Lord Beaconsfield once said: "Flanders has been trodden by the feet and watered by the blood of countless generations of British soldiers." This famous passage--which has received a new confirmation to-day--is typical of many references among English writers and statesmen to Flanders as a general term covering all of what is now known as Belgium. Among the citizens of that brave little Kingdom, however, and among most Continental writers, Flanders is recognised as being the name of only the northern part of Belgium. Small as that country is, it has for centuries been bi-lingual, the northern portion speaking Flemish, the southern French; and for centuries the history of the Flemish provinces was as distinct from that of the Walloon province to the southward as the early history of California or Texas was from that of New England. Although eventually united under one Government with the Walloons and with what is now Holland, it was during the long period of their semi-independence that the Flemings achieved many of the artistic and architectural monuments that have made Flanders for all time one of the most interesting regions in the world. While this book, therefore, does not attempt to describe the whole of Belgium, it does present a pen picture of the northern part of the country as it existed almost at the moment when the devastating scourge of the Great War swept across it. FOREWORD This book is the record of a vacation tour in the beautiful old Flemish towns of Northern Belgium beginning in May and ending in July of the Summer of 1914. The assassination of the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his wife at Sarajevo took place while our little party was viewing the mediæval houses and churches of Ghent and Audenaerde, but in the many discussions of that event to which we listened there was no whisper of the awful fate which the march of events was so soon to bring upon one of the most charming, peaceful and happy countries in the world. Many of the descriptions in the following pages were written in or near the towns described, and within a day or so after the visit narrated. Then each old Flemish "monument" was in as perfect a state of preservation as the reverent pride and care of the Belgian populace and the learned and skilful restorations of the Belgian government could together accomplish. The fact that since these accounts were written many of these very towns have been swept by shot and shell, have been taken and retaken by hostile armies, have formed the stage upon which some of the direst tragedies of the world's greatest and most terrible war have been enacted, will--it is hoped--give them a permanent interest and value. As a painting of some famous city as it appeared many years or centuries ago is of the utmost historical interest, even though by an inferior artist, so these halting word pictures of towns that have since been wholly or partially destroyed may help the reader to recall the glories that have passed away.