“Well, sir, at last came the time that I was to set out to join them; and I sailed from London in the Princess Victoria, with my passport in one pocket, and a written code of directions in the other, for of French I knew not one syllable. It was not that my knowledge was imperfect or doubtful; but I was as ignorant of the language as though it was a dead one.
“‘The place should be cheap,’ thought I, ‘for certainly it has no charms of scenery to recommend it,’ as we slowly wended our way up the sluggish Scheldt, and looked with some astonishment at the land the Dutchmen thought worth fighting for. Arrived at Antwerp, I went through the ordeal of having my trunks ransacked, and my passport examined by some warlike-looking characters, with swords on. They said many things to me; but I made no reply, seeing that we were little likely to benefit by each other’s conversation; and at last, when all my formalities were accomplished, I followed a concourse of people who, I rightly supposed, were on their way to the railroad.
“It is a plaguy kind of thing enough, even for a taciturn man, not to speak the language of those about him; however, I made myself tolerably well understood at this station, by pulling out a handful of silver coin, and repeating the word Brussels, with every variety of accent I could think of. They guessed my intentions, and in acknowledgment of my inability to speak one word of French, pulled and shoved me along till I reached one of the carriages. At last a horn blew, another replied to it, a confused uproar of shouting succeeded, like what occurs on board a merchant ship when getting under weigh, and off jogged the train, at a very honest eight miles an hour; but with such a bumping, shaking, shivering, and rickety motion, it was more like travelling over a Yankee corduroy road than anything else. I don’t know what class of carriage I was in, but the passengers were all white-faced, smoky-looking fellows, with very soiled shirts and dirty hands; with them, of course, I had no manner of intercourse. I was just thinking whether I should n’t take a nap, when the train came to a dead stop, and immediately after, the whole platform was covered with queer-looking fellows, in shovelled hats, and long petticoats like women. These gentry kept bowing and saluting each other in a very droll fashion, and absorbed my attention, when my arm was pulled by one of the guards of the line, while he said something to me in French. What he wanted, the devil himself may know; but the more I protested that I could n’t speak, the louder he replied, and the more frantically he gesticulated, pointing while he did so to a train about to start, hard by.
“‘Oh! that’s it,’ said I to myself, ‘we change coaches here;’ and so I immediately got out, and made the best of my way over to the other train. I had scarcely time to spare, for away it went at about the same lively pace as the last one. After travelling about an hour and a half more, I began to look out for Brussels, and, looking at my code of instructions, I suspected I could not be far off; nor was I much mistaken as to our being nigh a station, for the speed was diminished to a slow trot, and then a walk, after a mile of which we crept up to the outside of a large town. There was no nse in losing time in asking questions; so I seized my carpet-bag, and jumped out, and, resisting all the offers of the idle vagabonds to carry my luggage, I forced my way through the crowd, and set out in search of my family. I soon got into an intricate web of narrow streets, with shops full of wooden shoes, pipes, and blankets of all the colors of the rainbow; and after walking for about three-quarters of an hour, began to doubt whether I was not traversing the same identical streets,—or was it that they were only brothers? ‘Where’s the Boulevard?’ thought I, ‘this beautiful place they have been telling me of, with houses on one side, and trees on the other; I can see nothing like it;’ and so I sat down on my carpet-bag, and began to ruminate on my situation.
“‘Well, this will never do,’ said I, at last; ‘I must try and ask for the Boulevard de Regent.’ I suppose it was my bad accent that amused them, for every fellow I stopped put on a broad grin: some pointed this way, and some pointed that; but they all thought it a high joke. I spent an hour in this fashion, and then gave up the pursuit. My next thought was the hotel where my family had stopped on their arrival, which I found, on examining my notes, was called the ‘Hôtel de Suède.’ Here I was more lucky,—every one knew that; and after traversing a couple of streets, I found myself at the door of a great roomy inn, with a door like a coach-house gate. ‘There is no doubt about this,’ said I; for the words ‘Hôtel de Suède’ were written up in big letters. I made signs for something to eat, for I was starving; but before my pantomime was well begun, the whole household set off in search of a waiter who could speak English.
“‘Ha! ha!’ said a fellow with an impudent leer, ‘roa bif, eh?’
“I did not know whether it was meant for me, or the bill of fare, but I said ‘Yes, and potatoes;’ but before I let him go in search of the dinner, I thought I would ask him a few words about my family, who had stopped at the hotel for three weeks.
“‘Do you know Mrs. Blake,’ said I, ‘of Castle Blake?’
“‘Yees, yees, I know her very veil.’
“‘She was here about six months ago.’