Half a mile or so further on moored alongside each other were two of the Great Eastern Railway steamboats, which ply between Antwerp and Harwich, or, as at present, Tilbury. In view of the very great pressure of passengers, both were to be despatched. I walked through them. Each was filled to its utmost capacity with refugees who might have been sardines, so closely were they packed. In every chair round the saloon tables was a man or a woman asleep. Others were lying on the floors, on the deck, in chairs, or as they best could to seek a respite from their fatigues, a few, realising that theirs would be but a very short night--the boats were to sail at dawn so as to have as much daylight as possible with which to navigate safely the dangers of the mine-fields--preferred to walk about on the jetty discussing the while their hard fate. The St. Antoine, the leading hotel of Antwerp, has for some weeks past been the temporary home of the various Foreign Ministers, but with their departure to-day has closed its doors. Last night it was the scene of an affecting leave-taking by the Queen of the _personnel_ of the British and Russian Legations, her Majesty being visibly moved. I am informed that the King sent to the German commander yesterday by the hands of a neutral _attaché_ a plan of Antwerp with the sites of the Cathedral and other ancient monuments marked upon it, which he begged might be spared destruction. In the meantime, the besiegers had made an attempt to carry the inner defences by storm. It was disastrous. Describing it, Mr. Granville Fortescue says:-- In their advance to the inner line of forts the Germans literally filled the dykes with their own dead. Coming on in close formation, they were cut down by the machine guns as wheat before the scythe. Realising that it was, to all intents, impossible to carry the inner defences by storm, and that the garrison must be forced to surrender by the destruction of the place, the Germans, who had by this brought their great guns within range of the city, opened from their new positions along the north side of the Nethe a bombardment which, for sustained fury, has rarely been equalled. The bombardment began at midnight on October 7. From that time shells rained upon the place. The havoc, heightened by bombs thrown down from Zeppelins, speedily, and especially in the southern quarter, caused destructive fires. Viewed from afar--the fire was seen from the frontier of Holland--this great and beautiful seat of commerce, industry, and art, one of the glories of Europe, looked during those terrible hours like the crater of a volcano in eruption, with a shower of shooting stars falling into it. Silhouetted against the glare, its towers stood luminous amid the fiery light. Highest of all the incomparable spire of its cathedral pointed, as though a warning finger, into the dark sky.