A few small factory buildings on the left bank of the river and the poorest section of the workmen’s quarter remain. The rest of Termonde is a mere heap of bricks. It was; it no longer is. Walking out towards the southern side of the town I came suddenly--everything here happens suddenly--upon a note of desolation, not the most desolate, but the most crying of all. Through a chasm in a shattered façade I saw the white walls of little houses, the white coifs of nuns, and the waving green of trees. It was the Béguinage. Anyone who knows Flanders knows these remote pools of silence, these quiet backwaters where no oar breaks the surface, where the old and spent await death as one courteously awaits an honoured visitor. I stepped in and found myself in an irregular triangle of almshouses. At first nothing seemed to have been touched. But in the centre there was a church, fringed with dwarf cypress. Walking over, I found that it was, like Termonde, a skeleton. The Germans, a nun told me, had on the entreaty of two Dutch ladies, members of the community, consented to spare the cottages. But they insisted on making a bonfire of the “cottage of the Bon Dieu!” Nothing was lacking in this abomination of desolation. I determined to have some photographs made. Yes! our guide--a big country farmer, who had out of pure courtesy accompanied us from Zele--knew of a photographer who would doubtless be able to do our business. We went to look for him. His street had disappeared, his house with it. We walked back to the _estaminet_ to ask where he might be found. “But, monsieur! he was one of the first to be shot by the Germans!” Later, on one of the quays we saw a white wooden cross, with lime stamped down about its base. Bystanders told us that it marked the grave of two Belgian civilians. “Ah!” said our farmer, “it is perhaps there!” ORGANISED INFAMY Now as to the procedure of the Germans. The facts admit of no doubt. I set aside forthwith any damage caused to Termonde by the bombardment. The bridge was dynamited, a number of houses on the outskirts were shattered by shells. Nobody is childish enough to complain about that. War is war, and, technically, Termonde is a fortified town--though the old fortifications have been dismantled. But the burning was deliberate, scientific, selective, devoid of military purpose. The German commander demanded a levy of two million francs. The money was not there in the public treasury, and the Burgomaster was not there to save his town as Braun saved Ghent. General Sommerfeld--that is the name that now wears such a nimbus of infamy--had a chair brought from an inn into the centre of the Grand Place. He sat down on it, crossed his legs, and said: “It is our duty to burn the town!”