"Our editor has moreover interviewed young Miss Antoinette de Bruijn here, whom our correspondent brought from Louvain to Maastricht. In the presence of her mother she told how she had been in a train full of wounded, that there were armed soldiers on the platform, and that some wounded soldiers had been teased by offering them steaming soup which was not given to them. The father of this girl, Mr. de Bruijn, also assured us that when he met his daughter at Maastricht, our correspondent, Mr. Mokveld, was still very much under the impression of what he had witnessed." My contradiction became known in Germany, and it was an eye-opener to a great many people there. The editor of _De Tijd_ received many letters from that country, and printed some of them with the name of the writer added. From these it seems that even there it was acknowledged in some circles that the German inquiry had been extremely one-sided, and that it would have been wiser to admit what had happened at Landen, and punish the culprits. The only purpose of my publication was to convince everybody of this, and thereby prevent the repetition of such a scandalous scene. CHAPTER XVI ON THE YSER FROM the pretty town of Sluys in the Netherland part of Flanders I made a good many trips to the Belgian coastal regions and the Yser, the little river that will always be named in history, because there came the end of the German advance, and there the Belgian army displayed all its power, fighting with the courage of lions in defence of the last bit of their native soil. Yes, Sluys will always live in my memory. How well have been received the thousands of Belgians who went there for shelter and how much misery have I seen relieved by the effectual mutual help of the Belgians and that of the civil and military Netherland authorities. The burgomaster in particular seemed to be the right man in the right place, and it was chiefly due to his sagacity that everything went so regularly in that small town, which had to maintain the proportionately greatest number of refugees. In Sluys I also got to know by friendly intercourse the character of the Belgians, so open, so straightforward, and so bright. From this town I got the best connections with the West of Belgium, and as a rule I always made my first visit to ancient and pretty Bruges, which was constantly strongly occupied by the Germans. In front of the well-known Halls two small guns had been mounted, threatening the market-square. The same was the case in front of the Palace of Justice, where the commander's office was established. The Government buildings in the market were entirely occupied by the naval staff of Admiral von Schroeder, and dozens of sailors were sitting in the offices, working at their typewriting machines. Soldiers came from and went back to the Yser, which river I saw three times during the fierce fighting.