In the beginning there may have been some stunted trees upon these hills, but when I was there all verdure was gone, burnt up in shell fire or gas attacks. An officer who accompanied me described these attacks as the most inhuman imaginable. I had known this man for years and no better sportsman or soldier exists. His mother was an Austrian and he entered the war without any great enthusiasm. But he told me that never in his life had he experienced the sensation of hate until he witnessed the first gas attack. The sight of his men returning under its influence filled him with passion, and the finding of the iron spiked maces which were used by the Austrians to hammer the heads of the bewildered, gasping Italians left no room in his heart to doubt the baseness of the enemy. One of these maces was given to me. I have it. III--GIGANTIC FEATS OF ITALIAN ENGINEERS The engineering problems solved in the Carso are such as would be considered insurmountable in peace times. Fighting has been taken to the very tops of the mountains. In order to get material where it is needed and to transfer troops quickly from one sector to another more than 6,000 kilometers of automobile road have been literally chiselled out of the solid rock of almost sheer cliffs. To the most difficult peaks mule paths have been carved, and after victory comes a whole new and marvelous country will be opened to the dilletante tourist by means of these extraordinary trails. The Italian engineers have hesitated at nothing. Mountains considered unscalable have been mastered, and one now goes up to a forbidding peak or crag as one formerly went up to an easy pass. Palisade formation is no longer an obstacle, the roads traversing the palisades being of perfect type and execution. The admiration and marvel I experienced going over them are indescribable and the feats that have been accomplished well nigh unbelievable. Over the roads and mule paths stretching higher and ever higher to the snow-piled mountain tops cannon of all calibers are hauled by traction or man power and are installed in impregnable positions. Often heavy cannon are passed from mountain top to mountain top by means of wire cables, just as cash boxes are flung by wire trolleys from department store counters to cashiers' desks. Having motored nearly to the summit of a mountain, I entered a tunnel. Presently I found myself on the other side of the mountain, in a gallery where a battery of heavy artillery was mounted. On the one side as we entered we had looked down upon the sunlit plain of Vicenza. On the other side, in the shadow, we faced the tops of the Trentino Alps. The contrast was bewildering. Praise is poor recompense for the men of science who dared to imagine and for the willing hands that dared to execute those extraordinary feats. And the one I mention was not exceptional. An Alpini remarked to me: "It is indeed the death of Alpinism, for every one now is an Alpinist!"