The sufferings of Ghent seem to be so generally admitted, and so unequivocally ascribed to the operation of the revolution, that no scruple or delicacy is observed by the press or the public in ascribing them to its proper cause. A curious illustration of this, we observed in a volume entitled, “_Le Guide Indispensable du Voyageur sur les Chemins de Fer de la Belgique_,” sold at all the stations on the government railway, and in the case in which I bought my copy, by persons in the government uniform. In a short notice of Ghent, it contains the following passage of plain speaking upon this point. “During the fifteen years of the Dutch connexion, the population, the wealth and the prosperity of Ghent never ceased to increase; manufactures were multiplied, streets enlarged, public buildings erected, and large and beautiful houses constructed; in short, Ghent had become a great commercial city. _The revolution of 1830 at once arrested this career of improvement, and Ghent, whose prosperity was the offspring of peace and of her connexion with Holland, now seems to protest, by her silence, against a change which she finds to be fraught to her with ruin._ The citadel was only taken when all hope had disappeared of maintaining the supremacy of King William; but,” adds the author, “it is to be hoped that, little by little, the influence of new institutions may rally the hopes of the Gantois, and, at last, reconcile them to the consequences of the Belgian revolution.”[29] And the new institution which is to achieve such a triumph, is to be, of course, _the railroad_ from Ostend to Cologne. Our stay at Ghent had been somewhat longer than our original intention, but we found it a place abounding in attractions, not only from its hereditary associations, but from the enterprising and ingenious character of its inhabitants, and the progress which they have achieved in their multifarious pursuits. Besides, it is always a matter of the deepest interest to observe the success or failure of a great national experiment, such as is now in process in Belgium, where, after an interval of upwards of two centuries, during which they have formed a portion of another empire, its inhabitants are testing the practicability of restoring and supporting their old national independence, notwithstanding all the changes which two hundred years have produced in the policy, the commerce, and the manufacturing power of Europe--changes not less astonishing than those which, almost within the same interval, the discovery of printing has produced in the diffusion of learning, or that of gunpowder in the system of ancient warfare. CHAPTER V. BRUSSELS.