accident must be happening.

"It is only the bells, messieurs," said the custodian, laughing at our awestruck faces. At least we were told afterwards that he said this, for the noise was so deafening that we hurried on up the steps with our hands to our ears. The interested traveller, if he has any nerves, will do well not to stop to examine the belfry just at the moment the bells are likely to ring!

The view from the summit of the tower well repays the rather laborious ascent. On a fine day a great part of Belgium can be seen, while of course a perfect idea is gained of the shape and size of Antwerp itself.

From the cathedral we walked round by the Boucheries, a fine specimen of civil architecture of the beginning of the sixteenth century, now used as a warehouse

Striking up through crooked rambling streets to the middle of the town, we soon found our way to the picture museum. Just

outside it is a handsome statue of Vandyck, another of Antwerp's most distinguished sons. He seems to invite you to enter the museum and see what he and his famous brother artists have done.

The pictures are chiefly by painters of the Flemish school, and they give a great idea of the strength of that school in bygone days.

There are splendid pictures by Rubens, Vandyck, and others. Rubens's Christ between the Two Thieves is wonderful for realistic force. Perhaps the most interesting picture in the gallery is the Dead Saviour of Quentin Matsys, painted in 1508-his principal picture. The care and minuteness of the execution are startling, while the expressions of some of the faces are intensely full of pain and sorrow.

Vandyck's very beautiful Pieta, and his awe-striking Crucifixion will surprise those who have only seen his portraits.

It is not far from the museum to the church of St. Jacques; outside, this is a massive fifteenth-century building of handsome proportions, but inside it is magnificent -a veritable museum of pictures and splendid monuments in black and white marble. There is a fine altar-piece by Rubens-the picture in which he is said to have introduced the portraits of his two wives as the Virgin and Mary Magdalene-and the tomb of the great painter himself is here.

Keeping on down the Longue rue Neuve we passed the Flemish theatre and came to the Place de la Commune, a large open space. On our right we saw before us a circular, dull red brick building, inside which, on coming close up to it, we found there was a panorama of the battle of Waterloo. On

the principle that there is nothing like variety, we went in, going through a gloomy winding passage, very dimly lighted, and, after going up some steps, we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a far-reaching plain; a fearful battle was raging all round

us.

The whole scene made a vividly realistic picture of the horrors of war. The effect of space is wonderfully given. The panorama is by a Belgian artist named Charles Verlat, and is considered to be the finest thing of the kind in Europe.

After a few minutes' further walk we reached the Zoological Gardens; they lie at the back of the railway station. These gardens are pretty, and contain a very complete collection of animals, birds, &c. All the creatures look very healthy and lively. One of the giraffes, a giant fellow of some twenty feet high, was gambolling

up and down his enclosure like a frolicsome pony. The lion and carnivora-house is well stocked and well kept. There are a good number of snakes, and the collection of pheasants is an unusually perfect one. There is also an interesting series of domestic dogs.

The Zoo seemed to be well frequented; on Sundays it forms a fashionable lounge. Although it is much smaller, it is in many ways superior to our own Zoo in the Regent's Park. There appears to be more system generally, and the creatures are kept in better condition.

Coming back we passed Rubens's house in the Place de Meir, a handsome building designed by the great painter. Rubens is essentially the genius of the place; his finest works are at Antwerp, and it is not just to form an estimate of his truly great powers without having been there. So many people judge Rubens by his pictures in England and at the Louvre; certainly his best work is at Antwerp, and as he passed the greater part of his life there, surely that is the place in which alone a just estimate can be formed of him.

We saw many other beautiful and interesting things during our stay at Antwerp, but there is not space here to do more than just mention some of them.

The Hotel van Liere or La Maison CharlesQuint is a finely sculptured relic in the midst of comparatively modern houses. This was the house that Albert Dürer said was finer than any house in Germany.

The church of St. Paul contains several good pictures, the most striking of which is the Scourging of Christ by Rubens. There are also remarkable pictures in the churches of St. Antoine, St. Andrew, and the Augustinians-but the celebrated Marriage of St. Catherine by Rubens in the last is much faded.

The quays and docks of Antwerp are very handsome and extensive. In the Maison Hydraulique there is a wonderful old room called the Salle des Brasseurs. It still has the old golden leather hangings, the brass sconces, the quaint oak chairs, tables, and the general air of three centuries ago. In this room the corporation of brewers used to meet. La Maison Hydraulique was built by Van Schoonbeke to supply with water the breweries he had established. This good man was one of Antwerp's greatest benefactors. In a few years he changed the whole appearance of the town: he renewed the fortifications, planned new quarters and streets, and built, or was mainly instrumental in building, more than 3,000 new houses. Yet, in spite of all this

SOUND asleep in the "Golden Ship," snuggest and quaintest of hostelries, why do I dream of the Italian Opera in old Covent Garden? Why am I listening to Meyerbeer's Curfew Chorus, why watching the march of the Paris patrol? I wake with a start to find myself standing on the floor in the dark. Am I still dreaming? Where am I? What strange chant is ringing in my ears?

