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sphere; so I retired from the arena of political | the organ tones swelled up the sound, the chant strife.

My sixth day in Antwerp was Sunday; and still determined to follow as far as possible the dictation to "do in Rome as Romans do," I went to church in the morning, to the beerhouse in the afternoon, and to the theatre at night.

ures.

Soon after I had entered the great Cathedral, and while I was yet busy admiring the grand old structure, a change of position of the worshiping crowd surrounded and completely fenced me in with densely-packed, low-kneeling figI glanced around for a chance to make myself appear somewhat less, but was startled to find that I had not a foot of floor to turn my feet on. I had just thought enough to turn my face toward the altar and stand erect-a tall, white-haired, dark-bearded, strange-looking figure among five thousand kneeling, worshiping ones-and, ye men of buckram, ye chivalrous knights who deem it brave to stand before the cannon's mouth to dare the battle's storm; who fight each other, and call it noble, if ye would prove what real courage you possess, go stand amidst five thousand upturned faces, all mute and motionless, rise before ten thousand quiet or quizzing eyes, and if for ten minutes you stand their fire right steadily, then have no fears of future failures. Another movement of the devotees allowed me to change my place for a more retired one; still my glistening hair, brightened by the downward light, was the point of sight for all wandering eyes, until I edged my way to the shady side of a fluted column; and there you who believe that all Catholicism is stupid mummery - you who would crimp each man's opinion to one contracted creed-you who would restrict Church rites to one small, stern circle- should have joined in listening to the solemn chant. slightest, smoothest note of a German flute first The stirred the air, a well-drawn bow increased the trill, a child's small voice was faintly heard,

THE CHIMES.

gave out the song, a hundred horns but smoothbroke forth, the music pealed, a hundred voices ed the tone, a hundred bows joined in the throng, and, as though angels would assist the fêtes of men, from four hundred feet above our heads half a hundred massive bells rang forth waves of sound that swayed along the lofty harmonious peals-rolled down upon us great nave, resounded through the broad, high caves, and echoed among the tall old columns that sacred, solemn, glorious song.

ing's mishap, I still insisted upon following the In the afternoon, notwithstanding my mornhabit of my countrymen who practice the customs of such people as they see fit to honor with their company, and engaged in eating pretzels and drinking what is here called bière de Bavière-a liquid similar to that which a signboard in Easton, Pennsylvania, denominates opera. Larger Bear"-and at night I went to the way to the Opera House; but got seated at last I had some difficulty in finding my on the front bench of the third tier just before six o'clock.

place, the orchestra were coming up from the The leader had already taken his lower regions, and I was preparing myself for the gallery above pointed to me, and cried out, an acceptable treat, when a rascally gamin in Hurrah for the new priest!" I could have wrung "There's the new priest! See the new priest! the neck of the little imp, but, instead of doing so, I sat in stately silence, pretending not to know that I was seen by any body in the house except those who were sitting next to me; but the cry was taken up by other gamins, the people of my own tier beginning to recognize me, and joining in the cry, encouraged those of the gallery to increase the hurrah to such an extent that it became too much for Yankee humanity them just to come down once and I would whip to sit under; so, rising in my place, I dared the whole generation of them. This appeal, in not the most perfect French that ever was spo

ken, brought down the house; the pit shrieked and shouted; the tiers, disregarding the hisses of the leader and the vociferous demands of gens d'armes for silence, laughed and cheered; the gallery of gamins shouted "Encore, encore!" "Wake up, old one!" "Go in, White-Top!" until my blood fairly boiled again, and (perhaps somewhat actuated by the pretzels I had eaten) I set out, determined to kill two

Flamands and the descendants of Spaniards; grassy banks were alive with twittering birds; but whenever I came in contact with French Belgians, or whenever, during my frequent excursions into the country, I neared the French frontier, I was soon constrained to retire before the dastardly duplicity of that treacherous race, which appeared more heinous the nearer it came in contact with the candor of its heavy, but politer neighbors.

One rebuff of this sort was particularly unfortunate, as it drove me from the Meuse, a river of almost unparalleled beauty, and nearly unknown to American travelers. I have vagabondized on the Hudson, the Kennebec, the Rock, the Cumberland, the Savannah, the Thames and the Tiber, the Rhine and the Nile, the Bosphorus and the Jordan, but I have seldom received so much pleasure from surroundings as during those days of December that I spent on the Meuse. I ascended from Namur on a little steamboat of eighty tons' burden-a river just large enough to float such a craft freely-through scenery not so grand as to bewilder one, but so varied as to leave one no time to get weary in. They were soft, mellow, Indiansummer-like days; the luxurious meadows and

the side-hill vineyards echoed the song of busy vine-dressers; castle ruins stood out upon misty mountain heights, like giant sentinels stationed to protect those pretty hamlets that nestle under the beetling cliffs; and each ancient sentry told many a tale of border warfare, of stubborn bravery, and of desperate chivalry.

