North.[87] Accordingly, having first ascended the highest steeple in the town, and been more disgusted than in any place I have seen since Spain, with virgins and dolls in beads and muslins, and pomatum and relics of saints' beards, and napkins from our Saviour's tomb, and mummeries quite disgraceful, we went to call upon them.... We find this, like every other town and village, swarming with Prussian troops. General Kleist commands, and has no less an army than 170,000. This seems very like a determination of the King of Prussia not to give up the slice he has gained in the grand continental scramble. Every uniform we saw was of British manufacture. An officer told me we had furnished sufficient for 70,000 Infantry and 20,000 Cavalry. There is little to be seen in this place. The country about reminded me most of England; for the first time on the continent we saw hedges and trees of tolerable size growing amongst them. We were directed above all other things to pay our respects to the great gambling table. It is, indeed, one of the Lions of the Town; the room is splendid in size, and everybody goes to see it. It is open 3 times a day for about 2 or 3 hours each time. About 50 or 60 people were winning or losing round a large table at a game apparently something like vingt un; not a word was said, but money was shovelled to the right and left very plentifully.... I forgot to mention that near Linz on the Rhine we passed a headland fronted and inlaid with as fine a range of Basaltic columns as the Giant's Causeway, some bent, some leaning, some upright. They are plentiful throughout that part of the country, and are remarkably regular; all the stone posts are formed of them, and even here I still see them.... [Illustration: FRENCH DILIGENCE.] LETTER XI. BRUXELLES, _29th_.