rifle, and machine fire, these peasants
crossed to us. The reason they had for running into fire was that the
Germans were torturing their neighbors with the bayonet. One peasant, on
the other side of the canal, hurried toward us under the fire, with a
little girl on his right shoulder.

On Tuesday, September 29, I visited Wetteren Hospital. I went in
company with the Prince L. de Croy, the Due D'Ursel, a senator; the
Count de Briey, Intendant de la Liste Civile du Roy, and the Count Retz
la Barre (all of the Garde du General de Wette, Divisions de Cavalerie).
One at least of these gentlemen is as well and as favorably known in
this country as in his own. I took a young linguist, who was kind enough
to act as secretary for me. In the hospital I found eleven peasants with
bayonet wounds upon them--men, women and a child--who had been marched
in front of the Germans at Alost as a cover for the troops, and cut with
bayonets when they tried to dodge the firing. A priest was ministering
to them, bed by bed. Sisters were in attendance. The priest led us to
the cot of one of the men. On Sunday morning, September 27, the peasant,
Leopold de Man, of No. 90, Hovenier-Straat, Alost, was hiding in the
house with his sister, in the cellar. The Germans made a fire of the
table and chairs in the upper room. Then, catching sight of Leopold,
they struck him with the butts of their guns and forced him to pass
through the fire. Then, taking him outside, they struck him to the
ground and gave him a blow over the head with a gunstock and a cut of
the bayonet, which pierced his thigh all the way through.

"In spite of my wound," said he, "they made me pass between their lines,
giving me still more blows of the gun-butt in the back in order to make
me march. There were seventeen or eighteen persons with me. They placed
us in front of their lines and menaced us with their revolvers, crying
out that they will make us pay for the losses they have suffered at
Alost. So we march in front of the troops.

"When the battle began we threw ourselves on our faces to the ground,
but they forced us to rise again. At a certain moment, when the Germans
were obliged to retire, we succeeded in escaping down side streets."

The priest led the way to the cot of a peasant whose cheeks had the spot
of fever. He was Frans Meulebroeck, of No. 62, Drie Sleutelstraat,
Alost. Sometimes in loud bursts of terror, and then falling back into a
monotone, he talked with