DEVASTATED ARCADIA 269 



woodland road, gone out in the boat and caught your 

 first fish, and slept in the absolute repose of a charming 

 rural retreat. Just in such a fashion did my old friend 

 Sir W. Treloar and I in a bygone June gain the Chalet 

 du Lac, on the skirts of the Belgian Ardennes, to enjoy 

 the hospitality of our English host, Mr. F. Walton, of 

 lincustrian fame. All this was suddenly cut off from 

 the outer world and overrun by barbarian hordes, who 

 feared not God, neither regarded the rights of man. 

 The Arcady had become a stricken land of desolation. 

 It is close on twenty years since we visited that 

 beautiful spot, but the memory of it abides. Here are 

 impressions set down at the time : 



" Soon after leaving Namur the train passes through 

 beautiful forest scenery. You are nearing the Ardennes, 

 and for miles you follow the course of a typical trout 

 stream, ever rushing and gliding from cool woods to 

 greet you. There were on that seventh day of June 

 Mayflies in the air, but the glaring sun and clear water 

 revealed no sign of a rising trout in any of the pools 

 that came under observation. Something after five 

 o'clock of the afternoon on this particular week-end 

 outing the railway was done with, and right pleasant 

 was the change to an open carriage and the shaded five 

 miles woodland drive to the Chalet du Lac, built by 

 my host on a lake of some fifty acres. The supports of 

 the veranda were, in fact, piles driven into the bed of 

 the lake, and the house was not only charmingly situ- 

 ated, but, having been designed by its owner, a prac- 

 tical man of great artistic taste, was charming in itself. 

 The eye in every direction rested upon and roamed 

 over splendid masses of forest trees ; they flourished 

 down to the water's edge and fell away and around in 

 receding tiers, becoming grand dark masses of pine on 



