Under A Scattered But Clearing Sky I First Limped, Then, As
My Blood Warmed, Strode Down The Path That Led
Between the trees of
the farther vale and was soon following a stream that leaped from one
fall to another
Till it should lead me to the main road, to Belfort,
to the Jura, to the Swiss whom I had never known, and at last to
Italy.
But before I call up the recollection of that hidden valley, I must
describe with a map the curious features of the road that lay before
me into Switzerland. I was standing on the summit of that knot of
hills which rise up from every side to form the Ballon d'Alsace, and
make an abrupt ending to the Vosges. Before me, southward and
eastward, was a great plain with the fortress of Belfort in the midst
of it. This plain is called by soldiers 'the Gap of Belfort', and is
the only break in the hill frontier that covers France all the way
from the Mediterranean to Flanders. On the farther side of this plain
ran the Jura mountains, which are like a northern wall to Switzerland,
and just before you reach them is the Frontier. The Jura are fold on
fold of high limestone ridges, thousands of feet high, all parallel,
with deep valleys, thousands of feet deep, between them; and beyond
their last abrupt escarpment is the wide plain of the river Aar.
Now the straight line to Rome ran from where I stood, right across
that plain of Belfort, right across the ridges of the Jura, and cut
the plain of the Aar a few miles to the west of a town called
Solothurn or Soleure, which stands upon that river.
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