Here and there on the remoter wooded peaks are stately ruins of feudal
castles, whilst all the way our path lies amid bright foliage of young
forest trees, chestnut and oak, pine and acacia, and the ground is purple
with heather. Blocks of the conglomerate used in the construction of the
so-called Pagan Wall meet us at every turn, and as we gaze down the steep
sides of the promontory we can trace its massive outline. A scene not
soon to be forgotten! The still, solitary field of Carnac, with its
avenues of monoliths, is not more impressive than these Cyclopean walls,
thrown as a girdle round the green slopes of St. Odile.

We would fain have stayed here some time, but much more still remained to
be seen and accomplished in Alsace. Rothau, the district known as the Ban
de la Roche, where Oberlin laboured for sixty years, Thann, Wesserling,
with a sojourn among French subjects of the German Empire at Mulhouse--
all these things had to be done, and the bright summer days were drawing
to an end.



IV

FROM BARR TO STRASBURG, MULHOUSE AND BELFORT

The opening sentences of this chapter, written many years ago, are no
longer applicable. Were I to revisit Alsace-Lorraine at the present time,
I should only hear French speech among intimate friends and in private,
so strictly of late years has the law of lese-majeste been, and is still,
enforced.