what could be done! Possibly, I need not make a change all night; and
perhaps I should at the next station already! How readily my friend could
have informed me, had I only asked him! But I managed to keep the right
track, though at the expense of considerable anxiety and the sacrifice of
some rest and sleep that I might otherwise have enjoyed during that
night-journey. I learned a lesson, however, which aided me in avoiding
such perplexities in the future. As soon is we reached the first station,
I ran to a conductor and, holding up my ticket, cried out, "Broox-el?" He
understood me and motioned me to keep my seat. Some accommodating
Frenchman soon told me that he was traveling the same way for a
considerable distance, (as his ticket also made clear to me), and offered
kindly to inform me when I had to leave that train. My peace of mind being
thus restored again, I made a pillow of my satchel and went to sleep.

The next forenoon (Saturday, August 7th) we reached Douane, where we had
to pass muster under the Belgian custom-house officers. I was now with the
wooden-shoed Belgians. A large company of the poor peasants passed muster
with me. Each was provided with a pick or a hoe, or both, lying over his
shoulder, and a large flaxen bag of other implements, &c., suspended from
it. Nearly all wore caps, and the whole company looked very shabby,
indeed. My clothes were in strange contrast with their tattered garments,
for there was not another well-dressed passenger in the whole company; and
I felt like one out of his element, because I did not also have a pick or
hoe! A hundred Belgians with a hundred bundles crowded into several small
apartments of the station, found little room for their, careers, which
consisted of the irony ends of their picks and hoes, so that those
occasionally hooked the prominent points of the faces of those immediately
behind them! Strange to say, these collisions did not provoke any to
insults or the use of vulgar adverbs, but gentle reproofs kept them all
cool and steady till we entered the cars again. The reader will pardon me