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224 WITH THE GERMAN ARMIES IN THE WEST
couple toiled along with their pitiful odds and ends on a wheel-
barrow and two goats on a lead. They had clearly, to escape
the fighting armies, retired to some quiet spot in the neigh-
bourhood and were now returning to see whether there was
anything left of their cottage. The population here is Flemish,
as are most of the inhabitants of Antwerp.
The trenches now become more numerous and have been
constructed with admirable care. The underground passages
have in many cases been enlarged into rooms, with walls of
match-boarding. At one point in the town we found traces of
barricades across the road. They had been built in the form
of stone walls, but seemed harmless enough and easy both to
destroy and to outflank. Here and there we come across dead
horses lying on the road and in the ditches.
Presently we pass a troop of Uhlans, fine men of superb
bearing on big horses and looking splendid in their complete
and yet handy and smart field kit, with their long slender
lances surmounted by streamers. Near the inner girdle of
forts with their belts of wire entanglements we meet a couple
of heavy mortar batteries, now no longer needed here. They
are evidently on their way to Ghent and to western Flanders.
On the other hand a bridging detachment with upturned pon-
toons resting on long, narrow carriages is travelling in our
direction, evidently for use on the Scheldt.
The town itself is encircled by a wall broken by several
gates and by a moat crossed by bridges. German flags are
now flying over the gateways. Through the Porte de Malines
we enter the Berchem quarter and then follow the Chaussée
de Malines north-westward. The whole street is crowded with
transport trains and resting troops. They are evidently on
the point of starting off for fresh adventures. Now and again
we pass a house which has been struck by shells, and in some
places the stone paving has been torn up by the same agency.
The broad and aristocratic Avenue des Arts here and there has
had a tree trunk severed by fragments of shell. The Place de
Meir, a large and handsome street in the very centre of the
town, is likewise crowded with ammunition columns and
troops, looking bright and cheerful in the sunlight, but with
a bearing and an air as if it were the simplest thing in the
world to contribute to the conquest of Antwerp.
There are no women and children about, and the men out
looking at the troops might be counted on the fingers of both
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