for such an insignificant place as Allenburg.

"Too bad!" I remarked to a white-haired old man who was sitting on
a bench mournfully contemplating the ruins.

"Sad, so sad!" he said in a voice full of grief. "And it seems
sadder that it had to be done by our own people," he added.

"Were you here during the fighting?" I asked.

"I was," he answered. "I would rather die than leave this place,
where I was born and where I have always lived."


I returned to the anxious guides add told them that I had visited
the ruins of the church.

"A destruction which could serve no military purpose," declared the
man in brown. "You see the methods of the people Germany is
fighting."

I expressed a desire to seek only one more thing, the church on the
road to Friedland which had been destroyed by the Russians after
the sixty maidens had been driven into it. We went to it, but,
alas! it had not been disturbed in the least. I somehow felt that
my guides saw the lack of destruction with genuine regret. The big
man with the black beard was at a loss to reconcile the story he
told me at Konigsberg with the actual facts found on the spot.

"Somebody must have made a mistake," was all he said.