Those forty hours of shattering noise, almost without a lull, seem to me now a fantastic nightmare, but the harrowing sights I witnessed in many parts of the city cannot be forgotten. It was Wednesday night that the shells began to fall into the city. From then onward they must have averaged about ten a minute, and most of them came from the largest guns which the Germans possess--"Black Marias," as Tommy Atkins has christened them. Before the bombardment had been long in operation the civil population or a large proportion of it fell into a panic. It is impossible to blame these peaceful, quiet living burghers of Antwerp for the fears that possessed them when the merciless rain of German shells began to fall into the streets and on the roofs of their houses and public buildings. The Burgomaster had in his proclamation given them excellent advice to remain calm and he certainly set them an admirable example, but it was impossible to counsel the Belgians who knew what had happened to their fellow citizens in other towns which the Germans had passed through. Immense crowds of them, men, women and children, gathered along the quayside and at the railway stations in an effort to make a hasty exit from the city. Their condition was pitiable in the extreme. Family parties made up the biggest proportion of this vast crowd of broken men and women. There were husbands and wives with their groups of scared children unable to understand what was happening, yet dimly conscious in their childish way that something unusual and terrible and perilous had come into their lives. In many groups were to be seen old, old people, grandfathers and grandmothers of a family, and these in their shaking frailty and terror, which they could not withstand, were the more pitiable objects in the great gathering of stricken townsfolk. This pathetic clinging together of the family was one of the most affecting sights I witnessed, and I have not the slightest doubt that in the mad rush for refuge beyond the borders of their native land many family groups of this sort completely perished. All day and throughout the night these pitiful scenes continued, and when I went down to the quayside early Thursday, when the dawn was throwing a wan light over this part of the world, I found again a great host of citizens awaiting their chance of flight. In the dimness of the breaking day this gathering of "Les Miserables" presented, as it seemed to me, the tragedy of Belgium in all its horror. I shall never forget the sight. Words would fail to convey anything but a feeble picture of the depths of misery and despair there. People stood in dumb and patient ranks drawn down to the quayside by the announcement that two boats would leave at 11 o'clock for Ostend, and Ostend looks across to England, where lie their hopes.