Hardly five minutes had elapsed after our landing before we were steaming away on our train through a landscape which, to judge by its appearance, might have known only peace, and naught but peace, for a thousand placid years.
It is true we saw during that ride few able-bodied male adults, either in the towns through which we rushed or in the country.

There were priests occasionally and old, infirm men or half-grown boys; but of men in their prime the land had been drained to fill up the army of defense then on the other side of Belgium--toward Germany--striving to hold the invaders in check until the French and English might come up.

The yellow-ripe grain stood in the fields, heavy-headed and drooping with seed.

The russet pears and red apples bent the limbs of the fruit trees almost to earth.

Every visible inch of soil was under cultivation, of the painfully intensive European sort; and there remained behind to garner the crops only the peasant women and a few crippled, aged grand- sires.