Monday morning the four of us found the station for recruiting for the army and made application to join the Foreign Legion. The officers were agreeable but evinced no desire to urge us to enlist, and they informed us of an old rule in the Legion, that an applicant will not be examined or accepted until the day following his application. So we returned Tuesday morning at eight o’clock and took the physical examination, which was very thorough and the four of us were accepted. Twenty other men who meant to join the regular army were examined at the same time, six of whom were rejected, some solely on account of poor teeth. At five o’clock in the afternoon of Tuesday, November 24th, 1914, we signed articles which made us soldiers in the Army of the Republic of France, in the division _la Légion étrangère_, for service during the war. We were not asked to take any oath of allegiance to France, nor to renounce our allegiance to the United States; all that was required of us was to be over eighteen years of age and to pass the doctor. We were given five francs (one dollar) as spending money, and a railroad ticket to Lyon, where one of the depots of the Foreign Legion is located. It is to be our training station for four or five months, they say, before we can go to the front. No escort was furnished or effort made to see that we reported at Lyon and we learned it was the custom even before the war to trust recruits for the Legion to reach the depot of their own accord. We had time to take a further look around Bordeaux. We met soldiers in large numbers everywhere, and found they were of the same belief as the people generally—that the Germans would be defeated in two months. All theatres were closed except some moving picture shows, the receipts from them were given to the Red Cross fund. _Lyon, December 2, 1914._ We left Bordeaux Wednesday night at nine o’clock, riding second class. The cars are small and divided into compartments, each holding eight persons. Most of the passengers were soldiers returning to the front. It was difficult to sleep as the train stopped every half hour and the people getting off and on made considerable noise. Thursday was a clear day, and the bright sunlight enabled us to enjoy the magnificent scenery. The train was climbing mountains and going at a moderate pace. The construction of this railroad was a great engineering feat. One minute we would be in a tunnel, then suddenly emerge onto a frail bridge over a magnificent valley. Nearly all the land in sight was under cultivation, it being divided into small plots of about half an acre each. These plots were enclosed by stone walls three feet high and two feet thick and the walls extended as far as the eye could see. The people were all very friendly but the only one of our party who could talk to them was our Greek interpreter.