TOWNS. 



413 



supply a ver}- durable porphyry, mucli superior to basalt as a material for street 

 pavements. 



The famous field of Waterloo (2,935 inhabitants) lies to the east of Hal and 

 Leeuw-St. Pierre (4,470 inhabitants), on an undulating plateau extending from the 

 Senne to the Dyle. No battle-ground has been described more frequently, and 

 every locality of it has become famous : the castle of Ilougoumont, so furiously 

 attacked and desperately defended; the churchyard of P lance no it ; the inn of 



Fig. 230.— Brussels and its Environs. 

 Scale 1 : 120,000. 



4° 20 E.ofG. 



4°25' 



1 Mile. 



Belle-Alliance ; the farm of Haie- Sainte ; the village of Mont St. Jean; and the 

 hollow road which proved so disastrous to the retreating French. 



Brussels, in French Bruxelles, in Flemish Brussel, is situate nearly in the centre 

 of the kingdom of which it is the capital, close to the linguistic boundary separating 

 Wallons from Flemings, and almost on the margin of the plain which stretches from 

 the sea to the hilly region of Belgium. Its beginnings are traced to a castle built 

 upon a swampy island (brocksele) of the Senne, but as early as the eleventh century 

 the nascent city had been surrounded Avith a wall, and had become a stage on the 

 road leading from Flanders to the Ehine. A century later the Dukes of Brabimt 



