suddenly perceived an undulating
series of rough steps which enabled us to climb up to flat land again.

It is always a pleasure, even when the country is ugly, to walk with a
friend, to feel the grass under one's feet, to jump over fences and
ditches, to break thistles with one's stick, to pull leaves from the
bushes and wheat from the fields, to go where one's fancy dictates,
whistling, singing, talking, dreaming, without strange ears to listen to
one's conversation, and the sound of strange footsteps behind one, as
absolutely free as if one were in the desert!

Ah! Let us have air! air! And more space! Since our contracted souls
suffocate and die on the window-sill, since our captive spirits, like
the bear in its cage, turn around and around, and stagger against the
walls of their prison, why not, at least, let our nostrils breathe the
different perfumes of all the winds of the earth, why not let our eyes
rove over every horizon?

No steeple shone in the distance, no hamlet with thatched roofs and
square yards framed by clusters of trees, appeared on the side of a
hill; not a soul was to be seen, not even a peasant, a grazing sheep, or
a stray dog.

All those cultivated fields look uninhabited; the peasants work in them,
but they do not live there. One is led to believe that they benefit by
them but do not care about them in the least.

We saw a farm and walked in; a ragged woman served us some ice-cold milk
in earthen cups. The silence all around was peculiar. The woman watched
us eagerly, and we soon took our departure.

We walked into a valley, the narrow gorge of which appeared to extend to
the ocean. Tall grass with yellow flowers reached up to our waists, and
we had to take long strides in order to advance. We could hear the
murmur of flowing water near by, and we sank ankle-deep into the marshy
soil. Presently the two hills parted; their barren sides were covered
with short, stubby grass and here and there were big yellow patches of
moss. At the foot of one hill a stream wends its way through the
drooping boughs of the stunted shrubs that grow on its edges, and loses
itself in a quiet pond where long-legged insects disport themselves on
the leaves of the water-lilies. The sun beat down on us. The gnats
rubbed their wings together and bent the slender ends of the reeds with
the weight of their tiny bodies. We were alone in the tranquillity of
this desert.

At this point, the valley curved and widened an