"Vigilate pel fuoco; son battute le due; sia lodato il nome di Gesù Cristo." This is what I hear. I am in Tirol, at Predazzo, and the town watchman is going his rounds! I return to bed shivering and happy. Two days' leisurely travel through woods and valleys towards the heart of the Dolomites, with enticing glimpses of the summits for which we are bound, have already tuned me to holiday pitch. So, now this voice of the night completes the enchantment. In some topsyturvy, illogical way, Predazzo's dread of blazing rafters makes the work-a-day world forgotten, and transports me into fairyland. And South Tirol is indeed the fairyland of Europe. Of course, as happens to most of us at first sight of long-desired regions, it is a struggle to adjust actual impressions to 1 "Beware of fire. 'Tis two in the morning. Praised be the name of Jesus Christ."

those derived from books. All the mental pictures gleaned from Gilbert and Churchill, Ball, Freshfield and Tuckett, Miss Edwardes and Walter White have all to be shaken up, like pieces in a kaleidoscope, and fitted to reality. Fortunately, almost everywhere in Tirol reality surpasses expectation. No eloquence can exaggerate the grandeur of the drive to San Martino by Paneveggio and Rolle, no word-painting do justice to its beauty of colour! What more romantic approach to the weird splendours of the Cimone range than the slow ascent past flower-strewn meads, through the wild Travignolo gorge-musical with the rush of waters where now and again spectral peaks and glittering ice fields appear in mid-air above the trees, to the mighty forests on the slopes of the Costonzella Pass! What a fascinating medley of romance and rusticity at Paneveggio, where the mid-day halt is made! The inn seems to have dropped out of the pages of Grimm's Household Tales. Its wonderful kitchen with the bow-windowed circular hearth must surely be "redded up by elves at night; and the pigs and geese, cows and mules outside seem properties, as knechte and kellnerinnen are personages, of the same dear old tales. But for the stronger attraction of the beckoning peaks beyond

one would willingly spend weeks among the scented glades, sawmills, and torrents of these enchanted woods.

Up and on for hours amid ranks of stately pines, where squirrels frisk from branch to branch, and past flowery glens and flashing cascades, until at last the summit of the Pass is won.

The air is exhilarating as champagne out on this wild upland; we are on the top crust of the globe, and on all sides lies "a tossing world of stone.' Companies of tall, faint peaks are ranged in the distance but where is King Cimone, whose grey and yellow horns have been our beacons for days? Straight ahead of us is nothing but a blank wall of mist! Presently an icy wind rushes over the moorland; the mist wall parts and discloses the whiter white of snows surmounted by jagged pinnacles, and buttressed by precipitous cliffs. But Cimone's royal head remains wrapped in his cloud-mantle. Only at intervals just a fold of the drapery falls aside, revealing an orange flank and some magnificent crags.

A sharp shower now drives us to shelter in the little wooden post-house at Rolle, but it is soon over, and the sun shines over the weird landscape. There at last is Cimone in his full majesty, with his rugged consort, the Cima di Vezzano, by his side. Their snow-throne is guarded by bristling, twisted cliffs, where lines of glittering limestone, alternated with stripes of red and yellow sandstone, seem like colossal versions of the Alum Bay sand-bottles so dear to our infancy.

The descent to San Martino reveals fresh marvels at every turn, for southwards, beyond Cimone, extends a range of towers and pinnacles above perilous slopes of snowwhite débris. We wind down into an amphitheatre of greenery, seamed by numerous ravines, encircled by forests of fir and larch. Above the zone of trees to the right are the granite crags of Colbricon and Tognazzo. Far ahead at the end of the valley rise the Vette di Feltre, delicate, opalescent, southern heights, whose Italian colours, luminous grey and peacock and purple, are in lovely contrast with the sterner tints and dazzling white of the Dolomite chain and the deep red of granite Colbricon. The soft curves of the Vette culminate in the broad pyramid of the Pavione, otherwise Col di Luna or Mountain of the Moon, whence all Venetia and the Adriatic may be seen. Minor details complete the beauty of the scene.

Those rosy

patches among bilberries and ferns tell us that the Alpine rhododendron is still in bloom; the arnica daisy flaunts its orange

petals on the turf, and Scotch blue-bells cluster thickly by the roadside. The dash of hidden water, the tinkle of cow-bells, and the voice of the wind in the trees form a fitting accompaniment to this mountain symphony. And here at last is San Martino on the meadow-slope above the Cimone torrent. There is just one hotel at right angles with the picturesque eleventh-century hospice founded by a bishop of Trent for the use of pilgrims over the difficult pass, a pretty little church, a house for the priest, two or three cottages, and a few scattered barns and sheds. It is a delicious summer retreat, and no little gratitude is owed to the Alpinists who first proclaimed its delights and scaled its virgin peaks. The open space in front of the hotel is bordered by a low wall guarding a vegetable plot; there is no garden, no attempt at a pleasure ground; but who cares for the lack of these when you can exult in the sight of the mighty summits tossed against the sky! Mightiest of all is King Cimone, then come the glittering pinnacles of the Rosetta, divided by an ice-filled gully from the stern precipice of the Pala di San Martino. Beyond the snowy windings of the Passo Ball and the Cima, also christened by the accomplished mountaineer who first set foot on its peak, rise the formidable crags of the Sasso Maior striding southwards to the fantastic pillars and spires overhanging Val Canale. from Primiero these crags resemble monstrous veiled figures, and it was a happy thought of Messrs. Gilbert and Churchill to give them the name of the " Procession Mountain." And at the base of this magic range are emerald pastures broken by wild ravines, where torrents foam amid Alpine roses and dark wedges of forest stream down into the valley.

Seen

Now that the new road by the Fonzaso Pass brings San Martino almost within a day's journey from Venice, it will soon become a fashionable resort, and be overrun by tourists. Already we hear that it is to be managed by an enterprising hotel-keeper from Trent, and fitted with every luxury and comfort. But in the summer of 1881 life was idyllic at San Martino. Two pleasant ladies excepted, our own family and friends were the only permanent boarders, and the perfect freedom was more than sufficient compensation for the roughness of the fare. Our host was paying the penalty for his attempt to starve his guests of the previous year, but his bad season was a delightful one for us. Now and then a carriage would arrive, bristling with alpenstocks, and filled with gaitered mountaineers. Then,