At Bruxelles at least we expected to see a numerous and genteel Table d'hôte, and in this hope took up our quarters at a magnificent Hotel in the Place Royale--very fine indeed, and very full of English, much too full, for though we saw a few in the passages, or eyed them as they peeped out of their doors, and sat down with about 15 or 20 at table, "They spoke not, they moved not, they looked not around." By dint of asking for salt and mustard, and giving my next neighbour as much trouble as I could to show I had a tongue which I should be happy to use, we towards the 3rd Act of the Entertainment began to talk, and ascended gradually from the meats to the wines (here, it is true, there was some prolixity), and then to other subjects pretty well, though the burthen of my companion's song was that "the French were all d---- d rascals and ought to be well licked." We tried the Play; there we found a few English officers and one English lady, few of any other nation, not 50 altogether, in a house dismal and dirty. There is a delightful sort of wood and promenade called the Park.... [Illustration: DUTCH SHIPS.] CHAPTER V THE LOW COUNTRIES Dutch arks--Walcheren memories--Earth-covered ships--Cossacks and keys--Brother alleys--Bergen op Zoom--Cossack shopping--Goat curricles--Treckschuyt travelling--Booksellers' shops. After Brussels the travellers proceeded to Holland, and saw Antwerp on their way. They had now gone beyond the country which Napoleon's victories had made famous, and the chief military interest of the country through which they passed, just eleven months before Waterloo, was derived from two very melancholy events for an Englishman to record--the Walcheren Expedition and the storming of Bergen op Zoom. LETTER XII BERGEN OP ZOOM, _July 31st_.