We had a particularly hot time of it on that particular afternoon, and with no comfort but what we could get out of the fact that the peasants at work away up on the steep mountainsides above our heads were even worse off than we were.

By and by it became impossible to endure the intolerable glare and heat any longer; so we struck across the ravine and entered the deep cool twilight of the forest, to hunt for what the guide-book called the "old road." We found an old road, and it proved eventually to be the right one, though we followed it at the time with the conviction that it was the wrong one.

If it was the wrong one there could be no use in hurrying; therefore we did not hurry, but sat down frequently on the soft moss and enjoyed the restful quiet and shade of the forest solitudes.

There had been distractions in the carriage-road--school-children, peasants, wagons, troops of pedestrianizing students from all over Germany--but we had the old road to ourselves.
Now and then, while we rested, we watched the laborious ant at his work.
I found nothing new in him--certainly nothing to change my opinion of him.

It seems to me that in the matter of intellect the ant must be a strangely overrated bird.