are the only parts of this city which can boast of handsome buildings; the
fortifications seem to be much out of repair; in fact, the aggrandizement
of Antwerp occasioned necessarily the deterioration of Ostend.

The General and myself went to put up at the _Tête d'Or_, the only inn
where we could procure beds; and we embarked early next morning at the
embouchure of the canal on board of a _treckschuyt_ which conveyed us in
three hours to Bruges.

The landscape between Ostend and Bruges is extremely monotonous, it being a
uniformly flat country; yet it is pleasing to the eye at this season of the
year from the verdure of the plains, which are all appropriated to
pasturage, and from the appearance of the different villages and towns, of
which the eye can embrace a considerable number. There is a good road on
the banks of the canal, and the troops, on their line of march, enlivened
much the scene. Bruges, formerly the grand mart and emporium of the
commerce of the East, not only for the Low Countries, but for all the North
of Europe, seems, if we may judge from the state of the buildings and the
stillness that prevails, to be also in a state of decline. We however had
only time to visit the _Hotel de Ville_ and to remark the immense height of
the steeple on the _Grande Place_. We observed a number of pretty women in
the streets and in the shops employed in lace making. Bruges has been at
all times renowned for the beauty of the female sex, and this brought to my
recollection a passage in Schiller's tragedy of the _Maid of Orleans_,
wherein the Duke of Burgundy says that the greatest boast of Bruges is the
beauty of its women.

Another _treckschuyt_ was to start at twelve o'clock for Ghent; but we
preferred going by land and General Wilson hired a carriage for that
purpose. The distance is about thirty miles. The road from Bruges to Ghent