We had somehow thought our idea was quite original, but we found that several of our _confrères_ had gone off even earlier than us, but in another direction; we therefore had the road we had chosen all to ourselves. As there was no particular reason for us to return that day, we decided to put up somewhere for the night, and took our handbags with us. The zone of operations we were going to is a popular region for tourists in peace time, so there was no fear of not finding lodgings somewhere. It was a glorious summer morning, and as we sped along in the invigorating air through sleepy, picturesque villages and wide tracts of tranquil country, covered with vines and maize-fields, towards the distant mountains, it was difficult to realize that we were not on a holiday jaunt but on our way to scenes of war. To me especially the feeling of entire freedom of action was particularly delightful after the anxious weeks I had spent in Udine and on the Isonzo front, when the mere sight of a carabinieri would make me tremble in my boots for fear I was going to be arrested. Now, with my _salvo condotto_ safe in my pocket and my correspondent’s “brassard” on my coat sleeve, I could look carabinieri and all such despots in the face without misgivings of unpleasant happenings. There must have been some subtle tonic effect in the atmosphere that morning, for my companions were equally elated, and we were positively like three schoolboys let loose: even the chauffeur was infected by our boisterous spirits, and for the first few miles he pushed the car along at its top speed with reckless impetuosity. The firing line we were making for was in the sector comprised between the Stelvio Pass and the Lake of Garda. In the valley of Guidicaria we reached the trenches, and had our first impression of the magnitude of the operations the Italians are undertaking. What had been accomplished here during the three months since the war started was _en évidence_ before our eyes. I was fully prepared from what I had seen on the Udine front for something equally astonishing in this sector, but I must confess the scenes before me, now that we were in touch with the troops, filled me with amazement. The achievements on the middle Isonzo were great, but here they were little short of the miraculous. It was almost unbelievable that what we saw was only the work of three short months. Trenches and gun emplacements confronted you on all sides. A sort of gigantic furrow wound through the valley and climbed the mountain like some prehistoric serpent, till lost to view away up on the summits more than two thousand metres above; and round about this fantastic thing were numberless little quaint grey shapes dotted here and there on the rocks, and often in positions so steep of access that you wondered how they got up there at all, and for what purpose.