A short ride over a sandy road brings you to the city gate--an
opening in the wire enclosure of perhaps two or three square miles
among the dwarf pines and oaks. The guard-house is kept by a squad
of Dutch soldiers. But it is in no sense a prison-camp, for people
are coming and going freely all the time, and the only rules within
are those of decency and good order.

"Capacity, ten thousand," says the commandant, sweeping his hand
around the open circle, "quite a city, _niet waar?_ I will
show you the various arrangements."

All the buildings are of wood, a mushroom city, but constructed with
intelligence to meet the needs of the sudden, helpless population.
You visit the big kitchen with its ever-simmering kettles; the
dining-halls with their long tables and benches; the schoolhouses
full of lively, irrepressible children; the wash-house where always
talkative and jocose laundresses are scrubbing and wringing the
clothes; the sewing-rooms where hundreds of women and girls are
busy with garments and gossip; the chapel where religious services
are held by the devoted pastors; the recreation-room which is the
social centre of the city; the clothing storerooms where you find
several American girls working for love.

Then you go through the long family barracks where each family has
a separate cubicle, more or less neat and comfortable, sometimes
prettily decorated, according to the family taste and habit; the
barracks for the single men; the barracks for the single women;
the two hospitals, one general, the other for infectious diseases;
and last of all, the house where the half-dozen disorderly women are
confined, surrounded by a double fence of barbed wire and guarded