Les Halles in the market-place that the great building looks like a low-roofed house, the bells are swung, and there, every fifteen minutes, day and night, they play their tunes. The music sounds so sweetly up in the pure air, that it is as a voice let down from heaven. No one can see the bells, except he climb up the tower staircase or mount the opposite houses; only the swallows know them well, flying in and out, for their nests are there. No one is ringing the bells, yet still they sound, making their glad noise above the drowsy town of Bruges.

Drowsy enough it is, looking as if here might be the palace of the Sleeping Beauty, and as if the bell was ringing day and night to wake her. Canals crossed by bridges Bruges is Bridge in Flemish are in every direction. Back of the Town Hall creeps the sluggish Dyver Canal, and it looks no lazier than the few people who walk along the shaded mall by its side. In the market-place sit a few old women knitting, and selling to a few other old women clattering about in wooden shoes; and yet, as one goes idling through the city, he sees great houses and warehouses, with quaint scroll-work on the face, and with high stepped roofs. Great churches and hospitals,

with glorious paintings, stand massively by themselves, and at the street corners, in niches of the houses, stand images of the Virgin Mary and child Jesus. There is a street called "The Street of the Lace-makers." Jog down the street some summer afternoon in a rattling vigilante with a Flemish driver: you see the quaint houses that have settled themselves comfortably as if for a long nap, and at each door-step a knot of women and children, gossiping together over their lace-making, while the youngest brats play soberly about in the gutter. Each has a reel and cushion, and the little pins move briskly, while the tongues of the dames keep pace. Suddenly a sharp tinkling bell is heard, rung with a quick, decided air. At once women and children drop upon their knees; the vigilante stops, the driver uncovers his head, and gets down to kneel upon the ground, all make the sign of the cross, and pray until the little procession of priests with the Host, which was coming up the street, has passed by and gone beyond.

But the Belfry chimes easily draw us back through the silent streets and past the neglected houses to the grand square and to the Belfry itself. There is room enough here to see it, but for a good look the houses opposite

from which our picture was taken by a photog rapher, are best. Look now at this Belfry tower. It is only ten feet less than three hundred feet in height. Take away the buildings on either side, or rather the two wings of the tower, for such they are, and you have the tower as it stood in 1364; yet not exactly, for you must now add a lofty spire which ascended from the summit, but was finally burnt in 1741. In place of it is the low parapet which may be seen running around the top. You can see, through the open windows above, a little of the bells; below is the great clock, and below that a narrow slit of a window; this brings us to the base of the highest stage; this upper section of the tower rests on a broader one, and from the four corners of this next section rise turrets, connected with the tower above by what are called flying buttresses, or stone braces, which span the distance between the turrets and the tower. A second stage brings us to the top of the first and original tower, with its four shorter pinnacles, and so we descend to where it meets the roof of Les Halles; these two wings are used, one as a cloth market, the other for a meat market. Above the entrance archway is a balcony from which proclamation used to