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at Baisieux, just before entering Tournay, is very striking, altogether in favour of Belgium as to neatness, comfortable appearance of living, and houses, though I thought there was rather a Flemish heaviness about the faces of the people, neater and more comfortable as they were.

Everywhere on the route, but especially in Belgium, the women seemed to do as much, and hard, and various work as the men; they tramp about in wooden shoes, which adds a double appearance of heaviness to their movements, and almost of slavery to their condition. The country is very rich and well cultivated; but it impressed me with a strange feeling of melancholy all the while; for there seemed nothing in it but toil and its fruits; no intelligence apparently in the general countenance; no leisure, no agreeable-looking country houses, or cottages imbowered with trees; no gardens with people walking or sitting in them; no persons having the air of gentlemen or ladies riding or walking out as we entered, or left the villages and cities; and the cities and villages not wearing an inviting aspect-with close, narrow streetsirregular, old, obstinately fixed in stone against all improvement, and filled with men, women, and children, without one being of attractive appearance among them-almost, without one.

The country on the route is remarkable for the long avenues of trees, (elm, poplar, beech,) all trimmed up so as to be very lofty, without any under branches. For many miles together the road is lined on both sides with them; and ranges of trees, forming squares, triangles, and groves of parallel rows, are seen everywhere. It is doubtless a bad taste carried to such an extent; and yet I think it might intermingle with that variety of English scenery, for which there is such a passion in that country.

BRUSSELS is a beautiful city, and the beauty in some parts is in an ancient and striking fashion; as on the Grand Place, in which is the Hotel de Ville, or Town House, a fine Gothic building, with the highest tower, it is said, in Europe. The cathedral is very large; but the want of Gothic decorations within, and especially of the clustered column, instead of which is a great ugly round column, spoils the interior. The palace of the Prince of Orange is very splendid; beautiful floors of tesselated wood through the whole suite of apartments, rich marble walls, many fine paintings apparently-(one, portrait of a female, by Leonardo da Vinci, struck me much)--but we were not allowed to pause before them, being marched through the palace, a large company of us, in

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Indian file, after having moccasins slipped over our shoes, that the floors might not be injured. The park, on which are situated the palaces, and noble ranges of houses, is very fine; and the Boulevards--or rides and walks between rows of trees -surrounding the whole town, are such a charm and glory of a thing in its way, as is not, that I know, to be found anywhere else in the world.

From Brussels, the ride to the field of Waterloo is through the wood of Soigny; a noble forest of beech trees, into which the golden beams of the setting sun streamed, like the light through stained windows into a Gothic temple.

We arrived at the field of Waterloo, nine miles from Brussels, after sunset. We ascended the mound raised in commemoration of the great engagement of June 18th, 1815. It is two hundred feet high, and has a monument on the summit, consisting of a high pedestal, on which reposes the British lion, a colossal figure and finely executed. From this elevation, every point in the position of the armies and the field of battle, is easily comprehended. It is now a ploughed field, with nothing remarkable about it; but bare and naked as it is, of everything but the interest which the great action gives it, I would not but have seen it. We descended and passed through the very centre of

the field-the road to Genappe leading in that direction; yes, we rode quietly through that peaceful field, where, eighteen years ago, on a summer's night-the same moon shining that now lighted our way-thousands lay in the sleep of death, and thousands more lifted up, on every side, faces marked with the death agony, and uttered wailings that measured out the long, long hours of that dreadful night. As if to complete the contrast, we heard the sound of a violin as we drove off from the battle field, and turning aside to the quarter from whence it came, observed a dance before the door of one of the cottages.

At Genappe-a few miles distant-beneath the window of the chamber where I slept, was the street where the retreating French raised the last barrier against the pursuing Prussians and Brunswickers. Along that street sounded the fearful "hurrah!" which, as Prince Blucher's report says, drove the panicstruck soldiers of Bonaparte from their post. By the very window from which I looked, rushed the furious Prussian cavalry, which swept away the feeble barricade like chaff; and on every stone of that pavement blood-human blood had flowed. Yet now, what but these dread recollections themselves could be more thrilling than the awful stillness, the deep repose which settled

down upon that fearful spot-the moonbeams falling upon the silent walls, and upon pavements which no footstep disturbed, and seeming to consecrate all nature to prayer and love, not to wrath and destruction.

AUGUST 26. Our ride to-day, especially down the Meuse from Namur to Liege, has been delightful; the road smooth and level; on the right the Meuse, on the left a constant succession of cliffs, wanting only the ivy to make them almost as beautiful as the cliffs of Derbyshire in England. Some of the hills, too, were covered with vineyards, and on the meadow banks of the Meuse were the finest orchards of apple, pear, and plum trees, that I ever saw.

Huy, on the route, is beautifully situated, and its citadel, which we visited, seemed, to my inexperienced eye, a stupendous work. It is built on a hill, and its battlements rise seven hundred feet above the streets of the town. The work is very massive, and the cavernous depths to which we descended within, gave me a new idea of the magnitude and strength of a military fortress.

Indeed this whole country, and especially almost every city and town, surrounded with stupendous walls, and defended by gates, which are manned with soldiers, constantly remind you of war-con

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