The sea had no limits; the rivers no beds nor banks; the earth
no solidity; for according to an author of the third century
of our era, there was not, in the whole of too immense plain,
a spot of ground that did not yield under the footsteps of
man.--Eumenius.

It was not the same in the southern parts, which form at present
the Walloon country. These high grounds suffered much less from
the ravages of the waters. The ancient forest of the Ardennes,
extending from the Rhine to the Scheldt, sheltered a numerous though
savage population, which in all things resembled the Germans, from
whom they derived their descent. The chase and the occupations of
rude agriculture sufficed for the wants of a race less poor and
less patient, but more unsteady and ambitious, than the fishermen
of the low lands. Thus it is that history presents us with a
tribe of warriors and conquerors on the southern frontier of
the country; while the scattered inhabitants of the remaining
parts seemed to have fixed there without a contest, and to have
traced out for themselves, by necessity and habit, an existence
which any other people must have considered insupportable.

This difference in the nature of the soil and in the fate of the
inhabitants appears more striking when we consider the present
situation of the country. The high grounds, formerly so preferable,
are now the least valuable part of the kingdom, even as regards
their agriculture; while the ancient marshes have been changed
by human industry into rich and fertile tracts, the best parts
of which are precisely those conquered from the grasp of the
ocean. In order to form an idea of the solitude and desolation
which once reigned where we now see the most richly cultivated