As I said, that road by the dunes is unique.  The roads of Belgium, for the most part, conform to one regular pattern.  In the centre is a paved causeway, set with small stone blocks, whilst on each side is a couple of yards of loose sand, or in wet weather of deep mud.  The causeway is usually only just wide enough for the passing of two motors, and on the smaller roads it is not sufficient even for this.  As there is no speed limit, and everyone drives at the top power of his engine, the skill required to drive without mishap is considerable.  After a little rain the stone is covered with a layer of greasy mud, and to keep a car upon it at a high speed is positively a gymnastic feat.  In spite of every precaution, an occasional descent into the mud at the roadside is inevitable, and from that only a very powerful car can extricate itself with any ease.  A small car will often have to slowly push its way out backwards.  In dry weather the conditions are almost as bad, for often the roadside is merely loose sand, which gives no hold for a wheel.  For a country so damp and low-lying as Belgium, there is probably nothing to equal a paved road, but it is a pity that the paving was not made a little wider.  Every now and then we met one of the huge, unwieldy carts which seem to be relics of a prehistoric age—­rough plank affairs of enormous strength and a design so primitive as to be a constant source of wonder.  They could only be pulled along at a slow walk and with vast effort by a couple of huge horses, and the load the cart was carrying never seemed to bear any proportion to the mechanism of its transport.  The roads are bad, but they will not account for those carts.  The little front wheels are a stroke of mechanical ineptitude positively amounting to genius, and when they are replaced by a single wheel, and the whole affair resembles a huge tricycle, one instinctively looks round for a Dinosaur.  Time after time we met them stuck in the mud or partially overturned, but the drivers seemed in no way disconcerted; it was evidently all part of the regular business of the day.  When one thinks of the Brussels coachwork which adorns our most expensive motors, and of the great engineering works of Liege, those carts are a really wonderful example of persistence of type.

We passed through Bruges at a pace positively disrespectful to that fine old town.  There is no town in Belgium so uniform in the magnificence of its antiquity, and it is good to think that—­so far, at any rate—­it has escaped destruction.  As we crossed the square, the clock in the belfry struck the hour, and began to play its chimes.  It is a wonderful old clock, and every quarter of an hour it plays a tune—­a very attractive performance, unless you happen to live opposite.  I remember once thinking very hard things about the maker of that clock, but perhaps it was not his fault that one of the bells was a quarter of a tone flat.  At the gates our passports were examined, and we travelled