The greatest wonder of the edifice is the immense gallery, or hall, which occupies the side next to the Grande Place. This extends for the entire length of the building, broken only by the belfry in the centre which forms a sort of transept across it. In height it reaches clear to the roof, the huge roof beams forming its ceiling. There is a veritable forest of these, massive, sturdy, and as perfect as the day they were hewed from the fair oaks of the countryside roundabout. The concierge will not fail to tell you, if you pause to admire this majestic timber-work of six hundred years ago, that from that day to this no spider has ever spun its web there--nor is any spider ever seen. Like the story of the snakes in Ireland, it would be a big pity to spoil this by finding one and pointing it out--one must needs be a good runner to do it, and be very sure which road leads to the railway station, for it might go hard with him--but we could not see any the day we were there. In fact, the legend has been repeated by many writers since the sixteenth century and is now such a matter of local pride that no doubt the concierge who permitted one to get in and set up housekeeping in this spiderless Eden--for it certainly must look like the Promised Land to a spider--would not only lose his or her job, but be severely punished by the indignant city fathers into the bargain. Looking at the Cloth Hall from across the Grande Place it has the aspect of being a low building, but within this gallery one gains precisely an opposite impression--of unusual loftiness. Just how high the vast room is can best be estimated by noting the wooden façade of an ancient house that has been taken down and erected against one wall in its entirety. With its three stories and high peaked top this structure appears to be literally lost, looking like an undersized pea in an extra big pod. The great inner walls of the main gallery, facing the windows that look out upon the Grande Place, have been decorated by modern frescoes of great historical and artistic interest painted by two artists of widely different methods and ideals. The portion into which one first enters, extending to the break formed by the tower, was decorated by Ferdinand Pauwels, Director of the Royal Academy of Dresden. Both the art critics, and those who make no pretence to superior knowledge in such matters, agree that this work has been magnificently done. The vastness of the wall spaces made it possible to paint the pictures on a scale of size and with a wealth of detail surpassing the fine frescoes of the Hotel de Ville at Bruges and the general effect upon the beholder is impressive in the extreme. The pictures represent notable events in the town's history down to the fourteenth century, and were begun in 1872 and completed in 1881. The subjects selected by the artist are as follows: 1.--Visit of Count Philip of Alsace to the Hospital of Our Lady in 1187.