n some Parisian circle. To him I could explain myself, and to him
I exhibited the envelope of my letter, inscribed with the words, "Grand
Quartier General." My new friend bowed to this awful address like a Turk
to the firman of the padisha, poured out a volley of wrath on the troop,
ordered the instant and very reluctant restitution of my property, and
with a couple of the squadron at our heels, took me under his escort, to
deliver my papers in person.

After an hour's gallop through rocks, rivulets, and brambles, which
seemed without end, and totally uninhabited, except by an occasional
patrol of the irregulars of the Austrian and Prussian forces--barbarians
as savage-looking as ever were Goth or Hun, and capital substitutes for
the wolves and wild-boars which they had ejected for the time--a sudden
opening of the forest brought us within view of the immense camp of the
combined armies.

All the externals of war are splendid; it is the interior, the
consequences, the operation of that mighty trampler of man that are
startling. This was my first sight of that most magnificent of all the
atrocious inventions of human evil--an army. The forces of the two most
warlike monarchies of Europe were spread before me; nearly a hundred and
fifty thousand troops, with all the numberless followers of a host in
the field, covering a range of low hills which circled the horizon.
While we were still at a considerable distance, a gun was fired from the
central hill, answered by others from the flanks. The rolling of drums
set the vast line in motion, and just at the moment when the sun was
lying on the edge of the west, the brigades, descending each from its
height, halted on the slope. The whole vast manoeuvre was executed
with the exactness of a single mind. The blaze of the sun on the arms,
the standards, and the tents crowning the brow of the hills, was
magical. "Are they marching to battle?" was my amazed question to my
companion. His only answer was to check his charger, take off his shako,
and bend his forehead to his saddle-bow. A burst of universal harmony,
richer than I had ever yet conceived, explained the mystery. It was the
evening prayer. The fine bands of the regiments joined the voices of the
soldiery, and I listened, in unbroken rapture and reverence, until its
close. In court or cathedral, in concert or shrine, I had never before
so much felt the power of sound. It finished in a solemn chorus, and
accumulation of musi