e. You must pay extra for wine,
but beer is thrown in, thick, sticky, sugary beer, but it's better
than England's "bitter," or the lager of Rotterdam.

[Illustration: Things Seen in Flanders]

Ypres is full of interesting buildings, but its Hotel de Ville and
its Cloth Hall, with its lacelike facade, are easily the best. Ypres
has a museum which, like most provincial museums, has some good
things and some bad ones, a stuffed elephant, some few good pictures,
sea-shells, the instruments which beheaded the Comte d'Egmont, and
some wooden sculptures; variety enough to suit the most catholic
tastes.

From Ypres we continued our zigzag through Belgium, following most of
the time dirt roads which, though not of superlative excellence, were
an improvement on stone blocks. It took us practically all day to
reach Antwerp, a hundred and thirty kilometres away.

Belgium is everywhere quaint and curious, a sort of a cross between
Holland and France, but more like the former than the latter in its
mode of life, its food and drink and its industries, except perhaps
in the country between Tournai and Liege.

The country between Antwerp and Brussels affords a good general idea
of Belgium. Its level surface presents, in rapid succession, rich
meadows, luxuriant corn-fields, and green hedgerows, with occasional
patches of woodland. The smallness of the fields tells amongst how
many hands the land is divided, and prepares one for the knowledge
that East Flanders is the most thickly peopled corner of Europe. The
exception to this general character of the scenery is found in the
valley of the Meuse, where the fruitful serenity of fertile meadows
and pastoral hamlets is varied by bolder, more irregular, and move
striking natural features. Hills and rocks, bluff headlands and
winding valleys, with beautiful stretches of river scenery, give a
charm to the landscape which Belgium in general does not display.

The geographical description of Antwerp is as follows:

Antwerp, in Flemish _Antwerpen_, the chief town of the province of
that name, is situated in a plain 51 deg. 13' 16" north latitude, and 2 deg.
3' 55" east longitude, twenty leagues from the sea, on the right bank
of the Scheldt.

The Hotel du Grand-Laboureur was marked out for us as the automobile
hotel of Antwerp. There was no doubt about this, when we saw the A.
C. F., the A. C. B., and the M. C. B. signs on its facade. It is a
very excellent establishment, but you pay ex