a uniformed soldier, and another comrade in his gray-green costume was shoveling coal into the furnace.  One of the guards, seeing me plodding on, smilingly beckoned to me to jump aboard.  When I took the cue and made a move in that direction he winked his eye and significantly tapped upon the barrel of his gun.  The train was loaded with iron rails and timbers, and I speculated as to their use, but farther down the line I saw hundreds of men unloading these, making a great noise as they flung them down the river bank to the water’s edge.  They were destined for a big pontoon bridge which these men were, with thousands of soldiers, throwing across the stream.  Ceaselessly the din and clangor of hammerings rang out over the river.  My way now wound through what was, to all purposes, one German camp, strung for miles along the Meuse.  The soldiers were busy with domestic duties.  Everywhere there was the cheer and rhythm of well-ordered industry in the open air.  In one place thousands of loaves of black bread were being shifted from wagon to wagon.  In another they were piling a yard high with mountains of grain.  The air was full of the drone of a great mill, humming away at full speed, while the Belgian fields were yielding up their golden harvests to the invaders.  Apples in great clusters hung down around the necks of horses tethered in the orchards.  With their keepers they were enjoying a respite from their hard fatiguing exertions.

Here and there among the groves, or along the wayside, was a contrivance that looked like a tiny engine; smoke curled out of its chimney and coals blazed brightly in the grate.  They were the kitchen-wagons, each making in itself a complete, compact cooking apparatus.  Some had immense caldrons with a spoon as large as a spade.  In these the stews, put up in dry form and guaranteed to keep for twenty years, were being heated.  A savory smell permeated the air and at the sound of the bugle the men clustered about, each looking happy as he received his dish filled with steaming rations.

Through this scene the native Belgians moved freely in and out.  Tables had been dragged out into the yard, and around them officers were sitting eating, drinking, and chatting with the peasant women who were serving them and with whom they had set up an entente cordiale.  Indeed, these Belgians seemed to be rather enjoying this interruption in the monotony of their lives, and a few were making the most of the great adventure.  In one case I could not help believing that a certain strikingly-pretty, self-possessed girl was not altogether averse to a war which could thus bring to her side the attentions of such a handsome and gallant set of officers as were gathered round her.  At any rate, she was equal to the occasion, and over her little court, which rang with laughter, she presided with a certain rustic dignity and ease.