Southey, the poet, says that the firing of the 16th was heard at Antwerp, but not that of the 18th. It is an extraordinary but indisputable fact that the firing at Waterloo was heard in England. The _Kentish Gazette_ of Tuesday, 20th June 1815 (published therefore before any one in England, not even Nathan Rothschild himself, was aware that there had been a battle fought at Waterloo), contained the following piece of news from Ramsgate: "A heavy and incessant firing was heard from this coast on Sunday evening in the direction of Dunkirk." Dunkirk lies in nearly a straight line between Waterloo and the coast of Kent. What makes the matter still more extraordinary is the fact that Colville's Division, which, on the 18th, was posted in front of Hal, about ten miles to the west of the battlefield, never heard a sound of the firing, and did not know till midnight that any battle had taken place. (15) Wellington's headquarters on the night of the 16th June were at Genappe, two or three miles to the rear of the battlefield of Quatre Bras. He slept at the Roi d'Espagne. Bluecher occupied the same inn on the night of the 18th. (16) The battle began about 11.35, though Wellington in his despatch states that it began about 10. Napoleon's bulletin fixes noon as the time. Marshal Ney said that it began at 1 o'clock. It is clear they did not all look at their watches. (17) De Lancey is supposed to have been struck about the time when the French batteries opened a fierce cannonade on the English centre, preparatory to the first of their tremendous cavalry attacks. This would make the hour nearer 4 o'clock than 3. He fell not far from the Wellington Tree, and close to the famous _chemin creux_ of Victor Hugo, in the immediate rear of which Ompteda's brigade of the King's German Legion was posted. The appearance of the spot is now entirely altered. The tree was cut down in 1818, and all the soil of the elevated ground on the south side of the _chemin creux_ was carted away to make the Belgian Lion Mound about 1825. A steam tramway now runs by the place. For a sketch of the celebrated tree, with Napoleon's guide, De Coster, in the foreground, see Captain Arthur Gore's _Explanatory Notes on the Battle of Waterloo_, 1817; and for another view of the ragged old tree as it appeared the day before it was cut down, see _Illustrated London News_, 27th November 1852. The map which faces page 110 is adapted from the plan of the battlefield of Waterloo, drawn in 1816, by W.B. Craan, Surveying Engineer of Brabant. The troops are shown in the positions occupied by them at 11 o'clock, A.M., just before the opening of the battle. On the map will be seen the position of the Wellington Tree, also the farm and village of Mont St Jean, to which village it is supposed Sir William De Lancey was carried, after he had received the fatal blow. The village of Waterloo is outside the map, some two miles to the north. [Illustration: Map of Part of the Battlefield of Waterloo]