they made my story, for which he had taken the trip, extremely tame
reading.

Hugh Gibson, secretary of the American legation, was the first person
in an official position to visit Antwerp after the Belgian Government
moved to that city, and, even with his passes and flag flying from his
automobile, he reached Antwerp and returned to Brussels only after
many delays and adventures. Not knowing the Belgians were
advancing from the north, Gibson and his American flag were several
times under fire, and on the days he chose for his excursion his route
led him past burning towns and dead and wounded and between the
lines of both forces actively engaged.

He was carrying despatches from Brand Whitlock to Secretary Bryan.
During the night he rested at Antwerp the first Zeppelin air-ship to visit
that city passed over it, dropping one bomb at the end of the block in
which Gibson was sleeping. He was awakened by the explosion and
heard all of those that followed.

The next morning he was requested to accompany a committee
appointed by the Belgian Government to report upon the outrage,
and he visited a house that had been wrecked, and saw what was left
of the bodies of those killed. People who were in the streets when the
air-ship passed said it moved without any sound, as though the motor
had been shut off and it was being propelled by momentum.

One bomb fell so near the palace where the Belgian Queen was
sleeping as to destroy the glass in the windows and scar the walls.
The bombs were large, containing smaller bombs of the size of
shrapnel. Like shrapnel, on impact they scattered bullets over a
radius of forty yards. One man, who from a window in the eighth story
of a hotel watched the air-ship pass, stated that before each bomb fell
he saw electric torches signal from the roofs, as though giving
directions as to where the bombs should strike.

After my arrest by the Germans, I found my usefulness in Brussels as
a correspondent was gone, and I returned to London, and from there
rejoined the Allies in Paris.

I left Brussels on August 27th with Gerald Morgan and Will Irwin, of
Collier's, on a train carrying English prisoners and German wounded.
In times of peace the trip to the German border lasts three hours, but
in making it we were twenty-six hours, and by order of the authorities
we were forbidden to leave the train.

Carriages with cushions naturally were reserved for the wounded, so
we slept on wooden benches and