Peeps at Many Lands: Belgium

If you leave the mouth of the Thames, or the white chalk cliffs at Dover, and sail over the water just where the English Channel meets the North Sea, you will in about three or...

If you climb to the top of some dune, you will see before you a wide plain stretching out as far as the eye can reach. This part of Belgium is called Flanders. It is all flat, w...

Travelling in Belgium is cheap and easy. The best way to see the out-of-the-way parts of the country would be to journey about in a barge on the canals. There are a great many c...

England, as you know, is not a very big country. But Belgium is very much smaller. It is such a little bit of a place, a mere corner of Europe, that in a few hours the train can...

The Belgians may be divided, roughly speaking, into five classes of people. There are those of the highest rank, who are called the _grande_, or _vraie, noblesse_. Of these ther...

Christmas is not kept in Belgium in the same way as in England, Germany, and other countries. There are special services in church, but no Christmas-trees, Christmas presents, o...

December 31, the last day of the old year, is dedicated to St. Sylvester, and there is a custom, at least in Antwerp, that the child who gets out of bed last is called a "Sylves...

The Belgians are very fond of pageants and processions. In each town there are several, and in all villages at least one, every year. It has been so for hundreds of years, and t...

Once upon a time there was a good man called St. Evermaire, who went on a pilgrimage to a part of Belgium called the Hesbaye, which is near the River Meuse. As he and his compan...

The week before Lent begins is called in Flanders _Duivelsweek_, which means "The Devil's Week"; and on the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday there is the Carniva...

Very young children in Belgium look forward to the evening before November 11, which is the Day of St. Martin, because they have heard that something very exciting is going to h...

Let us imagine we are taking a walk along some country road in Flanders on a summer afternoon. There is a cinder-track for cyclists on one side, and the lines of a district rail...

Three different languages are spoken in Belgium. These are Flemish, Walloon, and French. Flemish is spoken in Flanders, in the provinces of Antwerp and Limbourg, and in a part o...

Dates are tiresome things, though they are useful pegs, so to speak, on which to hang the facts of history, and help us to recollect the order in which they happened. However, w...

Though Belgium is a neutral state, living under the protection of the Great Powers of Europe, the Belgians are afraid that some day, if these Powers quarrel with each other and...