Chapter 17

THE LOW COUNTRIES

Dutch arks--Walcheren memories--Earth-covered ships--Cossacks and keys--Brother alleys--Bergen op Zoom--Cossack shopping--Goat curricles--Treckschuyt travelling--Booksellers' shops.

After Brussels the travellers proceeded to Holland, and saw Antwerp on their way. They had now gone beyond the country which Napoleon's victories had made famous, and the chief military interest of the country through which they passed, just eleven months before Waterloo, was derived from two very melancholy events for an Englishman to record--the Walcheren Expedition and the storming of Bergen op Zoom.