The main advance, since my encounter with it at Cortinbeck and at Waterloo, on the morning after the battle of Louvain and Aerschot, it has been impossible to follow. But to-day I took the region from the French frontier, on the west of Brussels, with some idea of "beating all the bounds" of what is left of our surrendered but unoccupied country. For, with the exception of the section from Malines to Antwerp, Belgium has been surrendered, the troops on the way have been disbanded, and the Civic Guard has been discharged. At Alost yesterday I met many of them, dismissed from Brussels, but still in uniform and anxious for news. To-day I came across them again in Ghent, further reduced and in mufti. In many cases their wives have insisted on destroying their uniforms. I looked forward to a restful day in the Flemish rural districts, with, perhaps, some news of the French. I was tired of coming upon Uhlans round corners. It is a peculiarly trying business, exploring for an enemy, with no troops, no sound of guns, or the consequent rumours, to warn beforehand of their proximity! It is even more disagreeable when you have to lose your enemy again rather faster than you have found him! The wandering about the fertile, remote province, with its long, shaded, cobbled roads and low-cottaged, dusty villages, was a pleasant change. In the morning the region was still entirely untouched by the war. The dark-eyed children, with bleached blonde hair, in noisy sabots, swarmed like puppies in the streets and about the car. The Civil Guard were the only distraction. In the country fields they generally could not read at all, and waved us on, blushing in their blue blouses. In the small towns they could read "Vlamsch," but no French, which irritated them. Often "Madame" had to be called in to help, before the carts and ploughs were shoved aside. One old peasant was particularly troublesome. He was both deaf and blind, and behind his road-barrier of harrows he nursed a rusty bayonet dating from Waterloo. The only incidents of the early day were an agitated hay-cart that upset upon us, and a line of retreating engines, at Ingelmunster, which took the level crossing at the same moment as ourselves. "The service is so disorganised," the station-master excused himself for our scratched paint. On the French frontier--near Poperinghe--we met our friends the French. A cavalry contingent entertained us pleasantly at lunch round the soup-pot. Satisfied of the safety of our western border, we turned east, to cut across the noses of any advancing German columns. My object was to discover if they were striking north to Ostend, or direct west towards Lille, as well as south-west on their main line. Through Ypres, Roulers, Vijve, and Deynze we ran to Ghent. The country was still clear; the "war feeling" absent; but the Flemish are slow to catch emotional infections.