236 f^sit to Antwerp at the Capitulation 0/ 1833. 



remaining square, and stakes, sliarpened at either end, are fixed in the cen- 

 tre of each hollow j the whole forming a trap, over which any troops must 

 fall and give the alarm, should they attempt in that direction a nocturnal 

 surprise upon the place. These are called troups de loups. Each lunette 

 is placed exactly before its demi-lnne. 



From the gorge of the lunette, a road, somewhat excavated, and defended 

 on either side by a rampart, ditch, and stockade, passes directly backwards 

 until it reaches the glacis* and covered way of the derai-Iune, at its promi- 

 nent or salient point : it there takes the course of the covered way along 

 the margin of the ditch, until its final termination in the bridge of the sally- 

 port. 



Fort Kehl lies very near to the river, which is bordered as usual by a 

 dyke, upon which the Dutch out-posts were placed. Two or three small 

 sentry-boxes appeared, covered with turf half way up, and turned towards 

 the river, and a little in advance was a cottage, mclkhuys, used, as it was 

 said, as a guard liouse. 



The Boom road runs at that point near the river, and was crossed by the 

 first parallel ; the soil is black and soft, and very moist ; the parallel was 

 full of water, and frozen. The trees here, though a full quarter of a mile 

 from the citadel, had suffered severely 5 just out of shot was a suburban 

 villa, sadly mauled by the soldiery. We supposed the doctors had been 

 there, to judge by the ambulances in the court yard. 



Walking along the trenches in the direction of Berchem, we came, through 

 desolate gardens and levelled houses, to a curious, almost a ludicrous, spec- 

 tacle : it was the Jardin de I'harmonie. This place, the Antwerp Vaux- 

 hall, consisted of a large plot of ground, containing sundry Chinese pagodas, 

 Grecian temples, painted gods and goddesses in terra cotta, fish-ponds 

 lined with painted tin, and geometrical flower beds ; all no doubt very 

 elegant in summer, and greatly delighted in by the portly burghers of Ant- 

 werp and their progeny. Such a place in winter always looks like a 

 slovenly fine lady, sufficiently tawdry : but, in addition to this, it had been 

 favoured with Chass^'s particular regards, and a grand painted roof, sup- 

 ported upon long slender deal columns, was, it must be confessed, a superb 

 mark; the ponds were filled up, a refreshment house riddled j a fine pagoda 

 stood, like a lion passant, upon three legs, the fourth having been valor- 

 ously extended in the a'r by a shell ; the roof of the grand temple resem- 

 bled a gigantic sieve. 



The parallel ran close to the garden, and lines of black mud marked the 

 route of the guns, as they had been perilously dragged up into battery. A 

 stone fountain by the road side was broken, and the siste viator of some 



* The glacis is that slope of turf, which falls from the outer side of the ditch to- 

 wards the field ; and the covered way is an excavated walk between the glacis and 

 the very edge of the ditch, protected towards the field by what is styled the crest of 

 the glacis. 



