A breeze is springing up, the shepherd gathers his flock and, as mournful as ever, he slowly takes the footpath that leads down the hill towards the village.
I follow him without knowing what mysterious power draws me in that direction.
Perhaps some Druid magician holds me under a potent spell, which enables me to forget who I am, whence I come, and even to what century I belong, and to witness these strange scenes, which, well nigh forgotten by all living beings, I alone am permitted to watch? Let me try, at all events, to profit by this rare piece of good fortune.
I reach the low village and find it occupied by a colony of Salic Franks, who live scattered all along the Rhine. With their eyes fixed upon the left bank, they are just now far more occupied with the invasion of Germany by the Romans, than with the thought of invading Gaul themselves.—I feel suddenly a deep interest in these people. What Frenchman of this nineteenth century can feel sure that the blood in his veins is not the same that once gave life and strength to these terrible warriors from the North, Franks or Gauls? We are all natives of one or the other bank of this great river Rhine, and feel towards each other, whether we live on the right or the left bank, very much like school-boys whose friendship is cemented by many a battle royal.
Being a Frenchman, I feel that I am about to pay a visit to my paternal ancestors—for the Franks have given us our name. No wonder that I feel deeply moved.
I examine the low huts of the village, if village it can be called, and find that they are separated from each other by commons and by fields, and that they finally lose themselves in the open country. Where now these scattered huts are standing, there may be one of these days a Mayence or a Cologne, and yet they will occupy no larger space with all their suburbs included.
On both sides of the road extend orchards, fenced in with reeds and all aglow with blooming apple trees; dark, sombre pine forests and swamps, the greenish waters of which are confined within slight dams; here and there the live rock crops out from the ground and interrupts the road, or huge trees are lying across, recently cut down and but just deprived of their branches. In the open pasture grounds huge buffaloes are lying about snorting and panting with fatigue, for they have worked all day in the plough; the neighing of horses is heard from one end of the country to the other, and gradually dies out as the sun sinks below the horizon; lean heifers, with long, spiral horns, push here and there their heads through the fence of the orchards to have a last bite at the tender foliage of the reeds, and small oxen of an inferior breed return to their quarters at the same time with the sheep, quite content to browse on the grass by the wayside, while herds of swine are wallowing in the mire of the low grounds.
