Leaving this commandant's late magnificence, we soon found ourselves in another wide, corduroy-lined trench, with straw dugouts. My Major, without attempting any comparison, but merely to get my geography right, said quite simply: "We are now in the parallel French trench to that German one we just visited." All this particular bit of trenches was where the Germans cleared out precipitately after French night attacks, and without waiting for the fearful "rideau de fer," or iron curtain, with which the French usually devastate everything before advancing. Littered through them were hundreds of unused cartridges, rifles, knapsacks, bayonets, and clothing of every description. The dead had been taken away just before our arrival. The prisoners--hundreds of them--we met going to the rear. The second great lesson I learned on this trip I already had a good understanding of from my previous trip. It is that the "rideau de fer" is the most terrible thing ever devised by man to devastate not only men but every single object upon which it descends. This time I saw the results of the "rideau de fer" on another long stretch of what had lately been German trenches. The "rideau de fer" is simply the French method of converging artillery fire upon a single point where they intend to attack or where they are being attacked. The fact that it is possible is due to the enormous number of guns and the unlimited supply of high explosive shells. Behind the entire infantry lines there seems to be an endless row of batteries of "seventy-fives," close up to the trenches. These terrible little destroyers can whirl in any direction at will, so when the order comes for the "rideau de fer" at any point, literally hundreds of guns within a few seconds are converging their fire there, dropping a metal curtain through which no mortal enemy can advance. In this section the French dropped nearly a quarter of a million shells in one day. Unlike the English shrapnel, which makes little impression against earthworks, the French use explosive shells almost entirely. As I walked over this section after the curtain had been lifted, I was absolutely baffled for descriptive words. All the earth in that vicinity seemed battered out of shape. The dead needed no burial there. Down under the wreck and ruin the dead all lie covered just where they fell. Among the places I either visited or at least was able to see plainly, all of which were held by the Germans at the time of my last trip, were Saint Eloi, Carrency, Notre Dame de Lorette, Souchez, and Neuville Saint Vaast, where the fighting still continues from house to house.