WATERLOO. 45 



houses of Hougoumont still present a most direful spectacle. 

 The walls are for the most part blackened and in ruins, 

 and such parts as remain bear terrible signs of destruction 

 and death. They are pierced by cannon-balls and marked 

 with bullets on every side, and many of the latter are 

 still lodged in the half-burned beams which support the 

 blighted remains of what were once human dwellings. 

 The court-door is actually riddled, and the shot appears 

 to have poured in from every direction. It was among 

 these buildings that the most terrible and most individual 

 fighting was maintained, and with what obstinacy on both 

 sides may be seen from the face of things, were there no 

 other proof. The well-known garden, with its little wood, 

 which was attacked from so many points at once, was 

 very interesting, although it now bears a very different 

 aspect from what it did when the fight was done. Every- 

 thing is neat and in order, the roses are in full blow, and 

 the small fantastic parterres of flowers, all in their bright 

 array, seemed strangely placed so near the houses of deso- 

 lation. The surrounding trees, however, are credible wit- 

 nesses of the bloody fray ; most of them are pierced with 

 bullets, and many have had branches and large pieces of 

 the bark and wood carried away by cannon-balls. The spot 

 is particularly pointed out where it is said that an officer 

 and seven men were killed by one shot. It must evidently 

 have been a spent ball, and shot from a distance, though 



