o time the peasants laboring in the fields uncovered bones,
broken steel breast-plates, and weapons, which they brought to the
museum on the Grand' Place, and which the sleepy _custode_ showed me
with reluctance, until I offered him a franc. It is curious that famous
Nieuport, for which so much blood was shed in those early days, should
again have been a famous battle ground between the handful of valiant
soldiers of the heroic King Albert and a mighty Teutonic foe.

The dim gray town with its silent streets, the one time home of romance
and chivalry, the scene of deeds of knightly valor, is now done for
forever. It is not likely that it can ever again be of importance, for
its harbor is well-nigh closed by drifting sand. But I shall always keep
the vision I had of it that summer day, in its market place, its gabled
houses against the luminous sky, its winding streets, and narrow byways
across which the roofs almost touch each other. The ancient palaces are
now in ruins, and the peaceful population scattered abroad, charges upon
the charity of the world. Certainly a woeful picture in contrast to the
content of other days.

The vast green plains behind the dunes, or sand hills, extend unbrokenly
from here to the French frontier, spire after spire dominating small
towns, and windmills, are the objects seen. To some the flatness is most
monotonous, but to those who find pleasure in the paintings of Cuyp, the
country is very picturesque. The almost endless succession of green,
well-cultivated fields and farmsteads is most entertaining, and the many
canals winding their silvery ways through the country, between rows of
pollards; the well kept though small country houses embowered in woody
enclosures; the fruitful orchards in splendid cultivation; the gardens
filled with fair flowers and the "most compact little towns"--these give
the region a romance and attraction all its own.

[Illustration: The Town Hall--Hall of the Knights Templars: Nieuport]

Here and there is a hoary church erected in forgotten times on ground
dedicated to Thor or Wodin. This part of the country bordering the fifty
mile stretch of coast line on the North Sea was given over latterly to
the populous bathing establishments and their new communities, but the
other localities, such as Tournai, Courtrai, Oudenaarde or Alost, were
seldom visited by strangers, whose advent created almost as much
excitement as it would in Timbuctoo. It was not inaccessible,