People call Bruges the Venice of the North, on account of its many picturesque canals, but here are trees everywhere, and the houses are of a wholly different style. It is very charming, really the most fascinating town in Belgium, with its mediæval buildings and its people, who seemed to have a quaintness all their own. The old women in caps, sitting in their doorways making lace, looked as if they had just stepped out of an art gallery. Bruges gets its name from the Dutch word for the many bridges which cross the canals in every direction. These canals connect it with Ghent and other inland cities and were once important highways of commerce. In those days Bruges had a harbour that was large enough to hold the whole French fleet, but this has long since been filled in by silt from the river. The town was so sleepy and quiet, I found it hard to realize that it had once been one of the wealthiest, busiest cities in Europe, the commercial center of the whole continent. The famous Belfry of Bruges was originally built of wood, nearly a thousand years ago, but near the end of the thirteenth century it was replaced by the present tower. Like that of Ghent, it stood the townsfolk in good stead as a watch-tower from which they might see the approach of their warlike and envious neighbours. When Bruges was not at war with them, she was usually occupied in repelling attacks from foreign invaders. It seems strange that in spite of her battles, not only her commerce but her intellectual life flourished and grew stronger. At one time merchants from seventeen countries lived there, which must have given the city a very cosmopolitan air. Laces, tapestries and woolen cloths were bartered for the treasures of the East and South and North. Art and letters gave it its chief renown, however, for Bruges was the home of Memling, and of the van Eycks. This was during the Golden Age of the city, in the reign of Duke Philip the Good, who was himself a patron of art while his wife was keenly interested in literature. It was for her that William Caxton, living at that time in Bruges, made the translation of his first book, which he later printed. Glorious old manuscripts were still to be seen when we were there. In his book, "Some Old Flemish Towns," George Wharton Edwards describes his climb into the top of the belfry--an adventure which we did not undertake. After treading many flights of stone steps he reached at last "a leather-covered door and entered a room floored with plates of lead, and filled with iron rods, pulleys, and ropes.... Faint, clear, sweetly coming from afar, one hears the music of the bells subdued, soft, like harmony from an æolian. But this is from the lower chamber. Very different will be the impression of the sounds if one is among the bells when the hour or the quarter is struck. Here, among the hanging bells is a sort of chamber, where lives a being who seems the very double of Caliban, so hairy and wild-looking is he.