XLI THE GREAT DUMP, CHARLEROI, BELGIUM
Near all great works these great dumps are, but none I have seen are so great as those of Belgium. The refuse is carried by travellers to them, received either by girls who no longer dress as Meunier saw them, but in coarse, thick, short gowns, their hair tied up in white towels. Or the slag and dirt are dumped directly on the growing mountain, and this refuse falls in the most beautiful lines and the most lovely grays and browns, like velvet or the fur of some huge beast, which grows and grows, towering over the chimneys, the furnaces looming up through the smoke, always growing and growing, fed by the travellers which carry to it an endless chain of creaking buckets high in air, sometimes for a kilometre, over ploughed fields and slow-moving rivers, to these work mountains.
XLII THE IRON GATE, CHARLEROI, BELGIUM
High in the air the iron gate hangs—the entrance to the great works. When there is a strike it comes down, and not only is it topped with sharp spikes, but, I was told, it could be charged with electricity and is pierced with holes through which to shoot. On either side are guard-houses on the wall, fitted with guns—all these preparations made for strikers, for industrial war. Now that real war has come, I wonder what part the iron gate plays.
XLIII CRANES, DUISBURG, GERMANY
I know nothing of the lifting power or any other accomplishments of these cranes, but I do know that nowhere in the world are there such huge, such picturesque cranes as those of Germany, and in Germany the finest are in and around Duisburg and Hamburg. They may not carry any more than, or as much as, American machines, but they are far bigger and more drawable, and those on the high banks of the Rhine superbly placed, each full of character, each worth drawing.