guns, columns of marching men, motor-cars by the score,
French soldiers, British soldiers, aeroplanes spinning merrily
overhead--truly a wonderful spectacle. You have no conception of
the abominable state of the main roads out here. The _pave_ road,
peculiar to these parts, is always a bone-shaker at the best of
times, but now, after the passage of so much heavy traffic, it is
simply appalling. A curious feature is the extraordinary
straightness of the main roads, down which you can literally see
for miles. The by-roads, on the other hand, seem to abound in
right-angled turns, and it is not an easy matter to drive a car
along at any considerable rate of speed.

My knowledge of French has come in very useful indeed, but for
these outlying country districts a knowledge of Flemish would be
even more valuable. Many persons about here speak not one word of
French, and Flemish is almost always used by the people _en
famille_. It is a kind of mixture of low German and middle
English. I can usually get at people's meanings, and even make
them understand mine, by a jargon embracing sometimes words from
Chaucer and sometimes a little German. Listening to the language
when spoken one is reminded of rather nasal Welsh. There is a
distinct resemblance between the general sound of Welsh and
Flemish in conversation.

These parts constitute one of the most Catholic districts in
Europe; the people are quite as devout as those of the south of
Ireland. Wherever you go on the roads you are confronted with
shrines--little structures with an altar, holy images, etc., that
can be seen through a glass window barred across with slender
pieces of iron. Above the door is an admonition urging the
passer-by to stop and say an "Ave" or a "Pater." All the
dedications to saints and the Virgin are in Latin. For example,
this is a very common heading for a shrine, "_Ave, Maria, gratiae
plena._" I have also seen shrines dedicated to some of those old
chaps that Dad is so interested in--Antony of Padua, Francis of
Assisi, etc. All over the place you meet, stuck in boxes with
glass fronts and mounted on poles, tiny waxen images of various
saints, or Christ on the Cross, the Virgin Mary, etc., etc. When
a native comes to one of these shrines or images, he pulls off
his hat