GLIMPSES OF WESTEEK EUEOPE. 
127 
including the sugar beet, occupy every foot of arable land, while the vines 
are seen upon all the sunny slopes of the hills, where nothing else could be 
grown. 
Brussels is one of the most beautiful and interesting cities on the conti¬ 
nent. Founded in 7th century, and successively controlled by the early 
Frankish, the Spanish, the Austrian, the French and the Hollandisn dynas¬ 
ties, and, at last—since 1830—the capital of the new-born, independent 
kingdom of Belgium, it has had a checkered history, and to-day shows inter¬ 
esting marks of the various nationalities under which it has flourished during 
the past thousand years. 
For beauty of plan, elegance of buildings, boulevards, and profusion of 
statuary, fountains, gardens and shaded promenades, it is strikingly like 
Paris. But it is not only beautiful, it is one of the great centres of indus¬ 
try; especially celebrated for its manufactures of fine lace, its linens, dam¬ 
asks, carpets, ribbons, jewelry, mathematical and musical instruments, 
coaches, chemicals, soaps and glass. 
Brussels is also celebrated for the great battles which have been fought in 
its vicinity. One of them, in 1816, decided the fate of European empires. 
What names in modern history so familiar, or so famous, as Napoleon, Wel¬ 
lington, Waterloo ! 
BRUSSELS TO LONDON. 
After a pleasant evening’s walk to Waterloo (distant only 15 miles) along 
the smooth and densely shaded highway, which skirts the great forest of 
Soignes, and a night passed on the battle field, I am again borne westward 
on my way to Ostend ; passing through the fine old manufacturing town of 
Ghent, which lies in the midst of the low, rich lands of northern Belgium. 
* * * Ostend! A fortified town of some commercial importance, 
confronting Dover on the other side of the Channel. . • * * * * 
Morning has come. My feet have left the continent. Tucked away in a 
mean little steamer (they have none other on the British Channel), after five 
hours of horrible sea-sickness, I stand on the “ sea-girt isle,” beneath the 
towering chalk cliffs of Dover. ***** 
—It is nine o’clock in the evening of the month of June ; the train slowly 
enters a vast weltering city, whose million lights seem to welcome me home 
again to this, the present great center of the world. The solid rock of Lon¬ 
don bridge is pressed by my weary feet once more, and the sublime dome of 
St. Paul’s guides me on my way to the hospitable mansion of the upright 
Judge, whose guest I am glad, again, to become. 
It seems a life time since I was here before. And what wonder? Have 
I not made the tour of Western Europe. Up the Seine, down the Saone, up 
the Rhone, across the Alps on foot, and down the Rhine ! A grand circuit of 
some two thousand miles, stopping at every place of either natural or his¬ 
toric interest on the way I 
MATTERS IN AND ABOUT LONDON. 
* * * The Exhibition has grown during my absence on the continent, 
and is now in perfect order—more magnificent than ever. The throng of 
visitors increases daily. Constant arrivals of distingu’shed personages from 
other countries. As predicted, some of our slow American exhibitors were 
so behind time that their articles will not be seen by the juries. Indeed, 
some machines cannot be admitted to the palace. All in all, the American 
court is much more respectable than it seemed possible at first to make it; 
some few articles and machines attracting great attention. 
THE SOCIAL SCIENCE CONGRESS. 
The meeting of the British National Association for the Advancement of 
Social Science is now in progress; the distiguished President, Lord Brougham, 
