240 f^isit to Antwerp at the Capitulation of 1833. 



tars with. The remains of a road passed diagonally across ; on the right 

 were piled the firelocks of the garrison, not in very serviceable condition ; 

 their bayonet sheaths and cartouch boxes formed a second heap ; and a 

 huge pile of bedding and stores, of wliich a commissary was taking an in- 

 ventory, a third ; the stench here, as throughout the whole place, was 

 intolerable. Near the entrance were the ruins of a long row of houses, 

 levelled to the lower story, and still smoking. 



Passing through a strong iron grate, broken by the shot, we entered the 

 stables. The stone mangers were shattered, bulls lay about as usual, and 

 two or three oxen, killed by splinters, lay extended upon the rugged floor; 

 there was a hole in the head of one animal, tiirough which a hand and arm 

 might readily have been passed. Near to this was an abattoir, where other 

 oxen lay slain, one without a head ; and one of the public kitcliens, a very 

 strong wooden building, thickly covered with turf, and defended on the 

 exposed side by a cavalier, or mound of earth. Strong as it was, a shell, 

 probably one of the enormous ones, had descended through the roof and 

 exploded ; the great cauldron, full of pea soup and ox bones, was blown up, 

 and its contents lay far and wide. The cook was probably blown up too, 

 at any rate no signs of him appeared. The other kitchen had escaped. 

 The j)umps, of stone, were all broken, and the wells choked up ; the garri- 

 son had suffered a good deal for want of water. 



A disconsolate cat was prowling about the ruins, looking rather bewil- 

 dered ; she was quite delighted, and ran up on being spoken to. Some 

 carrier pigeons remained perched upon what had once been their cote. 



The hospital, a long temporary casemate, in part of brick and in part of 

 wood and turf, gave way beneath the storm of projectiles, and wretched 

 had been the condition of the wounded. Here were the dead, laid in heaps 

 in this Golgotha, with lighted straw and quick lime j the ground was 

 thickly covered with straw, the contents of the paillasses. 



The church, a tolerably capacious edifice, suffered severely; the tower 

 had been levelled by one well-directed shot, and falling upon the roof, had 

 smashed it. Shells had completed the work. With some difficulty, clam- 

 bering over broken rafters, we got in, and the first thing we observed was 

 the great clock-face upon the pavement. The high altar was degraded, 

 and the marble dais before it broken. An ostentatious monument to " Don 

 Fernando di Solis Bargas, Cabballero," &c. was destroyed, and his fine 

 marble effigy overthrown ; near was the humble tablet of a widow, respected 

 even by the shells. 



In the garden of the church was one of those curious hedges, so much 

 esteemed in the Netherlands : the trees, when young, are interwoven toge- 

 ther into a sort of lattice work, and in time they grow together at the 

 points of junction, forming a strong reticulated fence all in one piece. 



The shops in Antwerp were shut up during the siege, and many of the 

 inhabitants removed themselves and their goods to Mechlin. The French 



