on their roofs, sprinkled here and there
among pastures and orchards--suddenly saw itself changed as it were into
a thriving bustling town; for, saving the white tents which dotted the
green turf in every direction, the aspect of the scene was, for a time,
almost pacific. It was as if, some great manufacturing enterprise had
been set on foot, and the world had suddenly awoke to the hidden
capabilities of the situation.

A great dockyard and arsenal suddenly revealed themselves--rising like an
exhalation--where ship-builders, armourers, blacksmiths, joiners,
carpenters, caulkers, gravers, were hard at work all day long. The din
and hum of what seemed a peaceful industry were unceasing. From Kalloo,
Parma dug a canal twelve miles long to a place called Steeken, hundreds
of pioneers being kept constantly at work with pick and spade till it was
completed. Through this artificial channel--so soon as Ghent and
Dendermonde had fallen--came floats of timber, fleets of boats laden with
provisions of life and munitions of death, building-materials, and every
other requisite for the great undertaking, all to be disembarked at
Kalloo. The object was a temporary and destructive one, but it remains a
monument of the great general's energy and a useful public improvement.
The amelioration of the fenny and barren soil, called the Waesland, is
dated from that epoch; and the spot in Europe which is the most prolific,
and which nourishes the largest proportion of inhabitants to the square
mile, is precisely the long dreary swamp which the Prince thus drained
for military purposes, and converted into a garden. Drusus and Corbulo,
in the days of the Roman Empire, had done the same good service for their
barbarian foes.

At Kalloo itself, all the shipwrights, cutlers, masons, brass-founders,
rope-makers, anchor-forgers, sailors, boatmen, of Flanders and Brabant,
with a herd of bakers, brewers, and butchers, were congregated by express
order of Parma. In the little church itself the main workshop was
established, and all day long, week after week, month after month, the
sound of saw and hammer, adze and plane, the rattle of machinery, the cry
of sentinels, the cheers of mariners, resounded, where but lately had
been heard nothing save the drowsy homily and the devout hymn of rustic
worship.

Nevertheless the summer and autumn wore on, and still the bridge was
hardly commenced. The navigation of the river--although impeded and
rendered dan