A picture owned in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, had long ago interested me in one of those stories, "The Three Women of Crevecœur." The History of Belgium says that "near Bouvignes on the Meuse stands the ancient castle of Crevecœur, where, in 1554, trois dames distinguées,' with others, were besieged by the French;" that "these three noble women continued to defend the castle long after the soldiers had all fallen ('après tous les guerriers euront succumbe'); and, when the walls were so beaten down by the cannons that they could no longer continue their defense, rather than fall into the hands of the soldiers who had already opened the postern and were about to seize them, they ascended to the top of the tower and threw themselves into the Meuse." In the village of Bouvignes, which is tucked under the foot of the

great rock on which Crevecœur stands, I in- | to the tips of his toes with honest lager-he quired what they knew of the "trois dames distinguées," and was assured by an old man that, in his boyhood, they often appeared, and that even yet they were occasionally seen, just as the great clock was striking twelve-three women in white, surrounded by a halo of light, the middle one of the group a large dark woman, who waved back defiance as they toppled over the cliff together.

The officers of one of the Arctic expeditions report having seen an Esquimaux child leave its mother's breast to smoke a pipe. Had he been a Belgian baby he would have taken a hearty swig of swipes before he commenced his fumigation. I often see children tugging at the beer-pot they are scarcely able to handle; and boys of a dozen years habitually visit the saloons to drink. On Sunday and fète-day nights all ages and conditions flock to the saloons to hear gay music and drench themselves with lager. I have seen of a Sunday night more than a thousand persons in one saloon, well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, gossiping, drinking, and smoking for hours in an atmosphere thicker than a Jersey fog. Indeed, so universal is this beerdrinking practice that they seem not to know that any thing else might serve as beverage.

One day in Antwerp I asked if they had good water there. A washer-woman sitting near me, with lager-pot in hand, promptly answered, "Oh yes, excellent water, all the Englishmen that come here bring such gray, dirty shirts, but once or twice washing here brings them white as milk." A stevedore close by, seeing by my countenance that my question was not fully answered, undertook to set the matter right by saying, "Oh yes, we have first-rate water, only that sometimes in winter it gets so hard on top that the vessels can't go at all, then comes tight times for all us commercial people." The landlady (who is also cook and barmaid), corrected the ignorant, uncivil persons-"it was not the river-water, nor the sea-water that the gentleman was inquiring after at all, but it was the well-water that the gentleman wished to know about," and proceeded to inform the gentleman that it was the very nicest water in the known world, and made the nicest soup (just by adding a little beef, and cabbage, and tur nips, and potatoes, and a few such little things) that ever a gentleman partook of. But the gentleman himself corrected and startled the whole company (as much as so heavy a company could be startled), by asking, "Was it good to drink ?" Each heavy head swung slowly upon its heavy shoulders, each heavy eye was aimed directly at the querist's face and stretched wide open with stark astonishment. At such a crisis only the landlord had words to offer. That important and heaviest individual of them all-he who seldom deigned to make long speeches-whose placid nature was seldom ruffled-who deemed it pious to drink and smoke, and who devoutly followed the path of duty-he who, saturated like a sponge, swelled from the topmost bristle

whose favor I had assiduously courted and whose resplendent face had begun to beam benignly o'er my foreign faults-now turned upon me looks of pity and contempt; and, stretching the doubled chin full half an inch above his massive chest, in his sharpest tones demanded, "To what?" then feeling that he had full well resented the serious insult to his profession and his country, he slowly turned upon his broad, flat heels, elevated his ponderous elbow, a connecting spring turned up his face, his jaw dropped down, his eye rolled up, a short faint gurgle, a long-drawn sigh, and he glanced serenely through the bottom of a large glass tumbler. But I never regained the great man's esteem, nor do I, to this day, know whether the water of Belgium is fit to drink.

Notwithstanding their constant guzzling, I was ten days among Belgian drinkers before I saw a man so drunk that he could not walk erect and treat politely each one he met—which proves it, though an unseemly practice, yet a safer one than drinking whisky. Since Noah left the ark and the sons of Noah raised up new cities, each new-formed nation has found some new stimulant; but not one among the list of findings is at once so wholesome, cheap, and harmless as Belgian beer, and I look upon its introduction into the United States as an important reformatory movement. Temperance, total abstinence, Washingtonian, and other reforms have had their day and are forgotten, and the current year sees more alcoholic destruction than any former one has done. Those villainous mixtures that are labeled Brandy, Port, Champagne, etc., that flow into every street and alley of our cities, to every village and crossroad of our country, are rapidly telling upon our national health, temper, and reputation. Our ambitious men are changed by fiery poisons to reckless adventurers, those of medium virtue to rabid criminals, and we are coming to be looked upon as a nation of desperadoes. of the first salutations I receive from nearly every person with whom I become acquainted is, "You have a great many murderers and incendiaries in America." I answer that of course we have, while receiving hundreds per day of the vilest outcasts of all Europe; but feel all the time that that is not all the reason, and am anxious that the introduction of weak malt liquors and the increased growth of light wines should quench that fire which is burning out the best young blood of our country. The almost universal robust health that I meet is a powerful advocate in favor of this least of many evils. Four persons of each five I see have perfect, substantial health, while in the region I came from four native adults in five are in some way diseased. Of course the constant indoor life of females, the worst of all kitchens, and the infernal quackery that reigns triumphant there, have much to do with that degeneracy; but the effect of our national tipple is not likely to turn out a slight one, provided that tipple

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