saw that the river before me needed fording, like all
the rest; and as my map showed me there was no bridge for many miles
down, I cast about to cross directly, if possible on some man's
shoulders.

I met an old woman with a heap of grass on her back; I pointed to the
river, and said (in Lingua Franca) that I wished to cross. She again
used that word _'molinar',_ and I had an inkling that it meant
'miller'. I said to myself--

'Where there is a miller there is a mill. For _Ubi Petrus ibi
Ecclesia._ Where there is a mill there is water; a mill must have
motive power:' (a) I must get near the stream; (b) I must look out
for the noise and aspect of a mill.

I therefore (thanking the grass-bearing woman) went right over the
fields till I saw a great, slow mill-wheel against a house, and a sad
man standing looking at it as though it were the Procession of God's
Providence. He was thinking of many things. I tapped him on the
shoulder (whereat he started) and spoke the great word of that valley,
_'molinar'_. It opened all the gates of his soul. He smiled at me like
a man grown young again, and, beckoning me to follow, led radiantly up
the sluice to where it drew from the river.

Here three men were at work digging a better entry for the water. One
was an old, happy man in spectacles, the second a young man with
stilts in his hands, the third was very tall and narrow; his face was
sad, and he was of the kind that endure all things and conquer. I said
'_Molinar_?'' I had found him.

To the man who had brought me I gave 50 c., and so innocent and good
are these people that he said _'Pourquoi?'_ or words like it, and I
said it was necessary. Then I said to the molinar, _'Quanta?'_ and he,
holding up a tall finger, said '_Una Lira'._ The young man leapt on to
his stilts, the molinar stooped down and I got upon his shoulders, and
we all attempted the many streams of the river Parma, in which I think
I should by myself have drowned.

I say advisedly--'I should have been drowned.' These upper rivers of
the hills run high and low according to storms and to the melting of
the snows. The river of Parma (for this torrent at last fed Parma)
was higher than the rest.

Even the molinar, the god of that valley, had to pick his way
carefully, and the young man on stilts had to go before, much higher
than mortal men, and up above the water. I could see him as he went,
and I could see that, to tell the truth, there was a ford--a rare