In 1914 the population numbered 18,000. Its principal industries were the manufacture of woollen goods, printed cottons, linens, ribbons, and Valenciennes lace. Its tanneries and dye works were also of considerable importance. It was a clean, well-built town, watered by the river Yperlée. The many arms of the latter ran through the streets of the town, enabling the boats loaded with merchandise to come right up to the warehouses. These waterways are now covered in. Formerly there was a path on each side of them, which explains the exceptional width of the streets and squares of Ypres. [Illustration] =YPRES= =A Visit to the Ruins= _The tourist enters Ypres by the Dixmude Gate._ At No. 54 Rue de Dixmude is the façade of the Maison Biebuygk, on the right. Built in 1544, this house was one of the most remarkable in Ypres. Immediately below the gable were two carved medallions representing the sun and the moon. The great pointed arch which framed the gable windows gave exceptional grace to the façade (photos, p. 73). At No. 66 of the same street, on the left, the 18th century façade shown in the photographs (p. 74), was still standing in July, 1919. It was decorated with statues of the Virgin Mary and St. François, under fluted niches with carved borders. [Illustration: BIEBUYGK HOUSE (_No_. 54, _Rue de Dixmude_), BEFORE THE WAR. IT WAS ONE OF THE HANDSOMEST HOUSES IN YPRES (_photo, Antony, Ypres_)] [Illustration: BIEBUYGK HOUSE, AS THE WAR LEFT IT] [Illustration: ST. FRANÇOIS SCHOOL, RUE DE DIXMUDE, BEFORE THE WAR (_Photo, Antony, Ypres_.)] [Illustration: ST. FRANÇOIS SCHOOL, AFTER THE GERMAN BOMBARDMENTS] [Illustration: YPRES. THE GRANDE PLACE ON MARKET-DAY, BEFORE THE WAR (_See below. Photo, Antony, Ypres_.)] Arriving at the Grande Place, the imposing ruins of the =Nieuwerk= and the =Cloth Hall= are seen on the right. [Illustration: WHAT THE GERMAN SHELLS LEFT OF IT (_see above_)] [Illustration: YPRES. RUINS OF THE CLOTH HALL, SEEN FROM ST. MARTIN'S CATHEDRAL. FRAGMENTS OF THE LATTER ARE VISIBLE IN THE FOREGROUND] =THE CLOTH HALL AND THE NIEUWERK= The Cloth Hall, containing extensive warehouses, in which the sale of cloth was carried on, was built in the 13th and 14th centuries. It consisted of a series of buildings grouped around a rectangular court. The Hall proper was distinguished from a building called the Nieuwerk, added in the 17th century. The southern building of the hall had a magnificent façade, flanked on the east by the gable of the Nieuwerk and surmounted by a large belfry in the centre. Bold turrets stood at both ends of this façade. Rather spare in ornament, the long succession of glazed and blind windows constituted the grandeur of the façade. On the ground-floor, which was lighted by a row of quatrefoil windows in pointed arches, there were forty-eight rectangular doors.