we were running pretty free when we began to sight the brickyards

of Boom, lying for a long way on the right bank of the river. The

left bank was still green and pastoral, with alleys of trees along

the embankment, and here and there a flight of steps to serve a

ferry, where perhaps there sat a woman with her elbows on her

knees, or an old gentleman with a staff and silver spectacles. But

Boom and its brickyards grew smokier and shabbier with every

minute; until a great church with a clock, and a wooden bridge over

the river, indicated the central quarters of the town.

Boom is not a nice place, and is only remarkable for one thing:

that the majority of the inhabitants have a private opinion that

they can speak English, which is not justified by fact. This gave

a kind of haziness to our intercourse. As for the Hotel de la

Navigation, I think it is the worst feature of the place. It

boasts of a sanded parlour, with a bar at one end, looking on the

street; and another sanded parlour, darker and colder, with an

empty bird-cage and a tricolour subscription box by way of sole

adornment, where we made shift to dine in the company of three

uncommunicative engineer apprentices and a silent bagman. The

food, as usual in Belgium, was of a nondescript occasional

character; indeed I have never been able to detect anything in the

nature of a meal among this pleasing people; they seem to peck and

trifle with viands all day long in an amateur spirit: tentatively

French, truly German, and somehow falling between the two.

The empty bird-cage, swept and garnished, and with no trace of the

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