e conditions. To say that they
are well is to understate the fact: the ruddy faces and clear eyes and
hard muscles--even of those who once were pale London clerks--proclaim a
triumph for the system of hygiene of their army.

Suddenly we came upon a house with a great round hole in its wall, and
then upon several in ruins beside the village street. Meanwhile, at work
under the windswept trees of the highway, were strange, dark men from the
uttermost parts of the earth, physiognomies as old as the tombs of
Pharaoh. It was, indeed, not so much the graven red profiles of priests
and soldiers that came tome at sight of these Egyptians, but the singing
fellaheen of the water-buckets of the Nile. And here, too, shovelling
the crushed rock, were East Indians oddly clad in European garb, careless
of the cold. That sense of the vastness of the British Empire, which at
times is so profound, was mingled now with a knowledge that it was
fighting for its life, marshalling all its resources for Armageddon.

Saint Eloi is named after the good bishop who ventured to advise King
Dagobert about his costume. And the church stands--what is left of it
--all alone on the greenest of terraces jutting out toward the east; and
the tower, ruggedly picturesque against the sky, resembles that of some
crumbled abbey. As a matter of fact, it has been a target for German
gunners. Dodging an army-truck and rounding one of those military
traffic policemen one meets at every important corner we climbed the hill
and left the motor among the great trees, which are still fortunately
preserved. And we stood for a few minutes, gazing over miles and miles
of devastation. Then, taking the motor once more, we passed through
wrecked and empty villages until we came to the foot of Vimy Ridge.
Notre Dame de Lorette rose against the sky-line to the north.

Vimy and Notre Dame de Lorette--sweet but terrible names! Only a summer
had passed since Vimy was the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of
the war. From a distance the prevailing colour of the steep slope is
ochre; it gives the effect of having been scraped bare in preparation for
some gigantic enterprise. A nearer view reveals a flush of green; nature
is already striving to heal. From top to bottom it is pockmarked by
shells and scarred by trenches--trenches every few feet, and between them
tangled masses of barbed wire still clinging to the "knife rests" and
corkscrew stanchions to which it ha