to that man, and remembered what he said, and not mixed things up, I
should have learnt a good deal about the country between Ostend and
Cologne.

He had relations in nearly every town, had this man. I suppose
there have been, and are, families as large and as extensive as his;
but I never heard of any other family that made such a show. They
seemed to have been planted out with great judgment, and were now
all over the country. Every time I awoke, I caught some such
scattered remark as:

"Bruges--you can see the belfry from this side--plays a polka by
Haydn every hour. My aunt lives here." "Ghent--Hotel de Ville,
some say finest specimen of Gothic architecture in Europe--where my
mother lives. You could see the house if that church wasn't there."
"Just passed Alost--great hop centre. My grandfather used to live
there; he's dead now." "There's the Royal chateau--here, just on
this side. My sister is married to a man who lives there--not in
the palace, I don't mean, but in Laeken." "That's the dome of the
Palais de Justice--they call Brussels 'Paris in little'--I like it
better than Paris, myself--not so crowded. I live in Brussels."
"Louvain--there's Van de Weyer's statue, the 1830 revolutionist. My
wife's mother lives in Louvain. She wants us to come and live
there. She says we are too far away from her at Brussels, but I
don't think so." "Leige--see the citadel? Got some cousins at
Leige--only second ones. Most of my first ones live at Maestricht";
and so on all the way to Cologne.

I do not believe we passed a single town or village that did not
possess one or more specimens of this man's relatives. Our journey