When the British troops retired from Mons the villages and the country were untouched. No words can tell how kind the Belgians and the French were to us, and I am glad to say that they were no worse for our passage through their towns and villages and farms. They gave us food and wine, and helped our sick and wounded, and wherever they were they did all they could for us. Villages and towns and farms were peaceful and prosperous when we passed through them first; but they were terribly changed when we returned and went through them a second time, after the Germans had been at their foul work. Sword, rifle, artillery and fire had done their dreadful mischief, and deeds had been committed which filled us with horror. I will mention two or three things by way of illustration, and these are only instances of hosts of cases. On the first day of the advance we were passing through a small village. I saw a little child which seemed to be propped up against a window. There were some infantry passing at the same time as ourselves--Gordons, I think they were--and one of the officers went into the cottage and took the little creature from the window. He found that it was dead. The Germans had killed it. The officer had a look over the house, and in the next room he found the mother. She was dead also, and mutilated in a most ferocious way. The interior of the cottage was in a state of absolute wreckage. The barbarians had not spared anything. They had destroyed the furniture, thrown everything about, and done their best to ruin inoffensive people whose country they had laid waste, and who had not done them the slightest wrong. When our men saw that, they went almost mad. I will give you another instance. We passed through a village about two hours after some of the braggart Uhlans had visited it, and we saw how courageous they can be when they have only old men and women and children to deal with. They sing a different song when the British cavalry are after them. There was a farmhouse which had been the home of two old people, a farmer and his wife. I believe the poor old couple looked after the farm themselves. We found the old lady at the farm all alone, and I saw her. A pitiful spectacle she was, and well she might be, for the Uhlans had come and taken her poor old husband out into a field and shot him, and left his dead body there. They had robbed the house of everything--all the money and every bit of food--and had left the old lady almost demented. When our own troops came up they gave the poor old soul--she was sitting outside the house, crying--the bully beef and biscuits which had been served out to them that very morning, and which they themselves needed badly.