ed one that
this was once a city of living human beings. _Then_ one saw a few
interiors--exposed, it is true, and damaged, but still of this world.
Now it is one big grave, the grave of a city, and the grave of many of
its inhabitants. Here, at a corner house, nine ladies lie under the
piled-up debris that once made their home. There some soldiers met their
death, and some crumbling bricks are heaped over them too. The houses
are all fallen--some outer walls remain, but I hardly saw a roof
left--and everywhere there are empty window-frames and skeleton rafters.

[Page Heading: NIEUPORT]

I never knew so surely that a town can live and can die, and it set one
wondering whether Life means a thing as a whole and Death simply
disintegration. A perfect crystal, chemists tell us, has the elements of
life in it and may be said to live. Destruction and decay mean death;
separation and disintegration mean death. In this way we die, a crystal
dies, a flower or a city dies. Nieuport is dead. There isn't a
heart-beat left to throb in it. Thousands and thousands of shells have
fallen into it, and at night the nightingale sings there, and by day
the river flows gently under the ruined bridge. Every tree in a wood
near by is torn and beheaded; hardly one has the top remaining. The new
green pushes out amongst the blackened trunks.

One speaks low in Nieuport, the place is so horribly dead.

Mr. Bevan showed me a shell-hole 42 feet across, made by one single
"soixante-quinze" shell. Every field is pitted with holes, and where
there are stretches of pale-coloured mud the round pits dotted all over
it give one the impression of an immense Gruyere cheese. The streets,
heaped with debris, and with houses fallen helplessly forward into their
midst, were full of sunshine. From ruined cottages--whose insecure walls
tottered--one saw here and there some Zouaves or a little French "marin"
appear. Most of these ran out with letters in their hands for us to
post. Heaven knows what they can have to write about from that grave!

Some beautiful pillars of the cathedral still stand, and the tower, full
of holes, has not yet bent its head. Lieutenant Shoppe, R.N., sits up
there all day, and takes observations, with the shells knocking gaily
against the walls. One day the tower will fall or its stones will be
pierced, and then Lieutenant Shoppe, R.N., will be killed, as the
Belgian "observateur" was killed at Oostkerke the other day. He still
hang