At long intervals some one would let a window drop at a station; a damp and cavernous breath would penetrate the overdone atmosphere of the carriage.

We saw darkness and some porter's lantern dancing in the abyss of night.
Several times we made very long halts--to let the trains of regular troops go by.

In one station where our train stood for hours, we saw several of them go roaring by in succession.

Their speed blurred the partitions between the windows and the huge vertebrae of the coaches, seeming to blend together the soldiers huddled there; and the glance which plunged into the train's interior descried, in its feeble and whirling illumination, a long, continuous and tremulous chain, clad in blue and red.

Several times on the journey we got glimpses of these interminable lengths of humanity, hurled by machinery from everywhere to the frontiers, and almost towing each other..