The course of this backwater has long since been entirely changed. Running on in a straight line past the fish market, it now empties itself into the grand coupure, and is one of the most picturesque waterways in Bruges.
Along the right bank of this beautiful stream, going towards the great canal, runs a towing-path, well shaded with poplar trees and limes, and fringed on the side with some delightful old gabled houses, and by
others less interesting and of more recent date. But it is the left bank which gives the stream its greatest charm, for here, at the angle where the backwater turns off from the main stream, stand certain phlegmatic municipal offices of the last century, laving their feet in the water—comfortable-looking, old-fashioned red-brick buildings which, somehow or other, ‘the golden stain of time’ has managed to make beautiful. Behind them soar the high-pitched roofs and dormer windows of an old city hall, whose pinnacles and turrets and spires give play to light and shade, and break up the sky line. Hard-by, at the end of a narrow street which runs back from the water, behold a rival of the Bridge of Sighs, and in a gilded gatehouse without gates, the marriage of the Middle Age and the Renaissance, and to the right, quaint, venerable and picturesque in weather-beaten brick, the Palace of the Liberty of Bruges, and further still, a vista of old homes, and shady lawns, and overhanging trees and bridges, hunch-backed and of ancient date.
But to return to Baldwin’s bourg, the Castle itself—a spacious and strongly-fortified building, which stood on ground now occupied by the Palais de Justice, the Hotel de Ville, and the unsightly modern erections on the east side of the square—included within its precincts not only Baldwin’s own residence, but the residence of the Châtelains or Viscounts of Bruges, the Ghistelhaus where hostages were lodged, the Court chapel and the Court prison; opposite this group of buildings on the north side, that is, of the Bourg, stood a sanctuary dedicated to Our Lady, which Baldwin had founded to receive the relics of St. Donatian, and further on the cloisters of the priests who served it.