And, by way of afterthought, I inquire whether, in the event of a sudden scoot before the Germans, a reporter quartered at the Hotel de la Poste will be cut off from the base of communications and left to his or her ingenuity in flight? The Commandant, vague and imperturbable, replies that in all probability it will be so. And I (if possible more imperturbable than he) observe that the War Correspondents will make quite a nice flying-party. In a little open carriage--the taxis have long ago all gone to the War--in an absurd little open carriage, exactly like a Cheltenham "rat," I depart like a lady of Cheltenham, for the Hotel de la Poste. The appearance and the odour of this little carriage give you an odd sense of security and peace. The Germans may be advancing on Ghent at this moment, but for all the taste of war there is in it, you might be that lady, going from one hotel to the other, down the Cheltenham Promenade. The further you go from the Military Hospital and the Railway Station the more it is so. The War does not seem yet to have shaken the essential peace of the _bourgeois_ city. The Hotel de la Poste is in the old quarter of the town, where the Cathedrals are. Instead of the long, black railway lines and the red-brick facade of the Station and Post Office; instead of the wooded fields beyond and the white street that leads to the battle-places south and east; instead of the great Square with its mustering troops and swarms of refugees, you have the quiet Place d'Armes, shut in by trees, and all round it are the hotels and cafes where the officers and the War Correspondents come and go. Through all that coming and going you get the sense of the old foreign town that was dreaming yesterday. People are sitting outside the restaurants all round the Place, drinking coffee and liqueurs as if nothing had happened, as if Antwerp were far-off in another country, and as if it were still yesterday. Mosquitoes come up from the drowsy canal water and swarm into the hotels and bite you. I found any number of mosquitoes clinging drowsily to my bedroom walls. But there are very few women among those crowds outside the restaurants. There are not many women except refugees in the streets, and fewer still in the shops.