And This Map Is Also Useful To Show
What Route I Followed For My First Three Days Past Epinal And
Remiremont Up To The Source Of The River, And Up Over The Great Hill,
The Ballon D'Alsace.
I show the river valley like a trench, and the
hills above it shaded, till the mountainous upper part, the Vosges, is
put in black.
I chose the decline of the day for setting out, because
of the great heat a little before noon and four hours after it.
Remembering this, I planned to walk at night and in the mornings and
evenings, but how this design turned out you shall hear in a moment.
I had not gone far, not a quarter of a mile, along my road leaving the
town, when I thought I would stop and rest a little and make sure that
I had started propitiously and that I was really on my way to Rome; so
I halted by a wall and looked back at the city and the forts, and drew
what I saw in my book. It was a sight that had taken a firm hold of my
mind in boyhood, and that will remain in it as long as it can make
pictures for itself out of the past. I think this must be true of all
conscripts with regard to the garrison in which they have served, for
the mind is so fresh at twenty-one and the life so new to every
recruit as he joins it, he is so cut off from books and all the
worries of life, that the surroundings of the place bite into him and
take root, as one's school does or one's first home.
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