Even the government is obliged to come to a
compromise, and affix the names of the
streets to their corners both in Flemish and
in French. The railway porter, who handed
us our luggage, was deaf and dumb as far as
we were concerned, and signed us over to a
brother medium. The coachman who drove
us to our inn just comprehended the words
"Hôtel de Flandre "— and a capital and
recommendable hotel it is— but he
comprehended no more of the further clever remarks
addressed to him. Many of the Gantois who
do speak French manage it so badly, and are
so decidedly not at home in it, that you feel
quite delighted at your own superiority to
them, born Belgians though they be. But
Flemish has so close a relationship to our
own vernacular, that the names of trades
over the shops, the bills, and the public
notices, are as amusing to read as it is to hear
a foreigner speak broken English. Drap
Straet is Cloth, or Draper's Street. One
man sells alle soorte of wares ; another offers
you cart-grease under the name of wagen
smeer ; kelder te huren is cellar to hire ;
kamer te huren is chamber to hire. A
koperslager is a coppersmith. Professions
which require no interpreter are the bakker,
the matte-maeker, the timmerman, the
apotheker en drogiste, and the boekhandlaer.
The three grand literary elements are
announced  for sale as pennen, inkt, en papier.
If your family is small, you maybe content
with securing Een Huis to let ; but should
you be expecting a large and sudden increase,
you had better engage Twee Huyzen, if
adjacent.  In the Apelmerkt, you could hardly
mistake the fruit that is sold there. When
thirsty, you may go and drink a glass of
dobbel-bier at the hospitable sign of De
Roose ; or you may prefer to patronise the
Oliphant (without a castle), or the Bruyn
Visch, — that is to say, the Red Herring.
Good little boys and girls punctually
attend a zondagschool. Booksellers' windows
invite you to the perusal of Flemish novels ;
such as Een Zwanenzang (a swan's song),
by Jan Van Beers, and De Zending der
Vrow (Woman's Mission), by Hendrik
Conscience.

"How triste, how sad it is for you not to
be able to speak Flemish ! " ejaculated a
dame who sold goeden drank, but who could
not, though she would, converse with me.
In such cases, it rarely strikes the tongue-
tied Flemings belonging to the portion of
society below the middle-class, that they are
like the fox who was minus a tail. They are
content with, and would have other people
learn, a language which confines them, as
tightly as a tether fastens a cow, to a few
score square leagues of the earth's vast
superficies. But a striking point in Flemish
popular manners, is the forming themselves
into bands and societies. These little close
corporations are perhaps, in some degree, the
result of their narrowly-diffused tongue.
And so the blue-bloused archers of one town
go and shoot against the black-capped longbows
of another, distant a quarter-of-a-
day's pedestrian journey; the chorus-club of
Schoutenhoul will pay a fraternal visit to the
orpheonists of Raspenscraep. In the French
army, the French Flemings hang together
like bees at swarming-time. Here at Ghent,
the workmen, even at leisure hours and meal-
times, form themselves into companies.
Young people, both girls and boys, run
together in distinct and closely-grouped
herds, like flocks of young lambs at the
same age. One would think that babies in
Flanders came all at once, in falls, in imitation
of the lambing season with Southdowns
and Leicesters.

But the Botanic garden — where is it ? Let
us first look at our map, and then at the
corner of the street, and endeavour to pilot
our way thither. In Belgian towns,
generally, if you use your eyes with the slightest
expression of inquiring curiosity, up starts a
phantom before you, like a most impertinent
Jack-in-the-box, calling himself a
commissionaire, but who must not be confounded
with a superior being, the French
commissionaire. Where these creatures come from,
I cannot tell. They suddenly appear before
you, as if the air had curdled itself into
human form. Peep into a shop window, and
you have one at your elbow; gaze up at a
steeple, and, when you look down, you will
find a commissionaire between your legs;
turn the angle of a street, on a walk of
discovery, and round the corner you knock your
nose against a commissionaire. They start
from behind doors, down staircases, out of
cellars, from the dark mouths of narrow
lanes; and I believe that, upon inquiry, they
would be found now and then to drop from
the roofs. They follow you about with the
hungry look of a beast of prey, regarding you
as the game on their preserve, and
themselves as very forbearing to spare you a little
while. I do not say that no respectable man
exercises the calling of commissionaire; but,
whenever such jewels are found, they ought
to be set in sterling gold. In age, they vary
from sixteen to sixty. They deal in cigars,
and have often a select female acquaintance,
They are mostly seedy in garment, cloudy in
complexion, uncleanly in person, offensive in
breath, jargonic in speech, forward in manner,
and given to drink. Commissionaires attach
themselves to every hotel, as leeches hang to
the side of their vessel, ready to fix on
anything that has blood or money to yield; and
these consider themselves the head of their
profession. But there are wandering
commissionaires who prowl about the streets,
willing to make themselves useful in any
way— too useful, at times, many people might
think.

One fellow, who pleaded his large family
at home, and whom I took for an hour or
two to get over the ground more quickly,