The Valley of Vision | Page 6

hotels of this tiny summer resort are of brick. It
has an old, well-established look; a place of relaxation with restraint,
not of ungirdled frivolity. The plain Dutch people love their holidays,
but they take them serenely and by rule: long walks and bicycle-rides,
placid and nourishing picnics in the woods or by the sea, afternoon
tea-parties in sheltered arbors. One of their favorite names for a
country-place is _Wel Teweden,_ "perfectly contented."
The commandant of the City of Refuge lives in one of the little brick
houses of the village. He is a portly, rosy old bachelor, with a curly
brown beard and a military bearing; a man of fine education and wide
experience, seasoned in colonial diplomacy. The ruling idea in his mind
is discipline, authority. His official speech is abrupt and final, the
manner of a martinet covering a heart full of kindness and generous
impulses.
"Come," he says, after a good breakfast, "I want you to see my camp. It
is not as fine and fancy as the later ones. But we built it in a hurry and
we had it ready on time."
A short ride over a sandy road brings you to the city gate--an opening
in the wire enclosure of perhaps two or three square miles among the
dwarf pines and oaks. The guard-house is kept by a squad of Dutch
soldiers. But it is in no sense a prison-camp, for people are coming and
going freely all the time, and the only rules within are those of decency
and good order.
"Capacity, ten thousand," says the commandant, sweeping his hand
around the open circle, "quite a city, _niet waar?_ I will show you the

various arrangements."
All the buildings are of wood, a mushroom city, but constructed with
intelligence to meet the needs of the sudden, helpless population. You
visit the big kitchen with its ever-simmering kettles; the dining-halls
with their long tables and benches; the schoolhouses full of lively,
irrepressible children; the wash-house where always talkative and
jocose laundresses are scrubbing and wringing the clothes; the
sewing-rooms where hundreds of women and girls are busy with
garments and gossip; the chapel where religious services are held by
the devoted pastors; the recreation-room which is the social centre of
the city; the clothing storerooms where you find several American girls
working for love.
Then you go through the long family barracks where each family has a
separate cubicle, more or less neat and comfortable, sometimes prettily
decorated, according to the family taste and habit; the barracks for the
single men; the barracks for the single women; the two hospitals, one
general, the other for infectious diseases; and last of all, the house
where the half-dozen disorderly women are confined, surrounded by a
double fence of barbed wire and guarded by a sentry.
Poor, wretched creatures! You are sorry for them. Why not put the
disorderly men into a house of confinement, too?
"Ah," says the commandant bluntly, "we find it easier and better to
send the disorderly men to jail or hospital in some near town. We are
easier with the women. I pity them. But they are full of poison. We
can't let them go loose in the camp for fear of infection."
How many of the roots of human nature are uncovered in a place like
this! The branches and the foliage and the blossoms, too, are seen more
clearly in this air where all things are necessarily open and in common.
The men are generally less industrious than the women. But they work
willingly at the grading of roads and paths, the laying out and planting
of flower-beds, the construction of ornamental designs, of doubtful
taste but unquestionable sincerity.
You read the names which they have given to the different streets and
barracks, and the passageways between the cubicles, and you
understand the strong, instinctive love which binds them to their native
Belgium. "Antwerp Avenue," "Louvain Avenue," "Malines Street,"
"Liege Street," and streets bearing the names of many ruined towns and

villages of which you have never heard, but which are forever dear to
the hearts of these exiles. The names of the hero-king, Albert, and of
his brave consort, Queen Elizabeth, are honored by inscriptions, and
their pictures, cut from, newspapers, decorate the schoolrooms and the
little family cubicles.
The brutal power which reigns at Berlin may drive the Belgians out of
Belgium by terror and oppression. But it cannot drive Belgium out of
the hearts of the Belgians. While they live their country lives, and
Albert is still their King.
But think of the unnatural conditions into which these thousands of
human beings--yes, and hundreds of thousands like them, torn from
their homes, uprooted, dispersed, impoverished--are forced by this
bitter, cruel war. Think of the cold and ruined hearthstones,