The sellers of linen were arranged in long lines, each with his webs before him resting on a low bench, whilst the police were present to preserve order, and see that every individual kept his allotted place. The webs had all previously been examined by a public officer, who affixed his seal to each, not as any mark of its quality or guide to its price, but merely to testify that it was not fraudulently made up--that it was of the same quality throughout as on the outer, fold, and that the quantity was exactly what it professed to be; any fraud attempted, in any particular, exposing the offender to the seizure and forfeiture of the web.[21] The other articles for sale in the market were vegetables and fruit of the ordinary kinds, (with a profusion of Mirabelle plums, the trees of which we saw, repeatedly, planted in hedge-rows), woollen cloth, cutlery, household furniture, and pottery of a very rude description, together with numerous stalls of books. The latter were chiefly religious, but amongst the others were a number of the old popular histories, which seem to be equally favourites in England and Flanders, such as “_Reynaert den Vos_;”--“_de schoone historie van Fortunatus borsen_;”--“_de schoone historie van den edelen Jan van Parys_;”--“_de Twee gebroders en vroome riddens Valentyn en Oursen den Wilden men_;”--“_Recretiven Droomboek_.” &c., &c. After breakfast we went by the railroad to Courtrai, a distance which the train accomplishes in a little more than two hours. My object, in the excursion, was to see the process, which is peculiar to this district, of steeping flax in the running waters of the Lys. This river, which rises in the Pays de Calais, and forms one of the boundaries between France and Belgium, derives its name, in all probability, from the quantity of water-lilies which flourish in its sluggish current, and which are said to be the origin of the fleur-de-lys in the royal arms of France. The road passes through Denys, Waereghem and Haerlebeke, three towns which are the chief in Communes of the same name, and are all bustling little places, combining with agricultural industry, a considerable trade in linen which is the great staple of the district. At Denys, there are also extensive distilleries of Geneva which enjoys a considerable reputation in Belgium, where the spirit produced by distillation is invariably bad, except in the provinces of Limbourg and Luxembourg, where it approaches somewhat to the character of the Dutch. This remarkable difference between the produce of two countries, so similar in almost all their resources for the manufacture, is, perhaps, to be found in the almost total absence of any duty of excise upon distillation, which it was found essential to reduce to a mere nominal sum since 1830, in order to protect the agriculture of Belgium, and which, consequently, brought the trade into the hands of the very lowest class, both of distillers and consumers.