The ditty of the soldier just quoted ends thus: "At last, so stout was her defence, From Metz they moved their guns away; And, with the laugh at their expense, A-tramping went their whole array.

Each molecule of food, ingested for assimilation into our substance, accumulates a history of wanderings and pilgrimages, attachments and transformations beside which the gross trampings of a Marco Polo become the rambling steps of a seven-league booted giant.