ss" and re-rounded up as aliens. I returned the
greeting hilariously, upon which one of the British prisoners, who was
remarkably agile, swarmed the bars, and poised thus above his comrades,
was emulating the strange and amusing antics of a monkey at the
Zoological Gardens, thereby conveying by his actions that he and his
friends were caged after the manner of our simian prizes at home.

The cells were indeed cages, as I discovered upon closer inspection, and
recalled nothing so much as parrot cages upon a large scale. All sides
were barred in the self-same manner so that from any point one could see
every corner of the cell and discover what the inmate or rather inmates
were doing, because each cell was really six cells in one. The cage was
rectangular in plan, each cell measuring about seven feet in length by
three feet in width, and fairly high. But it was the internal
arrangement of the cell which struck me. In plan it was set out
something like the following:--

[Illustration]

The middle gangway A not only served as the approach to the
sub-divisions or cells B on either side, but also constituted the space
occupied by the prisoners during the day. Each of the sub-divisions was
large enough to receive a bed and nothing else. There was only
sufficient space to stand beside the couch. Upon retiring for the night
the prisoner was compelled to disrobe in the central space or gangway A,
then, picking up his clothes he had to sidle round the door and climb
over his bed to get into it. In the morning, upon rising, he either had
to stand upon his bed to dress or to come out into the central gangway,
the space beside his bed being scarcely sufficient to permit free
movement.

Normally, I suppose, each cell or cage is designed to receive six
prisoners, one to each sub-division, in which event circulation in the
dividing open space would be possible. But the facilities of Klingelputz
were so taxed at the time that every morning further prisoners were
brought from the masonry cells below and locked in this open space for
the day. The result was considerable overcrowding, there being no fewer
than twenty-six men in one of the cages including some of our
fellow-countrymen from Sennelager upon the day I entered. But the men
from the latter camp happened to be some of the most irrepressible
spirits among us. They considered it to be huge fun to swing and climb
about the bars like monkeys, and their quaint antics and badinage k