But neither rail-roads nor love are found to run always smooth. As we approach Liege the ground becomes so rugged, and the hills so steep, that tunnels of prodigious length and depth are necessary to complete the line to Liege, Aix, and Cologne. It is said the Americans contemplate a perforation of the Allighany Mountains, in order that rail-roads may be extended to Kentucky. The task will not be much less difficult to connect Ostende with the Rhine. But the persevering industry of Germans—the “improbus labor”—will conquer all obstructions. ANTWERP ROUTE. While the train is flying along between Brussels and Liege, let us glance at the Antwerp route. It is generally preferred to that of Ostende—though for what good reason I am ignorant. The land is surely more natural to man than the water. True the difference between the two routes consists chiefly in the length of the river voyage; but, of all the navigations which I have ever experienced round this globe, the “NAVIGATION OF THE SCHELDT,” is amongst the most insipid and monotonous. To me, too, it recalled scenes the most triste, and reminiscences the most dolorous. The very lapse of time itself (31 years) since I first anathematized its malodorous and malarious banks, is not a very pleasing retrospect. But the recollection of what passed there in 1809, can never be called up without pain and mortification! While the steamer was ploughing her weary way between Flushing and Cadsand, MEMORY, that mysterious power, quickly reproduced the drama, on which the curtain had fallen for more than thirty years! The hundred pendants floating in the air—the masses of troops, whose polished arms gleamed in the sun—the frowning and hostile ramparts and batteries on each side of the pass covered with thousands of soldiers and citizens—the daring rush of three men-of-war (in one of which, the VALIANT of seventy-four guns, I then was,) into the Scheldt, while shells were bursting over us, and the heavy shot whistling through our rigging—the debarkation of the British troops—the bombarding and battering of Flushing—the conflagration of the town—the sorties of the garrison, repulsed, scattered, and driven back by British bayonets, as quickly and certainly as the Ocean’s surge is shivered into foam by the perpendicular rocks—the devastation of the ramparts by the showers of shot and shells for ever thundering against them—the awful preparation for storm—the capitulation of the garrison;—all these and many other scenes rose on the intellectual mirror, and flitted round the mental diorama, as fresh as when they were first spread before the material eye. Then came the still darker side of the drama, on which Memory, even yet shudders to dwell! Our hopes and expectations scattered on the winds—the great object of the Expedition (French fleet) secured beyond our reach, though before our eyes—while our luxurious commander was employed in eating turtle and throwing the _shells_ at the enemy.