As the old names come forward again in rumours and reports from the front, in death lists and hideous narratives of outrage and destruction, indestructible memories, dormant for thirty years, take form and shape again, and daily the gentle charm of a forgotten land becomes living, and the dull fear of an unpredictable and sinister future grows more ominous and intense. There is no other land quite like it; no place where the old has been spared by the new to such a degree, and where the old has remained so altogether lovely. Of course Bruges is the Holy of Holies in this sanctuary of lost ideals, but on the way stop to consider the outer ring of a better kind of fortresses that circle her inner citadel. Nieuport, Dixmude, and Ypres once held their stations from the sea to the Lys, but their ramparts and bastions were not proof against the siege-guns of Essen and they have fallen. Next to the east and farther down the Lys, is Courtrai, under whose walls in 1302 was fought that battle of the burghers of Flanders against the French, when 1,200 of the flower of French knighthood, not to speak of the men-at-arms, were slain, and 600 golden spurs were gathered from the field and hung in triumph in the abbey church. [Illustration: A CHIMNEY-PIECE FROM COURTRAI] Once a great city, Courtrai had recovered something of its ancient wealth and activity, but this had injured it less than one might suppose, and it was still a fair town, with many trees and gardens, and its air of pride in a fine past. There were many churches, confused in their sequent styles, but full of charm, with rich screens of Gothic lace work, old wall paintings, and in one--Notre Dame--Vandyck’s “Elevation of the Cross,” a great picture in every way. Then there was the Hôtel de Ville, late Gothic of the kind that lingered so long in Flanders after it had perished elsewhere, with sumptuous chimneypieces of fantastic carvings and crowded statues, and finally the matchless old bridge with its three round arches and its enormous towers at either end with their high extinguisher roofs; altogether a good old town, so self-respecting and sane that it could achieve a new prosperity without sacrificing its old ideals. South of Courtrai lies Tournai, on either side the Scheldt, the last outpost of an old culture against a new civilisation, for beyond lies Le Borinage, the Great Scar, where none would venture unless under compulsion. Like Courtrai it holds its own bravely against coal and iron, preserving its fine old buildings, and largely confining itself to its traditional weaving and embroidery, much of which is still the product of hand-looms and deft fingers. All day the black coal barges slide down the river, coming from the inner darkness to disappear in the outer darkness, leaving the city itself clean and sweet, but prosperous withal, and manifesting a tendency toward boulevards that prompts both regret and apprehension.