About two miles out of Bruges one comes
in sight of a windmill perched on a slope at the side of the canal,
a square church-tower, a few houses, and some grassy mounds, which
were once strong fortifications. Even the historical imagination,
which everyone who walks round Bruges must carry with him, is hardly
equal to realizing that this was once a bustling seaport, with a
harbour in which more than a hundred merchant ships, laden with
produce from all parts of the world, were sometimes lying at the
same time. In those busy times Damme, they say, contained 50,000
inhabitants; now there are only about 1,100.
Beyond Damme the canal winds on through the same flat landscape,
low-lying, water-logged, with small farmhouses and scanty trees, and
in the distance, on the few patches of higher ground, the churches
of Oostkerke and Westcapelle. At last, soon after passing the Dutch
frontier, the canal ends in a little dock with gray, lichen-covered
sides; and this is Sluis, a dull place, with a few narrow streets, a
market-place, two churches, and a belfry of the fourteenth century.
It is quite inland now, miles from the salt water; and from the
high ramparts which still surround it the view extends to the north
across broad green fields, covering what was once the bed of the
sea, in the days when the tide ebbed and flowed in the channel of
the Zwijn, over which ships passed sailing on their way to Bruges.
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