As soon as we reached a height of three thousand feet my pilot headed the machine toward the lines. At our feet lay the terrain of the "Verdun sector." From the forest of the Argonne on our left to the plains of the Woëvre on our right stretched one of the bloodiest battle-fields of history. At regular intervals along the front the French captive balloons—there were eighteen in sight at this moment—swung lazily in the breeze. They looked for all the world like the "saucisses" they are named after. Day and night they are kept aloft, maintaining ceaseless vigil over the movements of the enemy. Passing the balloons, we could see the various important points of the defense at closer range. The city of Verdun nestled close to the banks of the Meuse, which wound like a silver band through that now desolate land. Far off to the right were the forts of Vaux and Douaumont. A trifle nearer was Fleury. To the left, in the distance, I could make out the "Mort-Homme" and Hill 304, while directly before us lay Cumières and Chattancourt. The entire Verdun sector was spread out like a relief-map. The German attacks upon the French position on the Mort-Homme were still in progress. I had never before seen a battle, and to see such an important conflict from "the gallery" seemed most strange. It looked more like a pan of boiling water, with the steam hanging in a pall over it, than anything else I can think of. In fact, a yellow mist rose to a great height and almost obscured the view. Tiny flashes showed where the guns were concealed, but to us the battle was a silent one. The noise of our motor drowned the whistling of the shells and the roar of the bombardment. I could not help thinking how much some of those poor fellows below us would appreciate a little of this silence. We could plainly see the network of the trenches, broken and half-obliterated in the mud. In some places they were so close together that it was difficult to make out where the French lines ended and the German earthworks began. The ground was speckled with "pock-marks" caused by shell explosions, and altogether it was a weird scene of desolation. All signs of nature which had once beautified this region had vanished. The forests and the green fields had disappeared. Ruined villages lay like piles of disused stone among the circular "entonnoirs," or shell-holes. In color it was all a dirty brown. [Illustration: A view of the Mort-Homme taken from a height of 3,600 feet. These are two photographs pasted together. Exact maps of the front are made in this manner daily by the photographic sections.]