ay, caught sight of the
hurrying gray insect which was our car; he rang up on the telephone a
certain battery and spoke a few words to the battery commander; and an
instant later on the road along which we were travelling Austrian
shells began to fall. Shells being expensive, that little episode cost
the Emperor-King several hundred kronen, we figured. As for us, it
merely interrupted a most interesting morning's ride.

Leaving the car in the shelter of a hill, we toiled up a steep and
stony slope to a point from which I was able to get an admirable idea
of the general lay of Italy's Eastern Front. Coming toward me was the
Isonzo--a bright blue stream the width of the Thames at New
London--which, happy at escaping from its gloomy mountain defile, went
rioting over the plain in a great westward curve. Turning, I could
catch a glimpse, through a notch in the hills, of the white towers and
pink roofs of Monfalcone against the Adriatic's changeless blue. To
the east of Monfalcone rose the red heights of the Carso, the barren
limestone plateau which stretches from the Isonzo south into Istria.
And beyond the Carso I could trace the whole curve of the mountains
from in front of Trieste up past Gorizia and away to the Carnia. The
Italian front, I might add, divides itself into four sectors: the
Isonzo, the Carnia and Cadore, the Trentino, and the Alpine.

Directly below us, not more than a kilometre away, was a village which
the Austrians were shelling. Through our glasses we could see the
effects of the bombardment as plainly as though we had been watching a
football game from the upper tier of seats in the Yale Bowl. They were
using a considerable number of guns of various calibers and the crash
of the bursting shells was almost incessant. A shell struck a rather
pretentious building, which was evidently the town hall; there was a
burst of flame, and a torrent of bricks and beams and tiles shot
skyward amid a geyser of green-brown smoke. Another projectile chose
as its target the tall white campanile, which suddenly slumped into
the street, a heap of brick and plaster. Now and again we caught
glimpses of tiny figures--Italian soldiers, most likely--scuttling for
shelter. Occasionally the Austrians would vary their rain of heavy
projectiles with a sort of shell that went _bang_ and released a
fleecy cloud of smoke overhead and then dropped a parcel of high
explosive that burst on the ground. It was curious to think that the