Marching always commences in the early hours after midnight. It then goes on uninterruptedly, with the hourly halts for rest of five minutes, until the task has been completed. This is a peculiarity of the Legion from which there is no deviation, even when in the field. Be the distance ever so great, it is covered in _one_ march. The Légionnaire marches.... * * * * * The Foreign Legion, as an old troop of mercenaries, works like a machine. The newly recruited human material is quickly adapted to the old, faultlessly working parts. In barrack life and on the drill-ground the officers stand in the background. For these stages they are superfluous, and their work is confined to paper reports or to an occasional visit to the drill-ground. While I was serving in the Foreign Legion I only came into close touch with the officers of my company on the march. We scarcely knew them; the captain came into the company's office in the forenoon, and was not seen again for the rest of the day. The education of the men and their whole training is left to the non-commissioned officers, above all to the corporals. They were themselves once trained in the same service and possess, with rare exceptions, great talent in training their men to be independent. The system of the marches is brutal; the légionnaire must expend what there is in him of vital energy and human strength, but in the military service he is treated as a soldier, as a valuable soldier, whom one does not worry with pedantic demands and paltry red-tape affairs, but treats him in a sensible, I might say loving, manner, in order to draw from him the utmost he is capable of. From the military point of view he is really well treated. During my training I did not once hear a word of bad language, and if a strong expression was used, it was done in fun. Every morning and every afternoon nine recruits of the eleventh were taken to a secluded spot, a shady avenue near the Plateau, and were taken in hand by a corporal and a légionnaire, première classe. Every movement was explained to us, the purpose of every manoeuvre illustrated precisely, so that we knew why we had to make this or that exercise. The smallest details were all explained. It was not considered a crime if in lining-up one man was a trifle farther forward than the other; but if any man was awkward at boxing, that was considered a very serious thing, and he was drilled by himself until he grasped the fact that boxing was a most important matter, which sharpened wits and nerves. In the pauses the instructors spoke to us and explained a hundred little things. The gun had to be carried across the shoulder in a certain place, because that was the easiest way of carrying and balancing it. We were obliged to work hard, but never had the feeling of being bothered with anything unnecessary. It was practical work, the reason for which every one understood.