The river Bialka springs from under a hill no bigger than a cottage;
the water murmurs in its little hollow like a swarm of bees getting
ready for their flight.

For the distance of fifteen miles the Bialka flows on level ground.
Woods, villages, trees in the fields, crucifixes by the roadside show
up clearly and become smaller and smaller as they recede into the
distance. It is a bit of country like a round table on which human
beings live like a butterfly covered by a blue flower. What man finds
and what another leaves him he may eat, but he must not go too far or
fly too high.

Fifteen to twenty miles farther to the south the country begins to
change. The shallow banks of the Bialka rise and retreat from each
other, the flat fields become undulating, the path leads ever more
frequently and steeply up and down hill.

The plain has disappeared and given place to a ravine; you are
surrounded by hills of the height of a many-storied house; all are
covered with bushes; sometimes the ascent is steep, sometimes gradual.
The first ravine leads into a second, wilder and narrower, thence into
a succession of nine or ten. Cold and dampness cling to you when you
walk through them; you climb one of the hills and find yourself
surrounded by a network of forking and winding ravines.

A short distance from the river-banks the landscape is again quite
different. The hills grow smaller and stand separate like great
ant-hills. You have emerged from the country of ravines into the broad
valley of the Bialka, and the bright sun shines full into your eyes.