We lunched at the inn, surrounded by mementos and trophies, and served by an elderly woman, whose father had been a sergeant in the Belgian army, then late in the afternoon drove back to town.
The pleasant days at Brussels soon slipped by, and then we were off to Antwerp--only an hour's ride. I will tell you nothing about the former wealth and commercial activity of the city--that in the sixteenth century it was the wealthiest city in Europe, &c, &c. For all these interesting particulars, see Murray's Handbook of Northern Germany. As soon as we had secured rooms at the hotel, dropped our satchels and umbrellas, we followed the chimes to the cathedral. The houses of the people have crept close to it, until many of them, old and gray, have fairly grown to it, like barnacles to a ship; or it seemed as though they had built their nests, like the rooks, under the moss-grown eaves. The interior of the cathedral was singularly grand and open. As we threw our shawls about us--a precaution never omitted--an old man shuffled out from a dark corner to show the church, take our _francs_, and pull aside the curtains from before the principal pictures, if so dignified a name as curtain can be applied to the dusty, brown cambric that obstructed our vision. Rubens's finest pictures are here, and indeed the city abounds in all that is best of Flemish art,--most justly, since it was the birthplace of its master. Rubens in the flesh we had seen at the Louvre; the spiritual manifestation was reserved for Antwerp; and to recall the city is to recall a series of visions of which one may not speak lightly.
Across, from the cathedral, upon a wide wooden bench in the market-place we sat a moment to consider our ways--the signal for the immediate swooping down upon us of guides and carriages, and the result of which was, our departure in a couple of dingy open vehicles to finish the city. We crawled about the town like a diminutive funeral procession, dismounting at the Church of St. Jacques to see the pictures, with which it is filled. In one of the chapels was a young American artist, copying Rubens's picture of "A Holy Family"--the one in which his two wives and others of his family enact the part of Mary, Martha, St. Jerome, &c. Behind the high altar is the tomb of Rubens, with an inscription of sufficient length to extinguish an ordinary man. There was a museum, too, in the city, rich in the works of Rubens and Vandyck, and the fine park in the new part of the town, as well as the massive docks built by the first Napoleon, were yet to be seen. The older members of the party were in the first carriage, and received any amount of valuable information, which was transmitted to us who followed in a succession of shouts sounding as much like "fire!" as anything else, with all manner of beckoning, and pointing, and wild throwing up of arms, that undoubtedly gave vent to their feelings, but brought only confusion and distraction to our minds. Not to be outdone, our driver began a series of utterly unintelligible explanations, the only part of which we understood in the least was, when pointing to the docks, he ejaculated, "Napoleon!" At that we nodded our heads frantically, which only encouraged him to go on. Pausing before a low, black house, exactly like all the others, he pointed to it with his whip. It said "Hydraulics" upon a rickety sign over the door. There were old casks, and anchors, and ropes, and rotting wood all around, for it was down upon the wharves. We tried to look enlightened, gratified even, and succeeded so well that he entered upon an elaborate dissertation in an unknown tongue. What do you suppose it was all about? Can it be that he was explaining the principles of hydraulics?