THE KAISER'S ENVY Two thousand years ago an invading monarch, Julius Caesar, in his _Commentaries_ said that the Belgians were the best fighting men that he had met; and the reason was that they inhabited the best country he had visited. Part of the ground is mountainous and in some places it rises sheer in the air for a thousand feet in solid rock and makes a formidable position for a stronghold or fortress. In other places it rolls away from the eye for miles in beautiful valleys and fertile plains. The view reminds one of a great ocean on a calm and peaceful day. A fertile country, made doubly so by the ingenuity and industry of its inhabitants. The people of this remarkable land have constructed reservoirs and dug canals, erecting dykes and curious windmills, so that like Holland, her nearest neighbor, Belgium has irrigated her fields and made her water supply regular, and therefore her crops are certain. The traveler as he passes through on foot or on the meandering tramways is pleasantly surprised to see the abundance of the verdure and heaviness of the grain in the fields and is often amused to see the little carts go by loaded high with produce, drawn to market by the stout family dog, or, as is more often the case, two. These faithful friends display amazing strength and willingness and when hitched up will pull almost like a horse. Dairying is an important product in Belgium, and great cans of milk are loaded on these carts and the thirsty one can buy a pint for a penny or two and drink it as he stands upon the street by the cart, while the family dog is lying down under it. The spectacle of the peasant folk thus hauling about their wares is very picturesque. A man or woman following a dog-cart and often times lending a hand to help push the load, is a very ordinary scene in the streets of that little country of one hundred miles square, but its prosperity and beauty present a peculiar fascination to anyone who has seen it. The German Emperor had seen it, and that was why he had attacked it. Covetousness, that strange quality, appears to be a part of the make-up of the human mind. The devil apparently injected this fatal poison into the veins of man. Most people hold it partially under control, but some give free reign to it and allow it to become the ruling power in their lives. The Kaiser, reared in an artificial atmosphere, has not been able to resist this temptation, and so in his life it has been given unbounded sway; and, what is worse, through many patient years he has inoculated other men with the virus and under its influence built up a great machine for military conquest.