never comes to his aid. In that direction is a cloud of smoke, but alas! it is Blucher's guns, not Grouchy's. And there is the iron duke, Wellington, on brown horse consulting his watch and directing his staff with machine-like coldness and precision. Over here on the right is that fatal snare-the sunken, hidden road-soft and deadly, into which the French cavalry are falling and dying. Yon red brick wall (fence) also misleads the French. Supposing the English strongly intrenched there, they spend many precious early hours charging a handful of picked English and Hollanders-losing three thousand men plus valuable time, while the British artillery plays havoc with them. Finally, far to the left, late in the afternoon, Napoleon is massing his wonderful Imperial Guard which has saved the day so often. Here they come like a roaring whirlwind of fire and steel; surely nothing can stand before them. But they have met their match at last and are turned back by the British and their allies. Napoleon cries, "All is lostsave himself who can!" He wheeled his horse and dashed from the field, only to be captured and sent to the lonely isle of St. Helena, whence death brought him rest and the Paris tomb. Returning, we visit the headquarters of Wellington. We see his private room-the cheap bed upon which he slept; the table upon which he spread his maps and plans; his boots, sword, side arms, and personal effects. Many cannon balls from the battle field are stacked about the room, while other trophies and guns line the walls. It is gruesome and leaves one creepy and depressed. After all Hugo was right; Napoleon's plans for Waterloo were flawless, but he embarrassed God and had to go! Thus we mused as we motored back to Brussels. BRUSSELS AND PLUCKY BELGIUM This noble old city of six hundred thousand has a charm and winsomeness that captivate the visitor. It is the capital of little Belgium that bared her bosom to the German storm of shot and shell in 1914. When the Kaiser's military machine came thundering on its crushing way, in the early days of the last war, it found the small neutral country of Belgium lying like a sleeping fawn in the pathway. The monster paused a moment, roaring and breathing slaughter. The innocent victim trembled, but fled not nor stepped aside to allow the red demon entrance. Then began the unequal conflict. The monster of Mars mangled the diminutive adversary, but was so delayed and bitten that France had time to prepare in turn. Belgium saved Europe. King Albert and his men-descendants of those Belgians whom J. Cæsar declared to be bravest of all the Gauls-followed loyally the course of the Allies throughout the entire four years of trying warfare. Meanwhile, his royal palace, which we visited, was occupied by German officers who turned the handsome building into a pigsty. The magnificent Palace of Justice-Belgian capitol, much like our Capitol at Washington-also became the barracks of fifteen hundred soldiers, who carried off the great bronze doors, the ornamentations, much of the furniture, and committed every sort of vandalism. VALIANT LITTLE ENGLISH NURSE We went through the prison where Edith Cavell, the brave English nurse, was held. Because she nursed wounded British boys to health and then aided them to escape into England, she was arrested and convicted as a spy. In vain did the Americans and British ask that she be liberated. We saw the hard bench where she sat from midnight to dawn, in the big cold room, awaiting her doom. When sunrise came she was already unconscious, but was dragged out, nevertheless, and held in the chair until she could be shot. I stood at the spot and read the tablet to her memory. Later, I saw her monument in London, where her body was removed. Even so, the Germans were not more cruel in Belgium than were the French who bombarded Brussels in 1695 with red-hot shot-burning nearly a score of great churches and more than four thousand noble buildings, killing unknown numbers of innocent women and children. Sherman was right in his definition of war. War is the delirium tremens of nations, turning the best of them into brutes. Our ladies loved Brussels and bought much of the fine rose-point lace and the dainty handwork of those Flemish women. Our men also bought clothing to the limit. The tariff laws regulating customs and duties are so rigidly enforced now that each citizen is allowed to bring only one hundred dollars worth of foreign articles free of duty. The clerks in Brussels rallied us much about our wooden tariff. It delighted them to show us fine suits of clothing, asking us to compare them with the best we had and then pricing them to us for twentyfive dollars! "Just to keep a few of our clothes out, one hundred million of you Americans pay fifty dollars |