Eastward, always eastward, for we are bound through the lands of the conquering victim to those of the humbled oppressor. With every mile the visible signs of war grow less, though houses and buildings along the railway show marks of gunfire long after the land has regained its normal aspect. First and last, districts through which the railways pass have suffered most both in advance and retreat; a fact to which the scarred stations bear witness. By the time the sun is shining brightly we have passed beyond the outer fringes of desolation and are again in a prosperous-looking land. The sight of Maubeuge recalled many an anxious moment during the great German invasion of 1914. Outwardly the town appeared to have suffered but little. As we crossed the Belgian frontier a general view of the country as seen from the carriage windows conveyed the same impression. The soil was well cultivated, the houses in good order. There are no evidences of the presence of a hostile army beyond the occasional destruction of a bridge blown up during the German retreat. The spiritual yoke of an enemy occupation for four and a half years must have been intolerable, but material damage was clearly confined to the first and last days of the war. And Belgium has the matter in hand. She is at work, working, working all the time. From countless buildings the Belgian flag waving in the sunshine proclaimed the glad tidings of a land released from its invaders and restored to its original place among nations. The little valleys of the Ardennes, the factory chimneys of Liège, seem at one in telling the same tale of liberty regained. There is an indescribable air of gaiety among the people on the roadside, a sense of laughter and merry-making. Aerschot, Dinant, Louvain would, of course, tell a different tale, but in southern Belgium it would seem that the grip of the invader was of a different quality from his strangle-hold on France.