HOW

A

BELGÌAN HOLIDAY.

OW and where best to take a very short holiday at no great expense is a question which interests almost all busy men. A little band of half a dozen friends have successfully solved it during a few Easter seasons, and as a record of former tours has seemed interesting to several, so also may the account of what we did this spring show how much enjoyment may be found in new scenes within the reach of the least adventurous travellers. Last year we visited the French Departments of L'Aisne and L'Oise; this year we determined to spend a few days in the Ardennes and some of the towns in Belgium. One advantage conspicuous in our last year's tour was necessarily wanting to this. Compiègne, our former centre, was one which enabled all we wished to see-Soissons, Senlis, Pierrefonds, Château Coucy, and other places of interest-to be visited by day excursions, so that without the trouble of packing and unpacking we could return each evening to dine at the Hôtel de la Cloche, knowing well how excellent a dinner, how comfortable rooms awaited us. This year we had to go on and on; indeed, save in a few districts in France, and perhaps Ghent and the Hague, last year's plan is not possible. But, after all, judicious selection of only the needful clothing will reduce a week's luggage to one small bag or portmanteau, which each man may easily carry, and packing is therefore reduced to a mimimum.

Our party of six were to start, if possible, on the Wednesday before Easter, from Charing Cross via Ostend, by a new service of large steamers then advertised, and they were to do the passage in little over four hours. Trains in direct communication would take us to Namur in time for a late dinner. Alas! the business of London was not so easily shaken off by all, and only two of the party presented themselves at the station. The others would follow, and join us at Namur. The state of the laggards, little as they deserved it, was more gracious than our own. Our hearts sank into our boots as we saw the rain beat in torrents against our windows, diversified by frequent snow showers, and heard the wind gradually increase in

violence as we neared the coast. We crossed, not in one of the new boats as promised, nor in four hours, but in nine, and had, of course, to sleep at Ostend, in a great barrack of an hotel, in which we were almost alone, for the time for tourists was not yet. We were glad to escape early next day, wondering why any one ever stayed at Ostend. Almost the only people we saw in the deserted town were gathered round two ballad-singers in the market-place, who chanted to a doleful accordion a ballad of a recent murder committed at Bruges, the collection at the end, if any, to be devoted to the widow. It is to be feared the commission would, however small, have exceeded the receipts. There was no reason for pressing on to Namur, where our friends could not possibly arrive till midnight, and we were glad to breakfast at Ghent, and spend a few hours in that pleasant town. The church of St. Bavon was all in a bustle, preparing for the Washing of the Pilgrims' feet by the Bishop, and the Suisse said it was out of the question that we could see once more the great picture of the Adoration of the Lamb. But a judicious expenditure of a franc more than usual opened the chapel in which the wondrous picture hangs; and we saw it at leisure, not as I had once seen it on a dull day, but with a bright spring sun bringing out every violet in the grass, every flower in the thicket which surrounds the altar whereon stands the mystic Lamb. I venture to quote words in which that picture was described eleven years ago, and which seem even more true as I look on it again. I did not remember that I had said that when I came to Ghent I would look on no other picture than on this, but I was, as if by instinct, true to my then intent.

"If I came here again I would look only at one picture: to see that is to have lived through a deep spiritual experience, and to have gazed on things beyond tongue to tell. The subject is the mystic Lamb of the Revelation 'as it had been slain,' and the great company of the Redeemed who came to worship Him.

"But they worship in no mystic ideal heaven, no clouds are rolled about a throne in an unsubstantial sky. A soft light from the west falls on a sweet Rhine-land landscape, on a green meadow studded with violets and daisies. Trees of foliage and flowers strange to Germany grow in the bosquets, through which pathways lead to the central field, but they are trees of earthly growth, and do not seem incongruous. The Lamb, with a human look of love in his tender. eyes, stands on a central altar, before which plays a fountain of pure water, and all that is idealised is the stream of blood, which flows into a chalice from his pierced heart. That is ideal, for there is in it no suggestion of the shambles, or of sacrifice unto death; it is a li

heart that lives still, but gives of its love thus symbolised. Those who are gathered are types of men of all classes and kinds; in front are the great Saints and Patriarchs and Apostles. From the blossoming thickets come those who had done for mankind what then seemed great charity, who had founded abbeys of learning and of rest, and the holy women who had loved and died. There is no hint of rejection, none of the dark doctrines of sin and death. It is a bright, happy, human company gathered before the symbol of Love as it seemed to men of that day. Of the technical merits of the picture it is not for me to speak-I am no painter, no art-critic-like that great company I can stand only and adore.

"The great picture is set in a disused chapel, where now no tapers flare, no mass is sung, no relics are enshrined, no censer sends up its smoke. An altar which is crowned by this has no need of any other presence to consecrate it."

The picture being a portion of a triptych, is sheltered from the light except when unclosed for visitors. The colours are seemingly as fresh as when first laid on, and the whole was lit up like a jewel as it sparkled in the sun. We could have stayed yet longer, but the verger jangled his keys and began to grow impatient, for he, too, was to assist in the feet-washing, he had to put on his cassock and surplice, and the time of the ceremony drew on. Being already in the ambulatory of the choir, we had but to pass round behind the high altar and we were at once close to the sacristy, in the thick of all the little flutter and fuss which attends the vesting of bishops and ladies alike before a great ceremony. This, when it took place, was interesting; the bishop in his white mitre, and girded with a towel sash-wise over his left shoulder to his feet, the pilgrims in clean but much-darned stockings stripped from their withered old shanks, the fine music during the whole, made the service as little like that which it commemorated as high mass is like the original passover meal in the upper room at Jerusalem. But the ideal contains now and then deeper truths than did the real.

