CHAPTER I.
OSTEND AND BRUGES.
Ostend, the Harbour—Canal Docks—Police—Economy of a private carriage for a party on the continent—General aspect of Ostend—Effluvia—Siege in 1604—Fortifications—Promenade—Sands and sea-bathing—Commerce—Bruges, the railroad—Belgium naturally suited to railroads—Old canal travelling to Bruges superseded—Appearance of the city—Its style of ancient houses—The streets—Canals and gardens—Squares—Style of public edifices—Resembles Pisa—Ancient history of Bruges—Its old palaces—Marriages of Charles the Rash and Mary of Burgundy—Singular marriage custom of the middle ages—House in which the Emperor Maximilian was confined—Residences of Edward IV. of England, and of Charles II.—Commercial greatness of Bruges—The Hanseatic League—Her tapestries—The order of the Golden Fleece instituted in her honour—Saying of the Queen of Philip the Fair—Story of the Burghers at the court of John of France—Her present decay—Air of reduced nobility—Costume of the middle classes—Grave demeanour of the citizens—No traces of the Spaniards to be found in the Low Countries—Flemish sculptures in wood—Pictures—No modern paintings in Bruges—Collection in the Church of St. Sauveur—Characteristics of the early Flemish school—The paintings in the Museum—Statue of Van Eyck—His claim to be the inventor of oil painting—Collection in the Chapel of the Hospital of St. John—Story of Hans Memling—The cabinet of St. Ursula—The folding-doors of the Flemish paintings—The Hospital of St. John—Statue by Michael Angelo—Tombs of Mary of Burgundy and Charles the Rash—The tower of Les Halles—Carillon—Splendid view—The Palais de Justice—Superb carved mantel-piece—Hotel de Ville—Its statues destroyed by the French revolutionists—Diamond setters—Comparison of Bruges and Tyre—Mr. Murray’s hand-books—The manufacture of lace in Belgium.
September, 1840.
At sunset when about ten to fifteen miles from land, we had the first sight of the coast of the “Low Countries,” not as on other shores discernible by hills or cliffs, but by the steeples of Nieuport, Ostend, and Blankenburg rising out of the water; presently a row of wind-mills, and the tops of a few trees and houses, and finally a long line of level sand stretching away towards Walcheren and the delta of the Scheldt. Within fourteen hours from heaving up our anchor at the Tower, we cast it in the harbour of Ostend, a narrow estuary formed where the waters of a little river have forced their way through the sand-banks to the sea. An excellent quay has been constructed by flanking the sides of this passage with extensive piers of timber, whilst the stream being confined by dams and sluices above, is allowed to rush down at low water, carrying before it to the sea, any silt which may have been deposited by the previous tide.
At the inner extremity of the harbour, spacious basins have been constructed for the accommodation of the craft which ply upon the Canal de Bruges, which connects that town with Ghent and Ostend, but its traffic is now much diminished by the opening of the railroad, as well as from other causes.
Neither the police nor the custom-house officials, gave any inconvenience with our passports or our baggage, beyond a few minutes of unavoidable delay, and within half an hour from the packet touching the pier, we found ourselves arranged for the night at the Hotel de la Cour Impériale in the Rue de la Chapelle.
I may here mention as a piece of recommendatory information to future travellers, that the journey, of which these volumes are a memento, was performed in an open English carriage, the back seat of which was sufficiently roomy to accommodate three persons, leaving the front for our books, maps and travelling comforts, and the box for our courier and a postillion; and that except upon mountain roads, we made the entire tour of Belgium, Rhenish Prussia, and Germany, from Bavaria to Hanover, with a pair of horses. For such a journey, no construction of carriage that I have seen is equal to the one which we used, a britscka, with moveable head, and windows which rendered it perfectly close at night or during rain.[1] I have not made a minute calculation as to expenses, but even on the score of economy, I am inclined to think this mode of travelling, for three persons and a servant, will involve less actual outlay than the fares of diligences, and Eil Wagens or Schnell posts. In Belgium, our posting, with two horses, including postillions, fees and tolls, did not exceed, throughout, elevenpence a mile; in Prussia, ninepence; and in Bavaria, even less. Besides the perfect control of one’s own time and movements, is a positive source of economy, as it avoids expense at hotels, while waiting for the departure of stages and public conveyances, after the traveller is satisfied with his stay in the place where he may find himself, and is anxious to get forward to another. Between the advantages gained in this particular, and the means of travelling comfortably at night almost without loss of sleep, through some of the sandy and uninteresting plains of northern Germany, I am fully of opinion that our English carriage, independently of its comparative luxury, not only diminished the expense of our journey, but actually added some weeks to its length, within the period which we had assigned for our return. In Belgium, however, and Saxony where railroads are extensively opened, a carriage affords no increase of convenience, on the contrary, in short stages, which should be avoided, it will be found to augment the expense without expediting the journey.
