BELGIAN PILGRIMS AT SHORNCLIFFE A Gift from Mons

Canon Dessain, as representative of the Archbishop of Malines, Cardinal van Roey, pronounced the Benediction at Shorncliffe, on Monday last, on the occasion of the pilgrimage from Belgium in honour of the memory of thirty Belgian soldiers who lie buried in the mausoleum built by the offerings of refugees in this country.
Nearly seven hundred pilgrims crossed to Folkestone. from Ostend. Many of them were ex-Servicemen. They were welcomed at the quay by Sir Philip Sassoon, M.P. for Hythe, and at Shorncliffe by the Mayor of Folkestone and the Commandant of the Shorneliffe Garrison.
The ceremony at the mausoleum was impressive by its dignity and simplicity.
• Many patriotic 'bodies in Belgium had brought their standards, which lent colour to the scene. A detachment of the 1st Royal Dragoons supplied the guard of honour. Busts of the late King Albert of the Belgians and of Queen Elizabeth were placed in the mausoleum by Col. Baron van Zuylen van Nyvelt, who at eighty-five years of age was revisiting, as leader of the pilgrimage, the spot at which he had assisted at the inaugural ceremony nineteen years ago.
From the town of Mons a gift was brought to Folkestone: a casket, sealed with the municipal arms and containing earth from that field of battle on which the British troops first came in contact with the Germans. After the Benediction, buglers of the Royal Berkshire Regiment sounded the Last Post " and the " Reveille."
Before the pilgrims embarked for their return journey, two magnificent wreaths were deposited on the Folkestone War Memorial.