The country, as we approach the banks of the Meuse and the Sambre, becomes at every step more and more picturesque, and the dull monotonous plains of Brabant are exchanged for the woody hills and precipitous valleys of Namur. I never saw a more charming prospect, nor one which is so truly refreshing to an eye ennuied with the tiresome monotony of Flemish scenery, than the first view which is obtained of the old town and fortress of Namur, from the heights above the Sambre, in coming from Temploux--a wide and winding valley, with the rapid river toiling below between towering cliffs of rugged rock upon the one hand, and steep banks covered with foliage, and occasionally crowned with old chateaux, upon the other; and in the distance, the bridges, towers, and steeples of the warlike old city, with its renowned, and once thought impregnable fortress, rising terrace upon terrace, and bristling with artillery above it. We drove down the steep hill to the river under a glowing sunset, and having crossed the hollow drawbridge and traversed the tortuous passages that lead from the outward fortifications to the heart of the city, we took up our quarters for the night, at the Hotel de Harscamp, in a starved little square, that seemed to have been grudgingly crimped off the already pinched and narrowed streets. It was still light enough for a stroll round the fortifications, but we soon discovered that it required the acumen of some future Sir William Gell or Claudius Rich, to determine the precise spot, which we were in search of--namely, that at which my Uncle Toby received his memorable wound, in the attack made by the Dutch and English, “upon the point of the advanced counterscarp before the gate of St. Nicholas, which enclosed the great sluice or water-stop,” and which he himself declares to have been, “in one of the traverses about thirty toises from the returning angle of the trench opposite to the salient angle of the demi-bastion of Saint Roche.” The citadel which stands directly above the town is constructed upon the shelves of a stupendous rocky escarpment, that rises almost perpendicularly from the banks of the river, and looks like the Gibraltar of the Meuse. It was accurately restored, and its works in some places extended, by the King of Holland, some few years before the revolution, but when that event arrived, Namur was amongst the first places that hoisted the standard of revolt. There seems, in fact, to have been something between treason and cowardice in the conduct of the garrisons, who occupied every fortress in Belgium, and who, with the single exception, I think, of Antwerp, surrendered them to the “patrioterie” without lighting a match.