of the rank of this one. It
is not easy to say whether or not the Cloth Hall still exists. Its
celebrated three-story facade exists, with a huge hiatus in it to the
left of the middle, and, of course, minus all glass. The entire facade
seemed to me to be leaning slightly forward; I could not decide
whether this was an optical delusion or a fact. The enormous central
tower is knocked to pieces, and yet conserves some remnant of its
original outlines; bits of scaffolding on the sides of it stick out at a
great height like damaged matches. The slim corner towers are
scarcely hurt. Everything of artistic value in the structure of the
interior has disappeared in a horrible confusion of rubble. The
eastern end of the Cloth Hall used to be terminated by a small
beautiful Renaissance edifice called the Niewwerk, dating from the
seventeenth century. What its use was I never knew; but the
Niewwerk has vanished, and the Town Hall next door has also
vanished; broken walls, a few bits of arched masonry, and heaps of
refuse alone indicate where these buildings stood in April last.

So much for the two principal buildings visible from the Grande
Place. The Cloth Hall is in the Grande Place, and the Cathedral
adjoins it. The only other fairly large building in the Place is the
Hopital de Notre Dame at the north-east end. This white-painted
erection, with its ornamental gilt sign, had continued substantially to
exist as a structural entity; it was defaced, but not seriously. Every
other building in the place was smashed up. To walk right round the
Place is to walk nearly half a mile; and along the entire length, with
the above exceptions, there was nothing but mounds of rubbish
and fragments of upstanding walls. Here and there in your
perambulation you may detect an odour with which certain trenches
have already familiarised you. Obstinate inhabitants were apt to get
buried in the cellars where they had taken refuge. In one place what
looked like a colossal sewer had been uncovered. I thought at the
time that the sewer was somewhat large for a city of the size of
Ypres, and it has since occurred to me that this sewer may have
been the ancient bed of the stream Yperlee, which in some past
period was arched over.

"I want to make a rough sketch of all this," I said to my companions
in the middle of the Grande Place, indicating the Cloth Hall, and the
Cathedral, and other grouped ruins. The spectacle was, indeed,
majestic in the extrem