It is capable
of affording a minimum capacity of 1,000,000 tons per annum, and
the whole equipment has been fitted up necessary for dealing with
this amount of traffic.
The first ship, an English steamer, entered the new port at Bruges
on the morning of May 29 in the present year (1905). The carillon
rung from the Belfry, guns were fired, and a ceremony in honour
of the event took place in the Hotel de Ville. It now remains to
be seen whether any part of the trade which was lost 400 years ago
can be recovered by the skill of modern engineers and the resources
of modern capital.
THE PLAIN OF WEST FLANDERS--YPRES
CHAPTER VII
THE PLAIN OF WEST FLANDERS--YPRES
To the west of Bruges the wide plain of Flanders extends to the
French frontier. Church spires and windmills are the most prominent
objects in the landscape; but though the flatness of the scenery is
monotonous, there is something pleasing to the eye in the endless
succession of well-cultivated fields, interrupted at intervals by
patches of rough bushland, canals, or slow-moving streams winding
between rows of pollards, country houses embowered in woods and
pleasure-grounds, cottages with fruitful gardens, orchards, small
villages, and compact little towns, in most of which the diligent
antiquary will find something of interest--a modest belfry, perhaps,
with a romance of its own; a parish church, whose foundations were
laid long ago in ground dedicated, in the distant past, to the
worship of Thor or Woden; or the remains, it may be, of a mediaeval
castle, from which some worthy knight, whose name is forgotten
except in local traditions, rode away to the Crusades.
Pages:
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85