greenish-blue tint, and a narrow strip of nondescript, sandy coast
suspended somehow between the strange sea and unlovely sky. At noon, the
Rochambeau began at a good speed her journey up the river, passing
tile-roofed villages and towns built of pumice-gray stone, and great
flat islands covered with acres upon acres of leafy, bunchy vines. There
was a scurry to the rail; some one cried, "Voilà des Boches," and I saw
working in a vineyard half a dozen men in gray-green German regimentals.
A poilu in a red cap was standing nonchalantly beside them. As the
Rochambeau, following the channel, drew incredibly close to the bank,
the Germans leaned on their hoes and watched us pass, all save one, who
continued to hoe industriously round the roots of the vines, ignoring us
with a Roman's disdain. "Comme ils sont laids" (How ugly they are), said
a voice. There was no surprise in the tone, which expressed the expected
confirmation of a past judgment. It was the pastry cook's voluble wife
who had spoken. The land through which we were passing, up to that time
simply the pleasant countryside of the Bordelais, turned in an instant
to the France of the Great War.

Late in the afternoon, the river, slowly narrowing, turned a great bend,
and the spires of Bordeaux, violet-gray in the smoky rose of early
twilight, were seen just ahead. A broad, paved, dirty avenue, with the
river on one side and a row of shabby houses on the other, led from the
docks to the city, and down this street, marching with Oriental dignity,
came a troop of Arabs. There was a picture of a fat sous-officier
leading, of brown-white rags and mantles waving in the breeze blowing
from the harbor, of lean, muscular, black-brown legs, and dark,
impassive faces. "Algerian recruits," said an officer of the boat. It
was a first glimpse at the universality of the war; it held one's mind
to realize that while some were quitting their Devon crofts, others were
leaving behind them the ancestral well at the edges of the ancient