A hundred Belgians with a hundred bundles crowded into several small apartments of the station, found little room for their, careers, which consisted of the irony ends of their picks and hoes, so that those occasionally hooked the prominent points of the faces of those immediately behind them!  Strange to say, these collisions did not provoke any to insults or the use of vulgar adverbs, but gentle reproofs kept them all cool and steady till we entered the cars again.  The reader will pardon me for saying that a similar crowd of persons in this country, placed under the same tempting and exasperating circumstances, would have created a row in five minutes, as would be the natural consequence if there were but a single ruffian in the whole lot.  Nothing will strike the American tourist more when he comes to the Old World, than the good order which prevails everywhere.  To meet two persons scolding and insulting each other, is an extremely rare occurrence.  The orderly behavior of such a company of peasants will impress one more with the importance of teaching the young, lessons of patience, humility and obedience (which latter quality of character is the mother of a hundred virtues), than volumes of dry philosophy on social ethics will generally avail.

I saw an elderly lady kiss a middle-aged man alternately upon each cheek; an incident that is common in European social life, and that shows how the affections of the heart are cultivated and find expression.  In Brussels I saw a son rest his hand affectionately upon his mother’s shoulder, as they stood amongst the multitude in a public square.

I reached Bruixelle (Brussels) at about three o’clock in the afternoon.  In order to see what kind of money was in circulation in Belgium, I immediately bought some pears of a fruit-woman, and handed her half a franc (10 cents).  You may imagine how I was perplexed when the lady handed me a dozen coins of various sizes and values, as my change.  Knowing, however, that though the coins had different impressions, the-system was the same as that of French money, I murmered to myself, “Blessed be the Decimal System,” and went to some retired quarter to count it!  One piece was a large whitish coin marked 10c., and worth 2 cents in our money; others were centimes, which are equivalent to but one fifth of our cent!  I soon learned to know them all.

After having taken a long walk through the city, I engaged a room at a hotel where one of the boarders could speak a little English, and soon retired to take an afternoon nap.  I awoke to broad daylight, but did not at once know whether it was that day, or the next day already; and there was no one about, just then, whom I could have asked!  As the sun was standing in the western sky, I concluded that it was more likely that I had slept only a few hours, than that I should have slept 27 hours; and when the landlord was contended with the payment of one night’s lodging, I felt satisfied that I