The next thing which struck me was the way in which the British have, as it were, taken possession of the whole of that area for which our people are responsible. You go through village after village, and the ubiquitous person is our soldier. He appears out of farm buildings, he leans over gates, holding difficult conversation, not only with the young maidens of the village, but with dear old ladies who can be seen taking a motherly interest in him. In the towns he pervades the whole place. Always bright and cheerful, and yet conscious of his responsibility, our khaki-clad young fellow maintains his good character and earns the respect of the people. I asked a French Archbishop and also a French Bishop, the jurisdiction of both of whom is within our area, if they were satisfied with the behaviour of our men, and on each occasion the answer was that they were beyond reproach. We do not seem to be visitors in France, but we almost appear to have taken root there. The buildings we are putting up, the railway extensions we are making, the way in which we have turned bare spaces into towns, all these things make one feel as if we were permanent institutions and not birds of passage. It is not altogether wonderful that some of the more ignorant French people should say that they do not believe we are ever going away; whilst on the other hand, some French officers told me that their confidence in our alliance had become immensely greater because we had done everything in such a stable manner, one man going so far as to say to me that he considered one of the surest signs of our determination to see this war through was that so many of our officers had taken houses for three years certain. It is only just to add in regard to a large number of the buildings we have put up that they can be taken down, carried away and be put up over here with practically no difficulty. Another impression produced upon me was one of increasing respect for the adaptability of the Englishman. It shows itself in innumerable military ways which I hardly have the right to mention, but one may be permitted the general observation that there is no kind of obstacle which we do not seem to surmount and even sometimes to turn to an advantage. What we have done in turning to good use even some extraordinary effects of shell fire upon buildings made me more than astonished; perhaps I may be allowed one instance. Somewhere in France there was a railway station and near it an estaminet; both, as far as one could judge, were destroyed, with the exception of a portion of a chimney. By some miraculous means which I cannot describe, one went along all kinds of underground places, then up some steps and into what I believe was a portion of the chimney, and from there through a crevice one was able to see a good deal of the German lines quite close by. When one came out again, one could not in the least tell where it was that one had been. To