ground, with fire and blood and shouts and all the clamour of death. And now by means of a narrow, carefully hidden descent we penetrate into those paths termed communication trenches, which will bring us close, quite close, to the barbarians, so close that we shall almost hear them breathe. A walk along those trenches is a somewhat unpleasant experience and seems interminable. The atmosphere is hot and heavy; you labour under the impression that people are pressing upon you too closely, and that your shoulders will rub against the earthen walls; and then at every ten or twelve paces there are little bends, intentionally abrupt, which force you to turn in your own ground; you are conscious of having walked ten times the distance and of having advanced scarcely at all. How great is the temptation to scale the parapet which borders the trench in order to reach the open air, or merely to put one's head above it to see at least in which direction the path tends. But to do so would be certain death. And indeed there is something torturing in this sense of imprisonment within this long labyrinth, and in the knowledge that in order to escape from it alive there is no help for it, but to retrace one's steps along that vague succession of little turnings, strangling and obstructing. The heat and oppressiveness of the atmosphere in these tunnels is increased by the number of persons to be met there, men in horizon blue overcoats, flattening themselves against the wall, whom, nevertheless, the visitor brushes against as he passes. In some parts the trenches are crowded like the galleries of an ant-hill, and if it suddenly became necessary to take flight, what a scene would ensue of confusion and crushing. To be sure the faces of these men are so smiling and at the same time so resolute that the idea of their flight from any danger whatsoever does not even enter the mind. As the hour for their evening meal approaches they begin to set up their little tables, here and there, in the safest corners, in shelters with vaulted roofs. Obviously it is necessary to have supper early in order to be able to see, for certainly no lamps will be lighted. At nightfall it will be as dark here as in hell, and unless there is an alarm, an attack with sudden and flashing lights, they will have to feel their way about until to-morrow morning.