It is a picturesque city with its network of canals. Its Béguinage, a religious home for older women with little means, is a small world in itself. It consists of a group of houses of different sizes, each with its own little garden in front, shut in by high brick walls. Through the community flows a stream where the women do their washing from a boat, spreading the linen to dry in an open, park-like space reserved for that use. The women who live there belong to a religious order, but are bound by no vows and are free to leave if they choose. Their special mission is to nurse the sick, whom they care for either in their own homes, or in the Béguinage. Because of its many gardens Ghent was often called the City of Flowers. Maeterlinck said of it, "It is the soul of Flanders, at once venerable and young. In its streets the past and present elbow each other." This may be due to the fact that while it is an ancient city, it had before the war experienced a return of its former prosperity, so that it was, in comparison with Bruges, for instance, quite lively and up-to-date. Its great canals gave it access to the sea and to other cities, and its various industries were thriving. The story of Ghent is the usual tumultuous chronicle of Flemish towns. The weavers who early made their city famous were an independent lot, not easily governed against their will. When not fighting outsiders they were usually struggling for more rights and privileges for themselves. During the Middle Ages Ghent's great leader, van Artevelde, was treated as an equal by Edward III of England. The belfry was the symbol of their freedom, and it served as a watch-tower--a necessity in a country where there are no hills--and to give alarm at the approach of an enemy. On the great bell, Roland, is the inscription: "My name is Roland. When I toll there is fire. When I ring there is victory in Flanders." They tell you now how, shortly after the Germans entered Belgium, some one tried to ring the mighty bell and discovered that it was cracked. We found the old town of Bruges, which lies between Ghent and Ostend, more attractive than we had expected. Indeed it was perhaps the most interesting town in Belgium, and the most picturesque. One doesn't easily forget the squares with their handsome façades, the ancient Béguinage with its tottering old women, or the lovely Lac d'Amour, which was once a harbour, with its pretty border of flowers and flotilla of white swans. I remember the walk through the little street of the "Blind Donkey," below the gilded bridge, to the town hall and the richly-fretted law court, into the square where the exquisite Chapel of the Holy Blood was tucked away in a corner. It dates from 1150, when it was built to enshrine some drops of the "_Saint Sang_" brought, according to the old legend, from the Holy Land by a count of Flanders. [Illustration: LAC D'AMOUR, BRUGES.]