population of less than six millions, they have sixty thousand soldiers to support. Belgium also has, as one of her sons tells me, to maintain defensive works to an absurd extent. England once forced Belgium to build enormous forts around Antwerp to protect her from France and Germany, and now Germany obliges Belgium to build more forts to protect her against England and France. Mr. Pulmann, whose farm we visited, said that the expenses for fortifications are eating up their ears.

Belgians who desire to do so can pay money to the government in order to provide substitutes for the army or volunteers. In advance, before the conscription, you put in your request for a substitute, paying at the same time two hundred francs. If you are drawn, you must make the sum up to sixteen hundred francs; but if not drawn, your two hundred are returned to you. The volunteer or substitute who accepts this sixteen hundred francs must serve eight years. Those drawn in the conscription must serve in the cavalry four years, in the infantry two, but they are always liable to be called on, if there is need, for eight years, dating from the conscription. After retiring from active service they become the reserve. The Belgian soldiers are more coarsely dressed than the French. They receive about three and a quarter pounds of bread for two days, and about half a pound of meat daily, also a portion of potatoes or other vegetables. They also receive one sou a day.

Another excursion which Mrs. Willems and I make is to the great village of B., with a population of eight thousand,

having a Catholic church and chapel. The village is mostly agricultural, but there are two tanneries, five breweries, and a dozen manufactures of lace. Two thousand persons are said to be working at lace, so that the farmers have much trouble in hiring women to work in house and field. It is in this village that I see boys with a basket, boys with a wheel-barrow, picking up the horse-manure in the street. The person whom we go to visit this day holds an office of some consequence, and has about one hundred and seventy acres, part of which is polder, or alluvial land, near Antwerp, reclaimed from the river Scheldt. It furnishes excellent pasture. About twenty of Mr. V.'s cattle were out on the polder when we were there. Mr. V. may be called a model farmer. He lives in the village, but has excellent buildings on the farm. He has over forty medals, received at agricultural expositions within eight years; they are of gold, of silver gilt, of silver, etc. I learn that some of his flax-stalks measure not far from a yard and a half in height, and I saw a specimen of oats measuring about five feet six inches. He says that this oat-field will bring him ninety bushels to the acre, and oats this year are worth sixty-six cents a bushel (ten francs the hectolitre). Mr. V. also tells me that the potato is their best crop, but they still suffer from rot; the heats of summer, followed by heavy autumnal rains, spoil the crop. Every year Mr. V. loses some, and last year about two and a half acres. When potatoes produce about two hundred and ninety bushels to the acre they are very good. I learn from Mr. V. that there are no insects here which injure wheat in the fields: something which he calls cancre eats it in the barn. Nor are there insects here that injure plums, but sparrows eat plums and cherries. Perhaps they are north of the range of the

curculio, or plum-beetle, as Canada seems to be north of the range of the pea-weevil. We see at Mr. V.'s a hog, ten months old, estimated to weigh five hundred pounds. Mr. V. has more than one.

If it be not too great a step from swine to nobility, allow me to add here that in the same great village with Mr. V. the Count of — has a residence. He has altogether three residences, and is said to possess about two thousand five hundred acres.

One more excursion Mrs. Willems and I are to take. It is to her native village; and at the same time we will visit other places, where different acquaintances think that there are things worth seeing. And as madame wishes to be back soon, it is concluded to start on August 11th, which is Sunday. We pass through Malines, and I do not know until my return to my own country that it is Mechlin. We see peasants with handkerchiefs or little shawls pinned upon the crowns of their bonnets, and falling in folds on their necks. The ends may be pinned under the chin or tied upon the breast. One woman, who is quite well dressed, thus wears a little yellow silk shawl, with broad yellow lace around it. It seems to me that the Belgian Sunday more resembles ours than does the Parisian, but I am told at Mechlin that the stores are open.*

At one of the stations that we pass, Mrs. Willems says that the station-keeper was a liberal, and that the peasants signed a petition and had him removed. Now he has a smaller place. "What for?" I ask; "there must have been a reason given." "There was some reason invented.

By Article XIV. of the Belgian Constitution, no person can be orced to observe the holidays of any religious body.

We say," she adds, smiling, "when one wants to whip a dog one can always find a stick." I ask why the peasants are opposed to the liberals, who ought to be their friends. "Because they think them opposed to religion, and the curés tell them that they are." We change cars at Louvain, where is the university, which is Catholic; but Mrs. W. says that young men who go to it come out more liberal than others. After quitting Louvain, we see on our right a fine stretch of agricultural country, resembling France, almost treeless, and I see beets growing, and stacks of grain, and a great spread of land without houses, as in Le Nord, the department of France I lately left. We stop a few moments at Neerwinden. Here on a great plain was a great battle, and thousands of soldiers, Mrs. W. says, were buried in that plain. It was one of the battles of Louis XIV. War seems to have been a game that he loved to play at. About here the peasants who get into the cars are speaking Walloon, which Mrs. W. tells me is quite different from Flemish; one does not understand the other.*

We stop for the night at a flourishing town, where lives a gentleman to whom we have a letter of introduction. When we go to his house he and the family are absent, and we leave a note for him at a little shop near by. We then conclude to take up our quarters at the Blue Sheep, which, for an obvious reason, I prefer to the Golden Crown. The house seems to be kept by a woman; it is decent and comfortable, but probably we should have had better butter at the Golden Crown. At supper-time we have the company of a man of about thirty, who is stout, has curling hair, and looks to me like a travelling salesman. Before eating,

Of course there are persons who speak both. Cyclopædia," "Belgium."

See Appletons'

he crosses himself twice. I do not remember ever to have seen a man in France cross himself even once before eating, and rarely a woman. It turns out, however, that this

young man at the Blue Sheep is a teacher, or is connected with the public schools, which are now in vacation. The landlady thinks that he is employed by the government. He himself tells us of a school examination that is now going on here; but it is private. He tells me that Mr. Van Ambek is going to introduce a system into all Belgian schools in imitation of that of America. Here I am told what I have before mentioned,—that public school education in Belgium comes next to that of Prussia; it is also said to be much more advanced than in France. Instruction in the common grade of public schools is gratuitous; and books are given to the indigent, but others must pay.

At this flourishing town we find, with some exceptions, that the stores are open this Sunday afternoon. In one window we see showy red cotton handkerchiefs, bearing the smiling face of Pope Leo XIII., "Papa," and besprinkled with little cross-keys; while on a border are larger ones. Mrs. Willems buys one for fourteen sous to give to an old man whom she is going to visit.

In the morning we find the gentleman to whom we brought the letter of introduction, and he tells us that he was at their country-house near the town, where there is a fine view; he thinks it a pity that we had not known where to find them. I make an inquiry concerning the farmers here, and he replies that they are generally very comfortable, but they are not the owners of lands; these belong to great seigneurs. He is so kind as to write in my note-book the names of a few proprietors, whence I learn that the Count of possesses about five thousand acres, rented to four farmers,-except the woods, which are re