At Ghent we went to the Hotel Royal, from out of the windows
of which I had a fine view of the belfry, surmounted by the Brazen
Dragon brought from Constantinople; and as I conjured up times past, and
I thought how the belfry was built and how the dragon got there, I found
myself at last wandering in the Apocrypha of "Bel and the Dragon."

We went to see the picture by Van Eck, in the cathedral of Saint Bovin.
The reader will probably wish to know who was Saint Bovin--so did I--and
I asked the question of the sacristan: the reader shall have the benefit
of the answer, "Saint Bovin, monsieur, il etait un _saint_."

That picture of Van Eck's is worth a van full of most of the pictures we
see: it was Van Eck who invented, and was indeed the father of painting
in oil. It is a wonderful production.

Mrs Trollope says that people run through Belgium as if it were a mere
railroad to other countries. That is very true--we did the same--for
who would stop at Ostend to be swindled, or at Bruges to look at empty
houses, or at Ghent, which is nothing but a Flanders Birmingham, when
Brussels and King Leopold, and the anticipation of something more
agreeable, were only thirty miles off. Not one day was our departure
postponed; with post-horses and postilions we posted post haste to
Brussels.

CHAPTER FIVE.

April 22.

The Queen of Belgium "a fait un enfant." On the Continent it is always
the wife who is considered as the faiseuse; the husband is supposed, and
very often with justice to have had nothing to do in the matter--it
certainly does appear to be optional on the part of the ladies, for they
limit their family to their exact wishes or means of support. How
different is it in England, where children will be born whether it is
convenient or not! O Miss Martineau! you may talk about the "preventive
check," but where is it? In England it would be as valuable as the
philosopher's stone.

I think that the good people of Paris would do well, as they appear just
now to have left religion in abeyance, to take up the manners and
customs of the empire of the Nahirs, a Mahratta nation, which I once
read about. In that country, as in heaven, there is no marrying, nor
giving in marriage. All are free, and all inheritance is through the
children of the sister; for although it is impossible to know who may be
the father of any of the children, they are very certain that the
sister's children must have the blood on the mat