Bruges and West Flanders

by George W. T. Omond

THE PLAIN OF WEST FLANDERS—YPRES

CHAPTER VII

THE PLAIN OF WEST FLANDERS—YPRES

To the west of Bruges the wide plain of Flanders extends to the French frontier. Church spires and windmills are the most prominent objects in the landscape; but though the flatness of the scenery is monotonous, there is something pleasing to the eye in the endless succession of well-cultivated fields, interrupted at intervals by patches of rough bushland, canals, or slow-moving streams winding between rows of pollards, country houses embowered in woods and pleasure-grounds, cottages with fruitful gardens, orchards, small villages, and compact little towns, in most of which the diligent antiquary will find something of interest—a modest belfry, perhaps, with a romance of its own; a parish church, whose foundations were laid long ago in ground dedicated, in the distant past, to the worship of Thor or Woden; or the remains, it may be, of a mediæval castle, from which some worthy knight, whose name is forgotten except in local traditions, rode away to the Crusades.

This part of West Flanders, which lies wedged in between the coast, with its populous bathing stations, and the better-known district immediately to the south of it, where Ghent, Tournai, Courtrai, and other important centres draw many travellers every year, is seldom visited by strangers, who are almost as much stared at in some of the villages as they would be in the streets of Pekin. It is, however, very accessible. The roads are certainly far from good, and anything in the shape of a walking tour is out of the question, for the strongest pedestrian would have all his pleasure spoilt by the hard-going of the long, straight causeway. The ideal way to see the Netherlands and study the life of the people is to travel on the canals; but these are not so numerous here as in other parts of the country, and, besides, it is not very easy to arrange for a passage on the barges. But, in addition to the main lines of the State Railway, there are the 'Chemins-de-fer Vicinaux,' or light district railways, which run through all parts of Belgium. The fares on these are very low, and there are so many stoppages that the traveller can see a great many places in the course of a single day. There are cycle tracks, too, alongside most of the roads, the cost of keeping them in order being paid out of the yearly tax paid by the owners of bicycles.[*]

[Footnote *: Bicycles entering Belgium pay an ad valorem duty of 12 per cent.]

THE FLEMISH PLAIN

This is the most purely Flemish part of Flanders. One very seldom notices that Spanish type of face which is so common elsewhere—at Antwerp, for instance. Here the race is almost unmixed, and the peasants speak nothing but Flemish to each other. Many of them do not understand a word of French, though in Belgium French is, as everyone knows, the language of public life and of literature. The newspapers published in Flemish are small, and do not contain much beyond local news. The result is that the country people in West Flanders know very little of what is going on in the world beyond their own parishes. The standard of education is low, being to a great extent in the hands of the clergy, who have hitherto succeeded in defeating all proposals for making it universal and compulsory.

But, steeped as most of them are in ignorance and superstition, the agricultural labourers of West Flanders are, to all appearance, quite contented with their lot. Living is cheap, and their wants are few. Coffee, black bread, potatoes, and salted pork, are the chief articles of diet, and in some households even the pork is a treat for special occasions. They seldom taste butter, using lard instead; and the 'margarine' which is sold in the towns does not find its way into the cottages of the outlying country districts. Sugar has for many years been much dearer than in England, and the price is steadily rising, but with this exception the food of the people is cheap. Tea enters Belgium duty free, but the peasants never use it. Many villagers smoke coarse tobacco grown in their own gardens, and a 10-centimes cigar is the height of luxury. Tobacco being a State monopoly in France, the high price in that country makes smuggling common, and there is a good deal of contraband trading carried on in a quiet way on the frontiers of West Flanders. The average wage paid for field labour is from 1 franc 50 centimes to 2 francs a day for married men—that is to say, from about 1s. 3d. to 1s. 8d. of English money. Bachelors generally receive 1 franc (10d.) a day and their food. The working hours are long, often from five in the morning till eight in the evening in summer, and in winter from sunrise till sunset, with one break at twelve o'clock for dinner, consisting of bread with pork and black coffee, and another about four in the afternoon, when what remains of the mid-day meal is consumed.