private judgement and not heeding tradition, here represented by the highroad which closely follows the river. For though a straight tunnel to Archettes would have saved distance, yet a climb over that high hill and through the pathless wood on its summit was folly.
I went at first over wide, sloping fields, and some hundred feet above the valley I crossed a little canal. It was made on a very good system, and I recommend it to the riparian owners of the Upper Wye, which needs it. They take the water from the Moselle (which is here broad and torrential and falls in steps, running over a stony bed with little swirls and rapids), and they lead it along at an even gradient, averaging, as it were, the uneven descent of the river. In this way they have a continuous stream running through fields that would otherwise be bare and dry, but that are thus nourished into excellent pastures.
Above these fields the forest went up steeply. I had not pushed two hundred yards into its gloom and confusion when I discovered that I had lost my way. It was necessary to take the only guide I had and to go straight upwards wherever the line of greatest inclination seemed to lie, for that at least would take me to a summit and probably to a view of the valley; whereas if I tried to make for the shoulder of the hill (which had been my first intention) I might have wandered about till nightfall.
It was an old man in a valley called the Curicante in Colorado that taught me this, if one lost one's way going upwards to make at once along the steepest line, but if one lost it going downwards, to listen for water and reach it and
43
----
THE FALSE BATTERY
follow it. I wish I had space to tell all about this old man, who gave me hospitality out there. He was from New England and was lonely, and had brought out at great expense a musical box to cheer him. Of this he was very proud, and though it only played four silly hymn tunes, yet, as he and I listened to it, heavy tears came into his eyes and light tears into mine, because these tunes reminded him of his home. But I have no time to do more than mention him, and must return to my forest.
I climbed, then, over slippery pine needles and under the charged air of those trees, which was full of dim, slanting light from the afternoon sun, till, nearly at the summit, I came upon a clearing which I at once recognized as a military road, leading to what we used to call a 'false battery', that is, a dug-out with embrasures into which guns could be placed but in which no guns were. For ever since the French managed to produce a really mobile heavy gun they have constructed any amount of such auxiliary works between the permanent forts. These need no fixed guns to be emplaced, since the French can use now one such parapet, now another, as occasion serves, and the advantage is that your guns are never useless, but can always be brought round where they are needed, and that thus six guns will do more work than twenty used to do.
This false battery was on the brow of the hill, and when I reached it I looked down the slope, over the brushwood that hid the wire entanglements, and there was the whole valley of the Moselle at my feet.
As this was the first really great height, so this was the first really great view that I met with on my pilgrimage. I drew it carefully, piece by piece, sitting there a long time in the declining sun and noting all I saw. Archettes, just below; the flat valley with the river winding from side to side; the straight rows of poplar trees; the dark pines on the hills, and the rounded mountains rising farther and higher into the distance until the last I saw, far off to the south-east,
----
THE GREAT VIEW
must have been the Ballon d'Alsace at the sources of the Moselle--the hill that marked the first full stage in my journey and that overlooked Switzerland.
Indeed, this is the peculiar virtue of walking to a far place, and especially of walking there in a straight line, that one gets
I went at first over wide, sloping fields, and some hundred feet above the valley I crossed a little canal. It was made on a very good system, and I recommend it to the riparian owners of the Upper Wye, which needs it. They take the water from the Moselle (which is here broad and torrential and falls in steps, running over a stony bed with little swirls and rapids), and they lead it along at an even gradient, averaging, as it were, the uneven descent of the river. In this way they have a continuous stream running through fields that would otherwise be bare and dry, but that are thus nourished into excellent pastures.
Above these fields the forest went up steeply. I had not pushed two hundred yards into its gloom and confusion when I discovered that I had lost my way. It was necessary to take the only guide I had and to go straight upwards wherever the line of greatest inclination seemed to lie, for that at least would take me to a summit and probably to a view of the valley; whereas if I tried to make for the shoulder of the hill (which had been my first intention) I might have wandered about till nightfall.
It was an old man in a valley called the Curicante in Colorado that taught me this, if one lost one's way going upwards to make at once along the steepest line, but if one lost it going downwards, to listen for water and reach it and
43
----
THE FALSE BATTERY
follow it. I wish I had space to tell all about this old man, who gave me hospitality out there. He was from New England and was lonely, and had brought out at great expense a musical box to cheer him. Of this he was very proud, and though it only played four silly hymn tunes, yet, as he and I listened to it, heavy tears came into his eyes and light tears into mine, because these tunes reminded him of his home. But I have no time to do more than mention him, and must return to my forest.
I climbed, then, over slippery pine needles and under the charged air of those trees, which was full of dim, slanting light from the afternoon sun, till, nearly at the summit, I came upon a clearing which I at once recognized as a military road, leading to what we used to call a 'false battery', that is, a dug-out with embrasures into which guns could be placed but in which no guns were. For ever since the French managed to produce a really mobile heavy gun they have constructed any amount of such auxiliary works between the permanent forts. These need no fixed guns to be emplaced, since the French can use now one such parapet, now another, as occasion serves, and the advantage is that your guns are never useless, but can always be brought round where they are needed, and that thus six guns will do more work than twenty used to do.
This false battery was on the brow of the hill, and when I reached it I looked down the slope, over the brushwood that hid the wire entanglements, and there was the whole valley of the Moselle at my feet.
As this was the first really great height, so this was the first really great view that I met with on my pilgrimage. I drew it carefully, piece by piece, sitting there a long time in the declining sun and noting all I saw. Archettes, just below; the flat valley with the river winding from side to side; the straight rows of poplar trees; the dark pines on the hills, and the rounded mountains rising farther and higher into the distance until the last I saw, far off to the south-east,
----
THE GREAT VIEW
must have been the Ballon d'Alsace at the sources of the Moselle--the hill that marked the first full stage in my journey and that overlooked Switzerland.
Indeed, this is the peculiar virtue of walking to a far place, and especially of walking there in a straight line, that one gets
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