"Hill 60" (Plates 14 and 15) is to all appearance little more than a heap of spoil from the cutting for the railway running south-eastwards from Ypres to Lille. But it forms an observation ridge some 150 feet above the level of Ypres and only two and a half miles distant from the city. It was captured by the Germans early in the war, and in April, 1915, retaken by the British after very heavy fighting, in which 3,000 bodies were said to have been left on its slopes. A month later, however, it was lost again under heavy gas attacks, and remained in German possession substantially until the great attack on the Messines Ridge in June, 1917 (the third battle of Ypres), when we once more regained it, after ten months of underground fighting and tunnelling. It was lost again during the German attack in April, 1918, and only finally recovered in the final advance in September. Long before the end this historical hummock had been riddled below ground by mines, and above ground torn up by their explosions and by incessant shell-fire, so that it is now merely a mass of craters and shell-holes, with the remains of dugouts in the soft clay. The two illustrations give some idea of the state of the ground and a suggestion of the wide horizon commanded by this insignificant elevation. It was on the 22nd of April, 1915, that the Germans startled and horrified the world by the use of "poison gas" at St. Julien (about three miles north-east of Ypres), making a "scrap of paper" of Hague agreements, as of everything else. Before the end of the war they must have bitterly regretted their action, but on the first appearance of the yellow death-bearing cloud it answered its purpose only too well--the Turcos were not to be blamed for flying incontinently before this devilish terror. The Allies, naturally, had no means of defence--even the wet handkerchief was not thought of, but somehow or other a couple of Canadian brigades held on magnificently--fighting poison gas unprotected must have required even more pluck than facing machine-guns--and for a time appear to have been all that stood between Ypres and the enemy. Under the date of the 22nd of April Sister Marguerite writes in her Journal: "... Au retour de nos visites aux malades, vers 5 heures, des soldats français [Turcos] fuyant les tranchées, nous rencontrèrent, criant et hurlant que les Boches les avaient empoisonnés! Beaucoup moururent sur la route; d'autres en prie à l'asphyxie demandaient à grands cris un peu de lait. Je revins à la maison tandis que le docteur, obligé de continuer, retourna porter ses soins à une femme. Mais celle-ci, effrayée par le bombardement, s'était enfuie dans les champs où le docteur Fox la retrouva après une heure de recherches. Au couvent je trouvai d'autre soldats encore, victimes des gaz empoisonnés; on leur servait du lait chaud condensé."