Next to this beautiful tragedy, the thing that interested and amused me most at Brussels were the dogs: not lap-dogs, but the dogs that draw carts and heavy hampers. Every day I beheld numbers of these _traîneaux_, often four, harnessed abreast, and driven like horses. I remember in particular seeing a man standing upright on one of these little carriages, and behind him two large hampers full of mussels, the whole drawn by four dogs. And another day I saw a boy of about ten years old driving four dogs harnessed to a little carriage; he crossed our carriage as we were going down a street called La Montagne de la Cour, without fearing our four Flemish horses. La Montagne de la Cour is a very grand name, and you may perhaps imagine that it means a MOUNTAIN, but be it known to you, my dear aunt, that in Le Pays Bas, as well as in the County of Longford, they make mountains of molehills. The whole road from Calais to Ghent is as flat and as straight as the road to Longford. We never knew when we came to what the innkeeper and postillions call mountains, except by the postillions getting off their horses with great deliberation and making them go a snail's walk--a snail's gallop would be much too fast. Now it is no easy thing for a French postillion to walk himself when he is in his boots: these boots are each as large and as stiff as a wooden churn, and when the man in his boots attempts to walk, he is more helpless than a child in a go-cart: he waddles on, dragging his boots after him in a way that would make a pig laugh. As Lord Granard says, "A pig can whistle, though he has a bad mouth for it," [Footnote: A long argument on genius and education, between Lady Moira and Mr. Edgeworth, had been ended by Lord Granard wittily saying, "A pig may be made to whistle, but he has a bad mouth for it."] I presume that _by a parity of reasoning_ a pig may laugh. But I must not talk any more nonsense.