We are getting quite accustomed to having no communications with the outside world. Railroads, of course, have ceased to work, except for military purposes, and there is no way for the general public to get about. There has been no postal service since the Germans marched in on August 20th, and we don't know when we shall have any. All telephones were cut off within a few hours of the arrival of the German army. There are no newspapers, and all the information we are supposed to have about happenings in the outside world is fed to us in the form of placards on the walls of the city. Nobody takes any great amount of stock in what these placards tell us, although they have sometimes told us the truth, and consequently there is a great demand for the few copies of Dutch and English newspapers that are smuggled across the border and brought to Brussels. The prices vary according to the number of papers to be had, and run from five francs to one hundred francs for a single copy of the _Times_. Those who do not care to spend so much can rent a paper by the hour--and customers are not wanting on this basis. By way of discouraging this traffic it is said that the Germans have shot several men caught smuggling papers. Those caught selling them in Brussels are arrested and given stiff terms of imprisonment. All taxis disappeared many days ago and altogether the normal life of the town has ceased. It will be a rollicking place from now on. * * * * * _Brussels, September 17, 1914._--This morning I spent digging my way out from under a landslide of detail work which has been piling up on my desk, until I could hardly see over it. I now have it out of the way, and can breathe again freely for the moment. This afternoon Baron de Menten de Horne, a Lieutenant in the Second Regiment of Lancers, was brought in to the Legation, a prisoner, still wearing his Belgian uniform. He was captured last Friday near H---- while I was there. Nyssens, the Major who was in the convent with us, told me that one of his officers had gone off on a reconnaissance and had not reappeared; he was greatly worried about him, but could not send any one out to look for him. This was the man. He was surrounded, in company with several of his men, and took to cover in a field of beets. Night was coming on, and they thought that when the fight was over and the German troops who were all about them had retired, they would be able to work their way out and rejoin their own forces, but twenty-five Germans surrounded them, and after killing all the others, took this man prisoner.