards the Mediterranean; on the western slope rise the Seine, the Loire, and the Garonne, which go to throw themselves into the ocean. These rivers flow at the bottom of vast basins, the bounds of which, as is well known, are indicated by the lines of elevations connecting the sources of all the tributaries of the principal stream.