Some of the Prussians have succeeded in penetrating into the city, tho' the forts have not surrendered, and are already establishing martial rule. Aeroplanes, with the wings turned back, Taubes, have been flying about all the morning. In the afternoon we went up over the hill to the plain of Sartilmont, the battlefield of Wednesday night. All along the road were heaps of uniforms, some quite new, probably taken from the dead. Those horrid limp things made me shiver with their lifelessness, and the spirit of death, everywhere, seemed to close us in. Countless numbers of haversacks were strewn about, doubtless cast away by the soldiers to disencumber themselves in falling quickly back from one position to another. In them, generally, was a change of underwear, light boots, hard biscuit, canned meats and confiture. Already a flock of human ravens was collected about the piles of dÉbris, sorting out what was good to take and collecting fragments of bread for a happy repast. It was sickening to see, when possibly some of those brave, dead soldiers were lying, yet unburied, in the nearby hedges and ravines. Arrived at the little village we saw destruction a plenty. The inhabitants all had terror-stricken countenances and yet in their desire to please, literally fell over each other in haste to tell and show. Some of the buildings were entirely demolished, others with doors hacked up and windows broken, while everywhere houses and trees were riddled with bullets. One old peasant woman told me that she and fifty others were imprisoned for twenty-four hours by the Germans in a tiny stable, without food or drink, and for no apparent reason.

The battlefield on the top of a ridge of hills between the Ourthe and the Meuse is a large plain, around the edges of which lay scores of magnificent trees cut down in haste to give unobstructed range. Their branches had been previously soaked in pÉtrole and set on fire. The effect of those prostrate, charred monsters added to the desolation all around. Across the end of the plain were those famous open trenches of "two stories," that is, with about a two-foot elevation of earth in the bottom against the front wall of the ditch, forming a kind of platform for the soldiers when taking aim.

These were dug by the soldiers and men from the factories of LiÉge. In front of the trenches were constructed those marvellous, barbed wire fences, about one and one half metres apart and perhaps five rows deep, with the wire twisted and wound in every conceivable fashion. Thirty feet in front of this barrier was buried a string of mines, connected with the trenches by an electric wire, to be exploded at a given moment. Dark as the night was, the enemy found and severed some of these communications so that most of the mines were rendered ineffective. We saw the cut wire in several places. What hope can those poor soldiers have, enemy or no, the advance guard of the besiegers, who are pushed forward often at the point of the bayonet, armed only with huge scissors to cut through such an almost impenetrable defense?

A most touching sight was the graves of thirty Belgians in one end of these trenches. Does that not seem a terrible irony to be buried in one's own trenches? A few common, wayside flowers were strewn on the graves, in front of which was an old prayer-stool and a wooden cross surmounted with a Belgian kÉpi (military cap). This cap seemed a living thing almost and reminded me of the red fez so often seen on the Moslem tombs in the cemeteries of Constantinople, which seemingly strives to evoke a vital spirit from the frigid marble. Nailed to the cross was a fragment of those well-known lines of the Immortal CÆsar, "Of all the peoples of Gaul, the Belgians are the bravest." You see, the old warrior knew that long ago.

Near by was a small, shrapnel gun carriage, by which stood a toothless, old man who told, in that excruciating Wallon tongue, a pathetic story of one of the dogs which had probably drawn it. His mate doubtless was killed in battle, but he returned three days later, lay down beside the broken wheels and defied anyone to approach.