On returning from France, her Majesty and the Prince made a short stay at Brighton, and then started for Belgium on a visit to King Leopold. Leaving Brighton in the Royal yacht on the 12th of September, they arrived at Ostend on the 13th, and, after a six days’ tour in Belgium, during which Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, and Antwerp were visited, returned to Windsor Castle on the 21st of September. “The old cities of Flanders,” writes Prince Albert to Baron Stockmar, “had put on their fairest array, and were very tastefully decorated with tapestries, flowers, trees, pictures, &c., which, combined with the numerous old monuments, churches, and convents, and the gay crowds of people, produced a most peculiar effect. Victoria was greatly interested and impressed; and the cordiality and friendliness which met us everywhere could not fail to attract her towards the Belgian people.” The travels of the Royal couple were now over for a time, and on the 25th of October Prince Albert accompanied the Queen to Cambridge, where his Royal Highness received the degree of Doctor of Civil Law. Both were greeted with marked cordiality, and the Queen afterwards wrote with much satisfaction of the enthusiasm shown by all classes at that famous University, and particularly by the undergraduates. In a letter dated the 4th of November, Professor Sedgwick gave a lively account of the visit paid by the Royal party to the Woodwardian Museum. “The Queen,” he said, [Illustration: PRINCE ALBERT HUNTING NEAR BELVOIR CASTLE.] “seemed happy and well pleased, and was mightily taken with one or two of my monsters, especially with the Plesiosaurus and gigantic stag. The subject was new to her; but the Prince evidently had a good general knowledge of the old world, and not only asked good questions, and listened with great courtesy to all I had to say, but in one or two instances helped me on by pointing to the rare things in my collection, especially in that part of it which contains the German fossils. I thought myself very fortunate in being able to exhibit the finest collection of German fossils to be seen in England. They fairly went the round of the Museum; neither of them seemed in a hurry, and the Queen was quite happy to hear her husband talk about a novel subject with so much knowledge and spirit. He called her back once or twice to look at a fine impression of a dragon-fly which I have in the Solenhofen slate. Having glanced at the long succession of our fossils, from the youngest to the oldest, the party again moved into the lecture-room.” The visit to Cambridge lasted only three days, and on the 28th of October the Royal party were back at Windsor.