I should hesitate to mention the millions of dollars of self-inflicted damage to Antwerp’s suburbs alone.  Luther and I did not at the time have the military password.  So that first day was a specimen in the matter of hold-ups and arrests.  From the time that we started across the level plains which approach the city until we got through the double sector of forts, we were stopped, questioned, and searched by thirteen different groups of soldiers.  There were marry occasions where, after one pair of stupid sentries had put us through the grill, a second pair, watching from a distance of thirty yards or so, promptly repeated the entire performance.  As these fellows spoke only Flemish dialect, our conversations were not particularly fluent.  Frequently there gathered around us a crowd of gaping peasants, and when the word “Americaine” came out, there were “Oh’s” and “Ah” of astonishment, or as often, when our explanations were not believed, sibilant hisses that shaped themselves into the menacing word “Spion.”  We had been led to believe that sooner or later a wool-witted sentry would shoot first and investigate later; but so far they had simply crossed bayonets, or with their hands up and palms outward had signaled us to halt.

Our experience that day, as later events proved, was not an extraordinary occurrence for war-time, especially for those endeavoring to gain entrance to an invested city.  But as our first and maiden adventure it somewhat shook our nerve.  When the grilling was over we felt about as guilty as any criminal who has been put through the third degree as practiced in the old police department days, and I had several times to look over my passport and letters of credentials to persuade myself that I was really not a spy.  Eventually we were permitted to pass the gates of the Gare du Nord.  Once inside the city gates, we made our way into the Place Verte and went directly to the Hotel St. Antoine, whose proprietor sent our names to police headquarters.  The St. Antoine was at that time the residence of the diplomatic corps and the Belgian ministers of state, and was fifty yards from the Royal Palace and across the street from headquarters of the Belgian General Staff.

There is no need of describing in detail Antwerp at the time of my first visit.  One or two pictures will suffice to give a rough idea of its existence up to the time of the bombardment.  Try to imagine, for example, going about your business in New York or Boston or Los Angeles (of course Antwerp is smaller than these) when your country, a territory perhaps the size of the New England States, was already two thirds overrun, burnt, smashed, and conquered by a hostile nation, whose forces were now within nineteen miles of the gates of the capital.  Imagine that nation’s warriors in the act of crushing your tiny army, whose remnants were already exhausted and on the verge of despair.  Then picture a quaint, sleepy city, with shadowy alleys and twisting, gabled