XVII July 18. The sun was very high. It was noon, the hour in which the gendarmes were accustomed to begin their period of rest. We started on our journey. Before arriving at Vittorio we met numerous squads of Russian and Italian prisoners working on the roads, breaking stones with hammers. The roads were so badly kept that whenever a vehicle passed huge clouds of white dust arose. Those miserable remnants of men whose faces and bodies were evidence of the unheard of sufferings they had endured, staggered and swayed, for they were drunk from the heat of the sun and fatigue. An enemy soldier, armed with rifle and drawn bayonet, superintended the work and another oppressor held a whip in his hand. As soon as one of them fell, overcome by heat and weariness, the watchman cracked his whip in the air, and unless the prisoner resumed his work at once the watchman struck him heavily on the poor, lacerated shoulders and the torn flesh. I should have liked to delay a moment with one of them; I should have liked to pour out to them all my compassion, all my sympathy, but I restrained myself to avoid arousing suspicion and the need for explaining to them who I was, for, from my way of talking, they might suspect that I was an Italian officer. It was very warm and the pack on my shoulders weighed heavily upon me. The bundle was full of wood which I took with me as a precaution, since I intended to go into my house which had been turned into an Austrian headquarters. If someone were to ask me the reason why I entered I could say that I was a peasant who had come to bring some wood to the civilians who were still living in the house. Along the entire road there was a great deal of commotion and everywhere the hungry, weary prisoners trailed heavily about. An immense sultriness weighed us down, and the mountains, burned and tanned by the sun, flung back their heat upon the white roads. We arrived at Costa where the Austrians had constructed a large station for despatching the aerial cable cars with material and food for the army at the front. On that day I scarcely recognized the scenery which I have known for so many years, because it was so changed. Where there used to be broad, tranquil cultivated fields there was now the noise and excitement of a great railroad station despatching along many tracks the traffic of its trains. Only one thing had survived, the little church surrounded by cypress trees which adjoined the cemetery.