the hands of man for so fell a purpose!
Rows of infantry lay dead in perfect order, as if on parade, where the
mitrailleuse had mowed them down; whole squadrons of hussars and lancers
were heaped up in mass; and, in some of the French rifle-pits, there
were more than a thousand corpses piled, the one on top of another with
trim regularity, as if carefully arranged so. Blue, red, and yellow
uniforms, with the occasional green of the Tyrolean Jager, were mixed
together in picturesque confusion along the Verdun road; in fact, the
dead and dying were everywhere in such prodigious numbers that the
hearts of those seeking out the wounded were appalled.

Worse than in the fields were the scenes displayed in the villages and
little towns along the white high-road to Metz, the tall poplars that
lined it being torn down by the round shot, thus blocking the way. The
broken vehicles and baggage wagons that were mingled together in an
inextricable mass also added to the obstruction; Malmaison, Vionville,
and Rezonville were filled with war victims; and all the surgeons,
French as well as German, that could be summoned to help, were as busy
as they could possibly be. Carriages and stretchers covered the open
places in front of every house, the Red Cross of Geneva being rudely
depicted on the doors, with the neutral flag of the society floating
above; while pools of blood marked the dressing places of the wounded,
the pale white faces of whom looked down in mute misery from the carts
in which they were being borne away to the rear to make room for others
to be attended to. To complete the picture, those who had died under
operation were laid by the roadside until they could be collected bye-
and-bye for burial, the living having to be seen to first!

Released at length, after toiling through the night and early morning at
his voluntary labour, Fritz was able at last to return to the bivouac of
the Hanoverians; but, while on his way to camp, he passed one of the
most affecting pictures he had yet seen. Hearing the howl of a dog, he
turned aside towards a little clump of trees from which the sound seemed
to come, and here he came up to a splendid large black retriever, which,
with one paw on a dead officer's breast and with his noble head raised
to the sky, was baying in that melancholy fashion in which dogs tell
their woe on being overcome by grief. Near this little group was an
unfortunate horse sitting on its haunches, its hind