Ostend presents but a bad subject for the compilers of guide books, as it does not possess a single “lion,” nor a solitary object, either of ancient or modern interest, for the tourist. Its aspect too is unsatisfactory, it is neither Dutch, French, nor Flemish, but a mixture of all three, and its houses with Dutch roofs, Flemish fronts, and French interiors, are painted all kinds of gaudy colours, red, green and blue, and covered with polyglot sign boards, announcing the nature of the owner’s calling within, in almost all the languages of Northern Europe.
Being built in a dead flat, the town has of course no sewers—it was Saturday evening when we arrived, and in honour of the approaching Sabbath, I presume, every house within the walls seemed busied in pumping out its cesspool and washing the contents along the channels of the streets, creating an atmosphere above that “all the perfumes of Arabia would not sweeten.” This, however, is an incident by no means peculiar to Ostend, the great majority of the cities in the “Low Countries” being similarly circumstanced.
Although a place of importance five hundred years ago, every trace of antiquity in Ostend has been destroyed by the many “battles, sieges, fortunes,” it has passed. It was enclosed in the fifteenth century, fortified by the Prince of Orange in the sixteenth, and almost razed to the ground in its defence against the Spaniards in the seventeenth, when Sir Francis Vere, (one the military cavaliers, whom, with Sir Philip Sydney and others, Elizabeth in her capricious sympathy, had from time to time sent to the aid of the protestant cause in the Netherlands), held its command at the close of its remarkable siege by the forces of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella.[2] This memorable siege, which the system of antiquated tactics then in vogue, protracted for upwards of three years, “became a school for the young nobility of all Europe, who repaired, to either one or the other party, to learn the principles and the practice of attack and defence.” The brothers Ambrose and Frederick Spinola here earned their high reputation as military strategists, and the former eventually forced Ostend to surrender, after every building had been levelled by artillery, and innumerable thousands had found a grave around its walls. In the subsequent troubles of the eighteenth century, it was again repeatedly besieged and taken, sharing in all these disastrous wars which have earned for Belgium, the appropriate soubriquet of the “Cock-pit of Europe.” Its fortifications are still maintained in tolerable repair, one large battery called Fort Wellington, is of modern construction, and a long rampart, which was originally designed to protect the town from the inundation of the sea, has been converted into a glacis, and strengthened with stone, brought, at a considerable cost, from Tournay, as the alluvial sands of Flanders cannot supply even paving stones for her own cities. The summit of this defence is an agreeable promenade along the sea, which rolls up to its base, and as far as the eye can reach, stretch long hills of sand, which the wind sets in motion, and has driven into heaps against the walls and fortifications. The level and beautiful strand, however, renders Ostend an agreeable bathing-place, and it is fashionably frequented for that purpose during the months of summer, when the town presents the usual agréments of a watering place, baths, ball rooms, cafés, and a theatre.
As the second sea-port in the kingdom, it enjoys a considerable share of the shipping trade of Belgium, but it has no manufactures, and the chief emoluments of the lower classes, arise from the fishery of herrings and oysters, the bed of the latter, “le parc aux huitres,” being the leading lion recommended by the valet-de-place, to the notice of the stranger at Ostend; and the green oysters of Ostend (huitres vertes d’Ostende), one of the luxuries of the Parisian gourmands. Oysters are, indeed, the first dish introduced at every Belgian dinner-table, and the facility of the railroad has considerably augmented the demand at Ostend.
The herring fishery has, of late years, almost disappeared from the coast of Flanders. It was once one of the most lucrative branches of trade in the Low Countries; and Charles V, when he visited the grave of Beukelson, who discovered the method of pickling herrings, at Biervliet, near Sluys, caused a monument to be erected over his remains. With the Reformation, however, and the lax observance of Lent upon the continent, the demand for salted fish declined, and Holland herself now retains but a remnant of her ancient trade; which, however, she cultivates with a rigid observance of all its ancient formalities—the little fleet of fishing boats assemble annually at Vlaardingen, at the entrance of the Maas—the officers assemble at the Stad-huis, and take the ancient oath to respect the laws of the fishery; they then hoist their respective flags, and repair to the church to offer up prayers for their success. The day of their departure is a holiday on the river. The first cargo which reaches Holland, is bought at an extravagant price, and the first barrel which is landed on the shore, is forwarded as a present to the King.
Ostend, Blankenburg, Nieuport, Antwerp, and even Bruges, had once a valuable share in this important fishery, but it has of late years been utterly lost; not more than three sloops, we were told, having put to sea in any year since 1837, and even then with indifferent success. The cod-fishery, however, has been more prosperous, employing between five and six hundred seamen at Ostend alone; but even this is bolstered and sustained by the unsound expedient of government bounties.