Hal and Tirlemont; stalls and confessionals and pulpits, new and
old, that are mere masses of sculptured wood-work; tall
tabernacles for the reception of the Sacred Host, like those at
Louvain and Leau, that tower towards the roof by the side of the
High Altars. Most of this work, no doubt, is post-Gothic, except
the splendid stalls and canopies (I wonder, do they still survive)
at the church of St. Gertrude at Louvain; for Belgium presents few
examples of mediaeval wood-work like the gorgeous stalls at
Amiens, or like those in half a hundred churches in our own land.
Much, in fact, of these splendid fittings is more or less
contemporary with the noble masterpieces of Rubens and Vandyck,
and belongs to the same great wave of artistic enthusiasm that
swept over the Netherlands in the seventeenth century. Belgian
pulpits, in particular, are probably unique, and certainly, to my
knowledge, without parallel in Italy, England, or France.
Sometimes they are merely adorned, like the confessionals at St.
Charles, at Antwerp, and at Tirlemont, with isolated figures; but
often these are grouped into some vivid dramatic scene, such as
the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, at St. Andrew's, at Antwerp, or
the Conversion of St. Norbert, in the cathedral at Malines.
Certainly the fallen horseman in the latter, if not a little
ludicrous, is a trifle out of place.

From Furnes to Ypres it is a pleasant journey across country by
one of those strange steam-trams along the road, so common in
Belgium and Holland, and not unknown in France, that wind at
frequent intervals through village streets so narrow, that you
have only to put out your hand in passing to touch the walls of
houses. This is a very leisurely mode of travelling, and the halts
are quite interminable in their frequency and length; but the