cow—the Flemings are eminently a clannish
race. In the French army, the French Flemings
hang together like bees at swarming-time;
Belgian Flemings, even at leisure hours and
meal times, congregate into companies. Young
people, both girls and boys, run together in
distinct and closely-grouped parties, like young
domestic animals turned out to grass; as if
Flemish babies came, like lambs, all at once, in
springtide falls.

When grown up, they form themselves into
bands and societies as naturally as they shave
their beards and light their pipes. They do
everything in troops, by whole populations.
Everybody goes to mass on Sunday mornings.
Any one who did not, unless bedridden or
paralytic, would be considered, not a heretic—
for tabernacles and quakers' meeting-houses are
things unheard of and unknown—but an
original, a misanthrope, a Timon of Athens.

In the villages, after mass, all the males go
to the public-house—which supplies "double
bier" under the sign of De Roose, or the
Oliphant without a Castle, or the Bruyn Visch,
that is to say the Red Herring which is
opposite, behind, or beside the church, the skittle-
ground being often adjacent to the cemetery.
Beer-drinking bowers thereby enjoy a cheering
vista of crosses and tomb-stones. A footpath
conducts to the pastimes of the living by
traversing the resting-place of departed topers. It
is a grim Dance of Death, illustrated by subjects
in the flesh. There are weekly tableaux vivants
exemplifying the nearness of the cradle to the
grave. The skeleton almost shakes hands with
the smoker. The corpse keeps company with
its carousing relatives. The boors (bauers,
husbandmen) disport themselves for a little
interval before joining their forefathers who sleep
hard by.

Market, too, is another famous opportunity
for the interchange of social converse,
unintelligible to the world at large. "How triste, how
dull it must be for you, not to speak Flemish!"
once ejaculated a dame who sold "goeden
drank," but who could not, though she would,
converse with me. And so they enjoy amongst
themselves exclusively their interminable
bargainings in the most cacophonous of gibberishes,
the very women entering into the pig-trade in
order to have their share of the fun. And so,
all summer long (as well as before and after)
they get up national merry-makings which are
equivalent to taking the census of the district.
The whole population elects itself into a club
for the promotion of home-made sports and
gambols, the performance of self-acted pageants
and plays, where the players and the spectators
are so nearly identical that they sometimes
happen to be one and the same.

The blue-frocked archers of one locality go
and shoot with the black-capped long-bows of
another, distant a quarter of a day's pedestrian
journey, or seven minutes and a half by rail.
The Choral Society of Schoutenhoul pays a
fraternal visit to the Orpheonists of Raspenscraep;
the band and banners of Puffenblowe swell the
cavalcades of Staerenstrut; the chaffinch-
blinders of Katschenkagem hold matches with
the amateurs of Poketheryseout.

For, I regret it, but truth compels the record
that blinded chaffinches are another Flemish
institution which seems indigenous and permanent.
When I first saw the land more than
thirty years ago, they had every appearance of
being an ancient custom. I have seen it often
since, and there they are, poor things, in the
smallest possible cages, still reiterating their
peculiar cry. There is a French saying, "As
gay as a chaffinch": the Flemish chaffinches
are very sad to see; and their monotonous
chant is one of the most melancholy things to
listen to that I know of. Before you reach
Flanders, none are to be seen; but in travelling
from France towards the Belgian frontier,
you observe, hung out from every window,
against every wall, in every nook and
corner, tiny cages, each containing a single
chaffinch, which unceasingly utters the melodic
phrase that can hardly be termed its song.

At six o'clock of a bright May morning, the
bird-fanciers meet in a gay green meadow,
with the intention of going to mass afterwards.
You can fancy the flavour of their
frothing beer and the smell of their multifuming
pipes. Distinctive badges mark the respective
clubs a feather in their hat, a rosette in their
button-hole, or a gaudy sash around their
waist—harmless vanities to which the Flemings
are as incorrigibly addicted as to chaffinch-
blinding; for they do not appear to be aware
that chaffinches can feel as well as utter seven
hundred and fifty chants per hour.

Flanders, as a trip for holiday-makers, has
the double advantage of being easily got at and
easily departed from. To effect your retreat,
however, from the Belgian portion, unless by
sea, the French custom-houses must not be
left out of consideration. They are sharp,
strict, and severe in their search. Their main
object is to prevent Belgian tobacco from
entering France. It is after that that they poke,
and feel, and spy. Other contraband articles—
obnoxious political literature, hostile
pamphlets, satires offensive to the Emperor's
person, prohibited photographs—are of
comparatively easy introduction, although their
possession, if known, might be productive of
inconvenience. But tobacco, in all its shapes
and phases, whether prepared for snuffing,
quidding, or smoking, is the forbidden thing
to be ferreted out and seized; so let returning
travellers beware.

There is one sure way of avoiding every
danger; namely, to eschew all contact with
and all concern in anything that is contraband.
But, like several other moral maxims, it is
easier to preach than to practise, above all to
get others to practise it. You can answer for
yourself; you can't answer for your belongings.
People dearly love things from foreign parts,
not because they are better than, but because
they are different to, what they are used to.

M. Frederic Passy has defined man as an