where I slept off fatigue for a shilling a night, and walked up
Cheapside or down Whitechapel, as the case might be, hunting out my way
to churches, halls and theatres. In this way, at a trifling expense, I
have perhaps seen as much as many who spend here double the time and
ten times the money. Our whole tour from Liverpool hither, by way of
Ireland and Scotland, cost us but twenty-five dollars each! although,
except in one or two cases, we denied ourselves no necessary comfort.
This shows that the glorious privilege of looking on the scenes of the
old world need not be confined to people of wealth and leisure. It may
be enjoyed by all who can occasionally forego a little bodily comfort
for the sake of mental and spiritual gain. We leave this afternoon for
Dover. Tomorrow I shall dine in Belgium!




CHAPTER VII.

FLIGHT THROUGH BELGIUM.


_Bruges._--On the Continent at last! How strangely look the century-old
towers, antique monuments, and quaint, narrow streets of the Flemish
cities! It is an agreeable and yet a painful sense of novelty to stand
for the first time in the midst of a people whose language and manners
are different from one's own. The old buildings around, linked with many
a stirring association of past history, gratify the glowing
anticipations with which one has looked forward to seeing them, and the
fancy is busy at work reconciling the _real_ scene with the _ideal_; but
the want of a communication with the living world about, walls one up