I took one of the four daily trains for Havre, leaving the Gare Saint-Lazare, for my little country place in Vernon at 9.33 this morning and met in the same compartment Captain Decker, commander of the U.S.S. _Tennessee_, and two officers of his ship, which acts as a sort of ferry-boat for Americans stranded in France, carrying them to England. The _Tennessee_ will sail from Havre to-morrow for Falmouth. The United States naval officers were in uniform and were constantly mistaken for British army officers. The military commanders at the stations came on board the train to ask if they could be of any service to them, and they were saluted with enthusiasm whenever they showed themselves. The train, conforming to the war regulations on all the railroads, went at the uniform prescribed pace of thirty miles an hour and stopped at every station, consequently we were four hours, instead of the usual one hour and ten minutes in getting to Vernon, which is only fifty miles from Paris. At Acheres, the junction with the northern lines, two carloads of wounded were hitched to our train. I found barricades on the outskirts of Vernon and the beautiful bridge, that had been blown up by the French in 1870 in a vain attempt to prevent the German occupation, was mined, so that it could be instantly destroyed. I found my little garden rather neglected, for the man who looks after it had been "mobilized" and is now lying in a hospital at Bordeaux, getting over a shrapnel wound in the leg. The place nevertheless was full of pears, peaches, figs, green corn, American squashes, beans, tomatoes, and no end of roses, gladioli, tobacco plant, hollyhocks, heliotrope, dahlias, morning-glories, verbena, and sunflowers. [Photograph: Photo H. C. Ellis, Paris. "Sauf-Conduit" issued by the Prefecture of Police to persons wishing to travel.] I visited the Red Cross Hospital which, under the direction of Madame Steiner, wife of the mayor of Vernon, is doing splendid work at Vernonnet. There were two hundred wounded officers and soldiers here; among them were a dozen Belgians and a score of "Turcos," Algerian riflemen, who seemed very patient and docile. Some twenty wounded Germans here receive exactly the same treatment as the French. The German soldiers were from Prussian-Polish and Saxon regiments. The officers, five altogether, in a separate ward, were extremely reticent, and it was only with great difficulty that they could be induced to give their names and the numbers of their regiments. Happening to speak German, I acted as interpreter during the inspection by the French Medical Director. These young officers seemed greatly depressed and mortified at finding themselves prisoners.