t although poor in
worldly goods, these animated and laughing throngs were far from being
unhappy or dissatisfied with life as they found it in West Flanders.

Alost

Alost

The ancient Hotel de Ville on the Grand' Place was unique, not for its
great beauty, for it had none, but for its quaintness, in the singular
combination of several styles of architecture. Without going into any
details its attraction was in what might be called its venerable
coquettishness,--bizarre, one might have styled it, but that the word
conveys some hint of lack of dignity. One is at a loss just how to
characterize its attractiveness. Against the sky its towers and minarets
held one's fancy by their very lightness and airiness, the lanterns and
_fleches_ presupposing a like grace and proportion in the edifice below.
The great square belfry at one side seemed to shoulder aside the
structure with its beautiful Renaissance facade and portal and quite
dominate it.

My note book says that it dated from the fifteenth century, and its
appearance certainly bore evidence of this statement. It had been
erected in sections at various periods, and these periods were marked in
the various courses of brick, showing every variety of tone of dull
reds, buffs, and mellow purplish browns. The effect was quite
delightful. The tower contained a fine carillon of bells arranged on a
rather bizarre platform, giving a most quaint effect to the turret which
surmounted it. The face of the tower bore four niches, two at each side
of the center and upper windows, and these contained time worn statues
of the noble counts of Alost. On the wall below was a tablet bearing the
inscription "Ni Espoir, Ni Craint," and this I was told referred either
to the many sieges which the town suffered, or a pestilence which
depopulated the whole region. A huge gilt clock face shone below the
upper gallery, at each corner of which sprang a stone gargoyle.

The old square upon which this tower was placed was quite in keeping
with it. There were rows of gabled stone houses of great antiquity,
still inhabited, stretching away in an array of facades, gables, and
most fantastic roofs, all of mellow toned tile, brick and stone.

[Illustration: The Town Hall: Alost]

Thierry Moertens, who was a renowned master printer of the Netherlands,
was born here, and is said to have established in Alost the "very first
printing house in Flanders." From this press issued a translatio