The Dutch are apparently not interested in sea bathing, for there were no more watering places. In fact the whole coast seemed to be dead and deserted, and we were glad when the _Lapland_ began to turn her prow inland. We were now in the broad estuary of the Scheldt, and soon the tiny city of Flushing appeared. It was over on the other side of the ship and we all scampered across to take our first "near look," as Mrs. Professor expressed it, of the land we had come to see--for Flushing belonged for centuries to the great overlords of Flanders, the Dukes of Burgundy and their successors. It looked very small and compact from the towering deck of the big liner, but also very quaint and interesting, and we all agreed that as a sample of what we had come so far to see it was the reverse of disappointing. Soon the propellers of the _Lapland_ began to revolve again and the little Dutch city slowly slipped out of sight in the fast gathering gloom of a coming shower. As night came on the engines presently came to rest once more and we anchored to await daylight and flood tide which, the officers said, would come together. At four o'clock the following morning the Professor and I were on deck in order to miss as little as possible of the voyage up the "greyest of grey rivers," as the Scheldt has been called. The _Lapland_ had started while we were asleep, and we were already in Belgium. This circumstance disappointed the Professor not a little as he had set his heart on seeing the remains of the Dutch forts at the boundary line that for nearly one hundred and fifty years--from the Treaty of Munster in 1648 to the French occupation in 1794--closed the river to ocean commerce. Meanwhile, grass grew in the streets of the all but deserted city of Antwerp. The French tore down the hated forts and for nearly forty years the ships from oversea went up the river unmolested. Then came the Revolution of 1830 and the establishment of the Kingdom of Belgium, whereupon the Dutch proceeded to impose heavy navigation duties upon all ships passing through the lower part of the river. While this did not stifle the trade of Antwerp, it seriously crippled it, since the duties formed a handicap in the keen competition for traffic between the Belgian port and those of Holland and Germany farther to the eastward. It was not until 1863 that the Belgian Government was able to arrange a treaty whereby all river dues were abolished in return for the payment of a lump sum of 36,000,000 francs--of which only one-third was paid by Belgium, as other powers were interested in obtaining freedom of navigation on this important river and gladly contributed the remainder. The imposing monument by Winders on the Place Marnix at Antwerp, which was erected in 1883, commemorates this important event, to which the port owes its present prosperity.