Aug. 22.—­I have now been six days in London, and by making good use of my feet and eyes, have managed to become familiar with almost every object of interest within its precincts.  Having a plan mapped out for the day, I started from my humble lodgings at the Aldgate Coffee House, where I slept off fatigue for a shilling a night, and walked up Cheapside or down Whitechapel, as the case might be, hunting out my way to churches, halls and theatres.  In this way, at a trifling expense, I have perhaps seen as much as many who spend here double the time and ten times the money.  Our whole tour from Liverpool hither, by way of Ireland and Scotland, cost us but twenty-five dollars each! although, except in one or two cases, we denied ourselves no necessary comfort.  This shows that the glorious privilege of looking on the scenes of the old world need not be confined to people of wealth and leisure.  It may be enjoyed by all who can occasionally forego a little bodily comfort for the sake of mental and spiritual gain.  We leave this afternoon for Dover.  Tomorrow I shall dine in Belgium!

CHAPTER VII.

FLIGHT THROUGH BELGIUM.

Bruges.—­On the Continent at last!  How strangely look the century-old towers, antique monuments, and quaint, narrow streets of the Flemish cities!  It is an agreeable and yet a painful sense of novelty to stand for the first time in the midst of a people whose language and manners are different from one’s own.  The old buildings around, linked with many a stirring association of past history, gratify the glowing anticipations with which one has looked forward to seeing them, and the fancy is busy at work reconciling the real scene with the ideal; but the want of a communication with the living world about, walls one up with a sense of loneliness he could not before have conceived.  I envy the children in the streets of Bruges their childish language.

Yesterday afternoon we came from London through the green wooded lawns and vales of England, to Dover, which we reached at sunset, passing by a long tunnel through the lofty Shakspeare Cliff.  We had barely time before it grew dark to ascend the cliff.  The glorious coast view looked still wilder in the gathering twilight, which soon hid from our sight the dim hills of France.  On the cliff opposite frowned the massive battlements of the Castle, guarding the town, which lay in a nook of the rocks below.  As the Ostend boat was to leave at four in the morning, my cousin aroused us at three, and we felt our way down stairs in the dark.  But the landlord was reluctant to part with us; we stamped and shouted and rang bells, till the whole house was in an uproar, for the door was double-locked, and the steamboat bell began to sound.  At last he could stand it no longer; we gave a quick utterance to our overflowing wrath, and rushed down to the boat but a second or two before it left.