ng in their veins, laughing and singing as they marched in
the smiling sun. Suddenly the road rocks and hell heaves up
beneath their feet; bodies are blown into the air and rained back to
the earth in tiny fragments of human flesh; while brains are
spattered over the ground, and every crevice runs a rivulet of
blood. He sketched this in excellent English, adding:

"A magnificent climax for Christian civilzation, eh! And that's my
business. But what else can one do?"

For the task of setting this colossal stage for death, the entire
peasant population had been mobilized to assist the soldiers. In
self-defense Belgium was thus obliged to drive the dagger deep
into her own bosom. It seemed indeed as if she suffered as much
at her own hands, as at the hands of the enemy. To arrest the
advancing scourge she impressed into her service dynamite, fire
and flood. I saw the sluice-gates lifted and meadows which had
been waving with the golden grain of autumn now turned into silver
lakes. So suddenly had the waters covered the land that hay-
cocks bobbed upon the top of the flood, and peasants went out in
boats to dredge for the beets and turnips which lay beneath the
waters.

The roads were inundated and so we ran along an embankment
which, like a levee, lifted itself above the water wastes. The sun,
sinking down behind the flaming poplars in the west, was touching
the rippling surface into myriad colors. It was like a trip through
Fairyland, or it would have been, were not men on all sides busy
preparing for the bloody shambles.

After these elaborate defensive works the Belgians laughed at any
one taking Antwerp, the impregnable fortress of Western Europe.
The Germans laughed, too. But it was the bass, hollow laugh of
their great guns placed ten to twenty miles away, and pouring into
the city such a hurricane of shell and shrapnel that they forced its
evacuation by the British and the Belgians. Through this vast array
of works which the reception committee had designed for their
slaughter, the Germans came marching in as if on dress parade.

A few shells were even now crashing through Malines and had
played havoc with the carillon in the cathedral tower. During a lull
in the bombardment we climbed a stairway of the belfry where,
above us, balanced great stones which a slight jar would send
tumbling down. On and up we passed vents and jagged holes
which had been ripped through these massive walls as if they
were made of