Henceforward the scenery took a very different aspect, and we exchanged the smiling, populous, well-wooded country we had been hitherto traversing for a lugubrious, marshy tract, devoid of anything that could break its monotony--neither trees nor houses, and but few cattle, were to be seen, whilst the abominable road became so slippery that it was with difficulty our horses could keep their feet. About half a league from Dendermonde we struck the Scheldt, but could see nothing of it or the opposite country for the high dyke by which the river is here confined, and along the foot of which, for some little distance, our road lay, until it brought us to a wooden bridge elevated nearly thirty feet above the water, and so tottering that it was necessary to pass by single divisions, and even then its vibrations were not pleasant. Our quartermaster, who had been sent in advance, met us here, with orders not to halt in Dendermonde, but to proceed on to St Gille, situated beyond it on the Brussels road. The appearance of things improved here, from the number of trees about Dendermonde, which we soon after entered by a long, straight, narrow, gloomy, mean-looking street of low houses, built of the same dark stone we had seen at Lokeren. This led us to a spacious quay, encompassing what I supposed to be the harbour, for the water was very low, and the mud bare, like Bristol. Passing round the head of this, we soon left the town again, and almost immediately found ourselves at St Gille, which consists of a few mean houses scattered along the Chaussée, the only decent one being that of a _juge de paix_, on which I found myself billeted. In a country so carefully cultivated as this is, a piece of waste land is a rarity, and therefore we had some difficulty in forming our park, which at last was done in a small enclosed cemetery, not without disturbing the ashes of the dead, and running some risk of breaking our horses’ legs and our own necks, for the graves had all been so loosely filled in that the horses sank to their shoulders in the light soil. Our men and horses were dispersed amongst the neighbouring farms of the commune, and though rather widely scattered, yet most comfortably put up everywhere.