stores. Add a château (not a grand one) for the Headquarters, a modest office for the Staff, and you have a fair conception of the billeting place which shelters that part of the division which reposes. But this town is like many other towns in this unattractive country. Its interest to us lies in the tenants of the moment. Walk down the street, and you will, if you are a Canadian, feel at once something familiar and homelike in the atmosphere. One hears voices everywhere, and one does not need the sight of the brass shoulder badges, "CANADA," to know the race to which these voices belong. It may be the speech of Nova Scotia, it may be the voice of British Columbia, or it may be the accents in which the French-Canadian seeks to adapt to the French of Flanders the tongue which his ancestors, centuries ago, carried to a new world; but, whichever it be—it is all Canadian.

And soon, a company swings by, going perhaps to bath parade—to that expeditious process which, in half an hour, has cleansed the bathers and fumigated every rag which they possess. And as they pass they sing carelessly, but with a challenging catch, a song which, if by chance you come from Toronto, will perhaps stir some association. For these, or many of them, are boys from the College; and the song is the University song whose refrain is, "Toronto."

And if you go still a little further in the direction of the front, you will soon—very soon—after leaving the place of billeting, come to the country over which the great guns, by day and night, contend for mastery. And as one advances, there seem to be Canadians everywhere. Here are batteries, skilfully masked. Here are supplies on their way to the trenches. And all the time can be seen reliefs and reserves until it is strange to meet anyone not in khaki and without the badge of "CANADA." The passion for football, which the Canadian has begun to share with his English comrade, abates none of its keenness as he marches nearer to the front. A spirited match was in progress near our lines not long ago when a distracting succession of "Weary Willies" began to distribute themselves not very far from the football ground. The only people who took no notice were the players, and nothing short of a peremptory order from the Provost Marshal brought to an end a game which was somewhat unnecessarily dangerous. And our men have, of course, made the acquaintance of "Jack Johnson," and without liking him—for he is not likeable—they endure him with as much constancy as brave men need. Nor, indeed, have our own artillery failed to do more than hold their own. The gunners inherited from the division which preceded them in the trenches a disagreeable inheritance in the shape of an observation post which had long harassed and menaced our lines by the information which it placed at the disposal of the enemy. We were so fortunate as to put it out of action in the third round which we fired—a success very welcome as an encouragement, and giving a substantial relief from an unwholesome scrutiny.

Our infantry were not specially engaged in the fighting at Neuve Chapelle, but our artillery played its part in that triumph of artillery science which preceded the British attack, and our men were ready during the whole fight for the order which, had the tactical situation so developed, would have sent them, too, to make their first assault upon the German trenches. And there were not a few who were longing for that order. They thought that the Germans had presumed upon a slight acquaintance. For, the very first night on which our men were put into the trenches, the Germans began to call out, "Come out, you Canadians! Come out and fight!" Now, the trenches at normal times have their own code of manners and of amenity, and this challenge was, and is, regarded as impertinent.

The Canadian brings his own phrases into his daily life. When the German flares in the trenches nervously lighted up the space between the two lines, "There are the Northern Lights" was the comment of Canada; and "Northern Lights" they have remained to this day.