The ground becomes more and more like boiling porridge as you approach no-man's-land. Of no-man's-land itself, perhaps, the less said the better. No-beast's-land--call it that rather. And yet men have been very brave, very tender, in no-man's-land. Next we come to those Hun trenches that I have peered at from a distance so long and mapped so often. It all seems rather futile now. Past the support trenches. Past the second line. Damn it! how much larger and deeper that old emplacement is than I thought! The country is less pitted, too. Of course, it hasn't been fought over like our back areas. Why; here are trees scarcely knocked about at all. A recognizable field there. How real that stream looks! And, oh Jemima! a blue tit. A little distance farther. Over that gentle rise, and there behold ----. Surely one of the loveliest towns in France, on its low hill surrounded by the quiet waters of the Somme. From a distance it looks all right; though somehow, the smoke still ascending from it doesn't look natural. As you approach you realize that what looks so charming is just empty, shelled, charred, and broken. The Huns have destroyed every single house, all the bridges, and the cathedral, too. The cathedral that once crowned the town now stands a pale crushed ghost in the deserted market-place. [Sidenote: PERONNE] Some of the streets are almost amusing. Imagine Rye with the pretty alleys so encumbered and piled up with roofs, sofas, the contents of wardrobes, dormer-windows, smashed mirrors, rubble, and dust, that it's quite impossible to proceed. Very well, that's ----. Go into the houses, and there it's just as it is in the streets. Everything crushed to atoms. Images of saints have been hurled out on to garbage-heaps, and in the cathedral huge pillars are lying about in clumsy confusion amongst chairs, organ pipes, and gilded flowers. On a huge notice board in the Grande Place the Hun has written: NICHT ARGERN: NUR WUNDERN! (Don't argue: only wonder! We the Huns did this. Why discuss what we have done? We have destroyed your city. Gape and stare, stupid fools! What does it matter to us? We took your precious town from you, because we wanted it. Now we don't want it any more. Here it is back again. With our love.) Some merry soldier wrote that up, I suppose. It was a pity. There were French officers in ---- to-day. I spoke to one. He answered with a quiet, simple bitterness and determination that would have turned even a Hohenzollern pale, I think. Unhappy Emperor! he must be feeling decidedly uneasy nowadays.