We were obliged, with regret, to leave our proposed visit to Oostacker-the Belgian Lourdes-for another time, and took the afternoon train to Namur, avoiding Brussels save for an enforced halt of an hour, and so we arrived at our destination a day later, but the day had been well and pleasantly spent. Here, at midnight and at early breakfast next day-Good Friday-our missing friends arrived in detachments.

There is little to see at Namur, though a walk by the swift-flowing Meuse, and under the fortress-which is, they say, to be soon dis

mantled-is not without its picturesqueness; and the escarpments and angles recalled the thought of Uncle Toby who, at the siege of Namur, received his celebrated wound. He seemed even more real in Sterne's pages than that true hero of history who lies buried in a hidden and forgotten grave behind the high altar of the cathedral— Don John of Austria, the victor of Lepanto when aged only 26. was but 33 when he lay here in his grave, poisoned, as is suspected, by order of Philip II.

The storm which raged in the Channel, and indeed had blown inland the day before with some force, had given place to a bright sun and more genial breeze. After our breakfast, maigre indeed, as suited the day and the prejudices of foreign cooks, it seemed better to drive to Dinant, than, by taking train, lose half the beauties of the river banks. No doubt in summer the steamer which runs between the towns is better still. The great bluffs of limestone crag round which the river sweeps, the fine lateral valleys running up between these bluffs, opening out as they near the river, and the opal-coloured waves as they sparkled in the sun, made a pretty landscape even without green leaves, which showed, if at all, only in very sheltered places. As we neared Dinant some left the carriage, and scaling the left bank by the ruined castle of Crève-coeur, came down on the town to find those who had driven on had clambered the opposite bank.

Dinant, like many Rhine towns, e.g. St. Goar, stand on just a strip of land between the river and the high cliffs, so that it is narrowed to a single street, and the choir of the church, at right angles to the street, almost abuts on the solid rock. The exterior of the church, severely plain almost to ugliness, is in vivid contrast with the beautiful interior. The grey pillars, many of which spring from the floor without a base, like trees rather than stone columns, support a vaulted roof of warm yellow brick, and the blending of these tones is most beautiful. Since returning to England we have learnt that the church of Dinant was one of many whose west front was left unadorned because of the heavy tax paid in the middle ages to Rome on the completion of that portion of the building. The architect's original intention was probably much more elaborate, and till that was carried out it might be plausibly maintained that it was still unfinished. In other cases, while all possible decoration was lavished on the great western portals, the towers which flanked it were not completed.

The fort above is dismantled, and sold to private possessors; indeed, neither it nor that of Namur would avail in real warfare. The height is worth scaling for the view, and for an interesting

collection of old matchlocks and other tools of battle, making us wonder at the great deeds that were done, still more at how many lives were lost by such clumsy weapons. In one of the embrasures of the fort stands a mouldy old gig, said, though we did not learn the authority, to have been the property of Madame de Maintenon, “dame de la Cour de Louis Quatorze." Our little guide knew no more of her or of it, and no doubt it is as veritable as many another relic we have seen in our travels. But let no one visit or believe in the Grotto, a miserable hole in the side of the hill, calculated to warn travellers, unfairly, against the really interesting caverns which abound in the Ardennes.

Givet, over the French border, to which we went by train on Easter Eve, is not specially interesting, except as the whole scenery of the Meuse is picturesque. But we returned to a little station, the second in Belgium, and crossing the river by a ferry, struck into the heart of the hills. The girl who punted us over the river was one of those whom Mr. Pen Browning loves to paint, not beautiful, nor graceful, but with a certain solid strength which would call forth admiration if the possessor were but of the other sex. More than once on our tour the scenery reminded us of North Devon ; it did so especially in this walk. Deep combes, with streams rippling at the bottom, luxuriant growth of tree and shrub on the sides, then a broad sweep, half down, half plough-land, to sink again into another combe. The year was too young for leaves and flowers, but the sun was warm, and the birds sang, and the clear tracery of the branches and twigs against a perfectly cloudless sky gave a strange effect to the landscape it was not winter, for there was no chill in the air; nor spring, for the sap did not seem to move in the vegetation; but rather a charmed time, in which the life of earth seemed suspended while the sun in its course had rolled the skies round into summer. Out of a very Devon lane we emerged into a clearing round the Château de Warzin. We were on the left bank of the Lesse, which runs through a valley like that of the Meuse, to which it is tributary, though on a smaller scale. Behind us were the woods, in front the stream, with great marble crags, ruin-crowned, to form its right bank. One of these ran downwards and ended in a level plateau hanging over the stream, and forming for it a sort of arched grotto. The château stands on the level-one side, the most ancient, overhanging the stream above the caverned rock; the other, a quasi-Renaissance front, looking up the valley and the course of the river. Below the grotto the water broadens out once more to a full-flowing stream, and rippling over a wide weir dashes round several little islands down the