he old
brick walls, red and rusted, stretch away, flanked by corner towers.
The moat runs round the whole, filled with the usual stagnant water. I
enter, and then see what a tiny compact little place it is--a perfect
miniature town with many streets, one running round the walls; all the
houses sound and compact and no higher than two stories, so as to keep
snug and sheltered under the walls, and not draw the enemy's fire. The
whole seems to be about the size of the Green Park at home, and you
can walk right across, from gate to gate, in about three minutes. It
is bright, and clean 'as a new pin,' and there are red-legged soldiers
drumming and otherwise employed.

Almost at once we come on the _place_, and here we are rewarded with
something that is worth travelling even from Dover to see. There
stands the old church, grim, rusted, and weather-beaten, rising in
gloomy pride, huge enough to serve a great town; while facing it is
the belfry before alluded to, one of the most elegant, coquettish, and
original of these always interesting structures. The amateur of
Flemish architecture is ever prepared for something pleasing in this
direction, for the variety of the belfries is infinite; but this
specimen fills one with special delight. It rises to a great height in
the usual square tower-shape, but at each corner is flanked by a
quaint, old-fashioned _tourelle_ or towerlet, while in the centre is
an airy elegant lantern of wood, where a musical peal of bells, hung
in rows, chimes all day long in a most melodious way. Each of these
towerlets is capped by a long, graceful peak or minaret. This elegant
structure has always been justly admired by the architect, and in the
wonderful folio of etchings by Coney, done more than fifty years ago,
will be found a picturesque and accurate sketch.

[Illustration: BERGUES.]

It seemed a city of the dead. Now rang out the husky tinkling of the
chimes which never flag, as in all Flemish cities, day or night. It
supplies the lack of company, and has a comforting effect for the
solitary man. From afar off comes occasionally the sound of the drum
or the bugle, fit accompaniment for such surroundings. At the foot of
the belfry was an antique building in another style, with a small
open colonnade, which, though out of harmony, was still not
inappropriate. The only thing jarring was a pretentious modern
town-hall, in the style of one of our own vestry buildings, 'erected
out of the rates,' an