Our car had been stopped during this one-sided battle, but now that it was over we started on again. The cobblestone road had been torn up by shell fire in many places, and driving was rough and difficult. We passed batteries of artillery and long lines of army service waggons, wending their way Ypres-ward. There was no further firing for the present and we crossed the bridge over the Yser and entered the town without mishap. From the distance there was little change to be noticed in Ypres; but now that we entered the streets we soon saw the effects of the bombardment. For the most part the smaller houses had not at this time been destroyed; but every large building in the place was in ruins. Churches, convents, schools and factories had been ruthlessly crushed, and the railway station was levelled to the earth. The streets were almost deserted, shops were long since closed, and business was dead. We arrived at _La Grand Place_—once the scene of a busy market, and stood beside the ruins of the famous Guild Hall. Its roof had fallen in; the walls were shattered; piles of stones and mortar had tumbled into the street. The clock tower alone, as if in defiance of the German gunners, stood erect and the clock remained untouched. A dead horse lying close by upon the pavement reminded us that we were now within easy reach of the enemy’s fire. We turned and walked across to the Cathedral of St. Martin; a short time since the pride of that beautiful city. Alas! it too was lost. We clambered over the ruins and got upon the window ledge to look within. The priceless panes were gone; the marble floor, except in patches here and there, was buried deep and the great supporting columns of the dome had toppled over; one lay across the nave, its round flat stones still clinging obliquely together and lying like _rouleaux_ of coin side by side. The sacrilegious shells had burst into the chapel of the Holy Sacrament, had desecrated the altar and piled huge heaps of masonry upon the floor. The crucifix had disappeared, but the statues of the saints, by some strange miracle, remained intact. From the torn paintings upon the walls the faces seemed to have turned appealingly toward the open roof, their gaze fixed as in a last pitiful prayer to heaven. They were lost—those wondrous works of Art which once with magic charm had held the world enthralled. Never again would humanity come to bow in humble admiration at that shrine of beauty, nor gather inspiration from the hallowed walls. And as we looked upon the wreck about us, now but the memories of an irrestorable past, our bitter thoughts travelled across the lines of trenches to that strange race to whom no neighbour’s hall or home is sacred and to whom the work of centuries, the irreplaceable monuments of master minds, are naught.