A Man of Family.--An Eccentric Train.--Outrage on an Englishman.--Alone
in Europe.--Difficulty of Making German Waiters Understand
Scandinavian.--Danger of Knowing Too Many Languages.--A Wearisome
Journey.--Cologne, Ahoy!
There was a very well-informed Belgian in the carriage, and he told us
something interesting about nearly every town through which we passed. I
felt that if I could have kept awake, and have listened to that man, and
remembered what he said, and not mixed things up, I should have learnt a
good deal about the country between Ostend and Cologne.
He had relations in nearly every town, had this man. I suppose there
have been, and are, families as large and as extensive as his; but I
never heard of any other family that made such a show. They seemed to
have been planted out with great judgment, and were now all over the
country. Every time I awoke, I caught some such scattered remark as:
"Bruges--you can see the belfry from this side--plays a polka by Haydn
every hour. My aunt lives here." "Ghent--Hotel de Ville, some say
finest specimen of Gothic architecture in Europe--where my mother lives.
You could see the house if that church wasn't there." "Just passed
Alost--great hop centre. My grandfather used to live there; he's dead
now." "There's the Royal chateau--here, just on this side. My sister is
married to a man who lives there--not in the palace, I don't mean, but in
Laeken." "That's the dome of the Palais de Justice--they call Brussels
'Paris in little'--I like it better than Paris, myself--not so crowded.
I live in Brussels." "Louvain--there's Van de Weyer's statue, the 1830
revolutionist. My wife's mother lives in Louvain. She wants us to come
and live there. She says we are too far away from her at Brussels, but I
don't think so." "Leige--see the citadel? Got some cousins at
Leige--only second ones. Most of my first ones live at Maestricht"; and
so on all the way to Cologne.
I do not believe we passed a single town or village that did not possess
one or more specimens of this man's relatives. Our journey seemed, not
so much like a tour through Belgium and part of Northern Germany, as a
visit to the neighbourhood where this man's family resided.
I was careful to take a seat facing the engine at Ostend. I prefer to
travel that way. But when I awoke a little later on, I found myself
going backwards.