visited Gaesbeke, and their accounts excited my curiosity to see this extraordinary man. Accordingly one day mounting Nelly I set out. The road lay through the large village of Lennik St Martin, remarkable in the distance for its handsome spire, towering above the more humble ones of the surrounding villages. Here I found Lieutenant-Colonel Hawker and his adjutant, Lieutenant Anderson. The colonel commanded a division composed of two batteries, 9-pounders, which were cantoned in his immediate neighbourhood, but not in Lennik. Hence the country was exquisite--the scenery acquiring a greater degree of interest from the increasing height of the hills, though in luxuriance and verdure, both of arborific and cereal vegetation, it could not exceed that which I had left behind me. At length, after a pleasant ride of about twelve miles, on attaining the summit of a hill, the noble Château de Gaesbeke appeared in front, on the edge of a deep ravine, which separated me from it, surrounded by thick woods, the sombre verdure of which harmonised well with the mellowed tone of its antique brick walls and towers, whilst their round tufted tops were finely contrasted with its sharp angles and pointed conical roofs. Crossing the ravine, I arrived on a plateau of rich velvety turf, ornamented by a few clamps of the most superb beech-trees I ever saw in my life, some of their boles rising almost straight forty or fifty feet, without a twig to break the smooth rounded surface of their glossy grey bark. Fine as those composing the great avenue at Strytem were, still they were far exceeded in size, luxuriance, and beauty of form by these. Artificial means are employed to produce these magnificent ornaments of the park or pleasure-ground. Whilst the tree is young it is constantly watched, and every bud carefully eradicated the moment it pierces the bark, until, having attained a certain height, nature is permitted to take her course and push out lateral branches, leaving between them and the soil a stupendous column of timber. A broad carriage-road, winding amongst these clumps, led to the great gate of the chateau, now unsuspicious of another military invasion, standing wide open. It was approached by a stone bridge thrown over a ditch, which, running along the front of the chateau, imperceptibly lost itself in the steep declivity to the right and left. The lofty arched portal was flanked by round towers, having semicircular embrasures on the first floor, and above them a row of arched windows with rusty iron balconies, extending across the gateway also. Toward the right, the two tiers of large French windows gave a more modern air to the curtain (if I may so call it), which was terminated in that direction by an immense elliptical tower, the steep roof of which finished in a short ridge with ornamental iron-work, and a weather-cock at either end. To the left, the blank wall ended in a round tower of smaller