of rough stones, or perhaps merely a wooden stockade, a few huts
were put up by people who came there for protection, and as time
went on the settlement increased. 'John of Ypres, Abbot of St.
Bertin,' says Mr. Robinson, 'who wrote in the fourteenth century,
describes how Bruges was born and christened: "Very soon pedlars
began to settle down under the walls of the fort to supply the
wants of its inmates. Next came merchants, with their valuable
wares. Innkeepers followed, who began to build houses, where those
who could not find lodging in the fort found food and shelter.
Those who thus turned away from the fort would say, 'Let us go to
the bridge.' And when the houses near the bridge became so numerous
as to form a town, it kept as its proper name the Flemish word
_Brugge_."

[Illustration: BELL-RINGER PLAYING A CHIME.]

The small island on which this primitive township stood was bounded
on the south and east by the Roya, on the north by the Boterbeke,
and on the west by the moat joining these two streams. The Roya
still flows along between the site of the old burg and an avenue
of lime-trees called the Dyver till it reaches the end of the Quai
du Rosaire, when it turns to the north. A short distance beyond
this point it is vaulted over, and runs on beneath the streets
and houses of the town. The Rue du Vieux Bourg is built over the
course of the Boterbeke, which now runs under it and under the Belfry
(erected on foundations sunk deep into the bed of the stream), until
it joins the subterranean channel of the Roya at the south-east
corner of the Market-Place. The moat which joined these two streams
and guarded the west side of the island was filled up long ago,
and its bed is now covered by the Rue Neuve, which connects the