Belgium (Complete)
Sir James Emerson Tennent
9781465590077
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
At sunset when about ten to fifteen miles from land, we had the first sight of the coast of the “Low Countries,” not as on other shores discernible by hills or cliffs, but by the steeples of Nieuport, Ostend, and Blankenburg rising out of the water; presently a row of wind-mills, and the tops of a few trees and houses, and finally a long line of level sand stretching away towards Walcheren and the delta of the Scheldt. Within fourteen hours from heaving up our anchor at the Tower, we cast it in the harbour of Ostend, a narrow estuary formed where the waters of a little river have forced their way through the sand-banks to the sea. An excellent quay has been constructed by flanking the sides of this passage with extensive piers of timber, whilst the stream being confined by dams and sluices above, is allowed to rush down at low water, carrying before it to the sea, any silt which may have been deposited by the previous tide. At the inner extremity of the harbour, spacious basins have been constructed for the accommodation of the craft which ply upon the Canal de Bruges, which connects that town with Ghent and Ostend, but its traffic is now much diminished by the opening of the railroad, as well as from other causes. Neither the police nor the custom-house officials, gave any inconvenience with our passports or our baggage, beyond a few minutes of unavoidable delay, and within half an hour from the packet touching the pier, we found ourselves arranged for the night at the Hotel de la Cour Impériale in the Rue de la Chapelle. I may here mention as a piece of recommendatory information to future travellers, that the journey, of which these volumes are a memento, was performed in an open English carriage, the back seat of which was sufficiently roomy to accommodate three persons, leaving the front for our books, maps and travelling comforts, and the box for our courier and a postillion; and that except upon mountain roads, we made the entire tour of Belgium, Rhenish Prussia, and Germany, from Bavaria to Hanover, with a pair of horses. For such a journey, no construction of carriage that I have seen is equal to the one which we used, a britscka, with moveable head, and windows which rendered it perfectly close at night or during rain. I have not made a minute calculation as to expenses, but even on the score of economy, I am inclined to think this mode of travelling, for three persons and a servant, will involve less actual outlay than the fares of diligences, and Eil Wagens or Schnell posts. In Belgium, our posting, with two horses, including postillions, fees and tolls, did not exceed, throughout, elevenpence a mile; in Prussia, ninepence; and in Bavaria, even less. Besides the perfect control of one’s own time and movements, is a positive source of economy, as it avoids expense at hotels, while waiting for the departure of stages and public conveyances, after the traveller is satisfied with his stay in the place where he may find himself, and is anxious to get forward to another. Between the advantages gained in this particular, and the means of travelling comfortably at night almost without loss of sleep, through some of the sandy and uninteresting plains of northern Germany, I am fully of opinion that our English carriage, independently of its comparative luxury, not only diminished the expense of our journey, but actually added some weeks to its length, within the period which we had assigned for our return. In Belgium, however, and Saxony where railroads are extensively opened, a carriage affords no increase of convenience, on the contrary, in short stages, which should be avoided, it will be found to augment the expense without expediting the journey.
