bit bumpy, so hold on." Guns were roaring near and
far, and in the air above was the long, sighing drone of shells as we
raced forward, bumping and swaying over the uneven surface faster and
faster, until, skidding round a rather awkward corner, we saw before
us a low-lying, jagged outline of broken walls, shattered towers and
a tangle of broken roof-beams--all that remains of the famous old
town of Ypres. And over this devastation shells moaned distressfully,
and all around unseen guns barked and roared. So, amidst this
pandemonium our car lurched into shattered "Wipers", past the
dismantled water-tower, uprooted from its foundations and leaning at
a more acute angle than will ever the celebrated tower of Pisa, past
ugly heaps of brick and rubble--the ruins of once fair buildings, on
and on until we pulled up suddenly before a huge something, shattered
and formless, a long facade of broken arches and columns, great roof
gone, mighty walls splintered, cracked and rent--all that "Kultur"
has left of the ancient and once beautiful Cloth Hall.

"Roof's gone since I was here last," said the Intelligence Officer,
"come this way. You'll see it better from over here." So we followed
him and stood to look upon the indescribable ruin.

"There are no words to describe--that," said N. at last, gloomily.

"No," I answered. "Arras was bad enough, but this--!"

"Arras?" he repeated. "Arras is only a ruined town. Ypres is a
rubbish dump. And its Cloth Hall is--a bad dream." And he turned
away. Our Intelligence Officer led us over mounds of fallen masonry
and debris of all sorts, and presently halted us amid a ruin of
splintered columns, groined arch and massive walls, and pointed to a
heap of rubbish he said was the altar.

"This is the Church St. Jean," he explained, "begun, I think, in the
eleventh or twelfth century and completed somewhere about 1320--"

"And," said N., "finally finished and completely done for by 'Kultur'
in the twentieth century, otherwise I guess it would have lasted
until the 220th century--look at the thickness of the walls."

"And after all these years of civilisation," said I.

"Civilisation," he snorted, turning over a fragment of exquisitely
carved moulding with the toe of his muddy boot, "civilisation has
done a whole lot, don't forget--changed the system of plumbing and
taught us how to make high explosives and poison gas."

Gloomily enough we wandered on together over rubbish piles and
mountai