All In A Moment Come Ground-Shaking Thunder-Crashes Of Artillery, The Sky Is Cobwebbed With The Crisscrossing Red Lines Streaming From Soaring Bomb- Shells, And A Rain Of Iron Fragments Descends Upon The City; Descends Upon The Empty Streets:

Streets which are not empty a moment later, but mottled with dim figures of frantic women and children scurrying from home and bed toward the cave dungeons - encouraged by the humorous grim soldiery, who shout 'Rats, to your holes!' and laugh.

The cannon-thunder rages, shells scream and crash overhead, the iron rain pours down, one hour, two hours, three, possibly six, then stops; silence follows, but the streets are still empty; the silence continues; by-and-bye a head projects from a cave here and there and yonder, and reconnoitres, cautiously; the silence still continuing, bodies follow heads, and jaded, half smothered creatures group themselves about, stretch their cramped limbs, draw in deep draughts of the grateful fresh air, gossip with the neighbors from the next cave; maybe straggle off home presently, or take a lounge through the town, if the stillness continues; and will scurry to the holes again, by-and-bye, when the war- tempest breaks forth once more.

There being but three thousand of these cave-dwellers - merely the population of a village - would they not come to know each other, after a week or two, and familiarly; insomuch that the fortunate or unfortunate experiences of one would be of interest to all?

Those are the materials furnished by history.

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