To-day the greater part of this country suffers from the curse of industrialism and repeats--of course, with far less degradation--the terrible aspect of our own manufacturing towns. Roubaix and Tourcoing in particular are huge straggling agglomerations of cotton-spinners and their hands. A mass of railways and tramways cut the countryside, and the evil presence of coal-smoke mars it everywhere: at least within the region of Lille, Tourcoing, and Roubaix. In May 1794, though a considerable industry had begun to grow up in Lille itself, the wide, open countryside round the town was entirely agricultural. Much of it was what soldiers call "blind" country: that is, it was cut up into fields with numerous hedges; there were long farm walls and a great number of small watercourses fringed with trees. But, on the other hand, there was very little wood. Moreover, though there were few places from which one could overlook any considerable view, the "blindness" of the field, as a whole, has been much exaggerated in the attempt to excuse or explain the disaster of which it was the theatre. The southern part of it is open enough, and so is the north-eastern portion, in which the first column operated. Of the soil no particular mention is needed; most of the great roads were paved; the weather had created no difficulty in the going, and the only trouble in this respect lay in the northern part, where Clerfayt's command was condemned to advance over patches of loose and difficult sand, which made the road, or rather rare lanes, very heavy. It will at once be perceived that, in view of the operations planned, one principal obstacle exists in the terrain, the River Lys. Few bridges crossed this stream, and for the purpose of turning the French position and coming across the Lys from the north to the neighbourhood of Mouveaux, there was in those days no bridge save the bridge at Wervicq (at the point marked 6 on the plan at the beginning of this section); but this difficulty we have seen to be lessened by the presence in Clerfayt's command of a section of pontoons. At first sight one might perceive no other considerable obstacle save the Lys to the general movement of the allied army. But when the peculiar course of the little River Marque is pointed out, and the nature of its stream described, the reader will perceive that it exercised some little effect upon the fortunes of the battle, and might have exercised a much greater one to the advantage of the British troops had not the Duke of York blundered in a fashion which will be later described. In the first place, it should be noted that this little stream (it is no wider than a canal, will barely allow two barges to pass in its lower course, and will not float one to the southward of Lille) turns up quite close to Roubaix, and at the nearest point is not a mile from the market-place of that town.