or
such demands. Across furrows and deeply cut wheel tracks, across loose
footbridges, through puddles that are more like ponds, and through
deep holes, motorcars--fast automobiles and gigantic motor
trucks--rush and rumble madly, from time to time helplessly sinking
down into the mud and mire till relays of horses and the force of the
next detachment pushing forward on its way rescues them and they are
off again."

"The road is lined with a sad seam of dead horses. Still other
cadavers poison the air and entice swarms of greedy crows. The
Russians have killed all cattle which they were unable to carry along
quickly enough or to eat upon the spot, and then left the carcasses on
or alongside the road: cattle, pigs, sheep have been shot down in this
fashion, so that the pursuer should find no other booty than ashes and
carrion.

"At some distance from the line of march there may be left some
untouched villages, sound, normal, human settlements. But one does not
see them. Wherever the fighting has been going on, we pass by debris
and ruins. Big villages have been burned from one end to the other
into empty rows of chimneys and blackened heaps of tumbled-down
houses.

"The churches alone sometimes have been shown some respect. As far as
they have not been riddled by shells or have not lost their roofs,
they are still standing, clean and almost supernatural with their
white or pink wooden walls, their shrilly blue or deep red domes, and
their shining gilt decorations. Everything else has gone up in flames
or has been shot to pieces.

"Out of the general wreckage a few utensils and pieces of furniture
stick out here and there: bent beds, crumpled-up sewing machines,
half-melted pans and pots. Sometimes it is even possible to form an
idea of the former appearance of a house from the design of its
blackened wall paper or from a few remnants of some other decorations.
Here and there small corners and nooks have been preserved as if by a
miracle, and, in some unaccountable way, have survived the ruin that
surrounds them on all sides: strips of a flower garden, or perhaps a
summer-house with a table in it and a cover and breakfast dishes on
the table.

"Up on a chimney, half of which has tumbled down, stands a stork, as
if he were meditating over the ruin wrought by human hands; suddenly
he pulls himself together, spreads out his wings with quick decision,
floats down into his familiar pond and forgets the raving of madden