urther to the right,
behind the old enemy line, the ground loses its monotony and passes
into lovely and romantic sweeping valleys, which our men could not see
from their lines.

Well behind our English lines in this district and above the dip where
Carnoy stands, the fourth of the four roads from Albert runs eastward
along a ridge-top between a double row of noble trees which have not
suffered very severely, except at their eastern end. Just north of
this road, and a little below it on the slopes of the ridge, is the
village of Maricourt. Our line turns to the southeast opposite
Montauban, and curves in towards the ridge so as to run just outside
Maricourt, along the border of a little wood to the east of the
houses. From all the high ground to the north of it, from the enemy's
second line and beyond, the place is useful to give a traveller his
bearings. The line of plane-trees along the road on the ridge, and
the big clumps of trees round the village, are landmarks which cannot
be mistaken from any part of the field.

Little is to be seen from our line outside Maricourt Wood, except the
enemy line a little beyond it, and the trees of other woods behind it.

The line turns to the south, parallel with the wood, crosses the
fourth road (which goes on towards Peronne) and goes down some
difficult, rather lovely, steep chalk slopes, wooded in parts, to the
ruins of Fargny Mill on the Somme River.

The Somme River is here a very beautiful expanse of clear chalk water
like a long wandering shallow lake. Through this shallow lake the
river runs in half a dozen channels, which are parted and thwarted in
many places by marsh, reed-beds, osier plots, and tracts of swampy
woodland. There is nothing quite like it in England. The river-bed is
pretty generally between five and six hundred yards across.

Nearly two miles above the place where the old enemy line comes down
to the bank, the river thrusts suddenly north-westward, in a very
noble great horse-shoe, the bend of which comes at Fargny where our
lines touched it. The enemy line touched the horse-shoe close to our
own at a curious wooded bank or slope, known (from its shape on the
map, which is like a cocked hat) as the Chapeau de Gendarme. Just
behind our lines, at the bend, the horse-shoe sweeps round to the
south. The river-bed at once broadens to about two-thirds of a mile,
and the river, in four or five main channels, passes under a most
beautiful sweep of steep cha