"Cinquante francs, plus jolie" (I expressed admiration audibly).
"Cent francs, madame," said the frau Julie, abandoning at once the addressing of her conversation to an individual who could be struck with the beauty of a fifty franc strip of lace.
"Cent cinquante francs, madame, très recherché."
"Deux cent francs. Superbe, madame."
"Quatre cent francs. Magnifique."
"Eighty dollars for that mess of spider's web!" exclaimed Monsieur, in English, to his companion. "Eighty dollars! The price is magnifique."
"He is varee sheep for sush dentelles," says the old lady, in a quiet tone, much to monsieur's confusion at her understanding the English tongue; and the exhibition went on.
How much we sacrificed at that black velvet altar I do not care to mention; but, at any rate, we found on reaching America that the prices paid, compared with those asked at home, were "varee sheep for sush dentelles."
Antwerp! We must make a brief pause at this old commercial city on the Scheldt; and as we ride through its streets, we see the quaint, solid, substantial buildings of olden times, their curious architecture giving a sort of Dutch artistic air to the scene, and reminding one of old paintings and theatrical scenery. One evidence of the commercial importance of Antwerp is seen in its splendid docks; these comprise the two docks built by Bonaparte when he made the port one of his naval arsenals, which are splendid specimens of masonry, the walls being five feet in thickness; then the Belgian government have recently completed three new docks, which, in connection with the old ones, embrace an area of over fifty acres of water. We visited several of the dock-yards here, and were astonished at the vast heaps of merchandise they contained. Still further improvements that are being made seem to completely refute the assertion that all the commercial enterprise of Antwerp has departed. Here, for instance, were two new docks in progress for timber and petroleum exclusively, which enclose seventeen acres of water, and here we saw literally enough of splendid timber for a navy. I was actually staggered by the heaps of every kind of timber, from all parts of the world, that was piled up here, while the American petroleum was heaped up and stored in warehouses the size of a cathedral, suggesting the idea of a tremendous illumination should fire by any means get at it, which, however, is guarded against very strictly by dock-guards and police.
Then there are three new and spacious dry docks, one of which is the largest in Europe, being nearly five hundred feet long, and capable of holding two ships at a time of one thousand tons register each. The splendid facilities for ships of every description, and for the landing and storage of merchandise, are such as cannot fail to excite admiration from every American merchant, and make him sigh for the time when we may have similar accommodations in the great seaports in this country. There were huge warehouses, formed by two blocks vis-à-vis, with a glass roof covering the intermediate space, and a double rail track running through it, affording opportunity of loading, unloading, and sorting merchandise in all weathers, while the depth of the "lazy old Scheldt," directly opposite the city, is sufficient for a ship drawing thirty-two feet of water to ride safely at anchor.