We had a good and ingeniously arranged dinner. All sorts of ordinary foods are not to be had in this part of the country, and our hostess had, by able thinking, arranged a meal which skillfully concealed the things that were lacking. Among other things, I observed that we had a series of most delicious wines--for our host of that evening also had a wonderful cellar. They had told us just before dinner that the Germans had taken an inventory of their wines and had forbidden them to touch another drop, so I wondered whether they were not incurring some risk in order to give us the wine that they considered indispensable. When I asked our hostess, she told me that it was very simple, that all they needed to do was to drink a part of several bottles, refill them partially with water, seal them, and put them back in the cellars; she said scornfully that "_les Boches_ don't know one wine from another," and had not yet been able to detect the fraud. They had a lot of cheap champagne in the cellar and had been filling them up with that, as they prefer any champagne to the best vintage Burgundies. Once in a while there is a little satisfaction reserved for a Belgian. We were called at daybreak and were on the road at eight o'clock, taking in a series of small villages which had been destroyed, and talking with the few people to be found about the place. This part of Belgium is far worse than the northern part, where the people can get away with comparative ease to one of the larger towns and come back now and then to look after their crops. Here one village after another is wiped out, and the peasants have no place to go unless they travel so far that there is no hope of returning, perhaps for months together. It will be a great problem to provide shelter for these people so that they can return.