An Old Farmer
33. La Panne: Interior of a Flemish Inn
34. La Panne: A Flemish Inn--Playing Skittles
35. Coxyde: A Shrimper on Horseback
36. Coxyde: A Shrimper
37. Adinkerque: Village and Canal
THE MARKET-PLACE AND BELFRY--EARLY HISTORY OF BRUGES
BRUGES AND WEST FLANDERS
CHAPTER I
THE MARKET-PLACE AND BELFRY--EARLY HISTORY OF BRUGES
Every visitor to 'the quaint old Flemish city' goes first to the
Market-Place. On Saturday mornings the wide space beneath the mighty
Belfry is full of stalls, with white canvas awnings, and heaped up
with a curious assortment of goods. Clothing of every description,
sabots and leathern shoes and boots, huge earthenware jars, pots
and pans, kettles, cups and saucers, baskets, tawdry-coloured
prints--chiefly of a religious character--lamps and candlesticks,
the cheaper kinds of Flemish pottery, knives and forks, carpenters'
tools, and such small articles as reels of thread, hatpins, tape,
and even bottles of coarse scent, are piled on the stalls or spread
out on the rough stones wherever there is a vacant space. Round
the stalls, in the narrow spaces between them, the people move
about, talking, laughing, and bargaining. Their native Flemish
is the tongue they use amongst themselves; but many of them speak
what passes for French at Bruges, or even a few words of broken
English, if some unwary stranger from across the Channel is rash
enough to venture on doing business with these sharp-witted, plausible
folk.
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