Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-11-16

these tourists were in afiuent circumstances
| and the friend, rather shrewd person, de-
cided that francs apiece day was all they
| could afford to spend. Five francs is 81 in
the United Statesi but it goes much further.
For instance, these two travellers stopped
before the open door of small, but genteel,
estaminet and cafe. The estaminet is a sort
of saloon, with sprinklIng of tables and
chairs on the sidewalk, where monsieur and
madame, and even the little demoiselles sit
and sip their beer.
Everyone drinks beer in Belgium.
There's NO way out of it. The water is
poison, and the estaminet is more common
than the bakery or the sweet shops. This
beer, oddly enough, is not beer at all. 1t
IS mixture resembling that beverage,
which the hops, if concerned at all in the
concretion, merely hopped over, giving
place to barley, vinegar, and no one knows
what else. 1t costs 2 cents glass and a
barrel of it wouldn't ,intoxicate. 1t it did,
all Belgium, from the King down to the
street gamin, would be on bowling drunk,
for they drink it all day and all night and
all year and all their lifetime.
A NIGHT FOR FIFTY CENTS.
In conjunction with the estaminet is a
cafe. Here our tourists found a chamber
for 2 francs Gao cents q. s. Al night,
with 30 centimes, or 10 cents, extra for coffee
and rolls in the morning. 1t was large
bare foored apartment, with huge feather
bed, several inches shorter than any grown
person could possibly be unless he were a
dwarf or a freak. 1t was scrupulously
clean, as is everything here, and was fur
nished with two or three wooden chairs, a
table, stand, sofa gilt clock and two
wax pieces covered with tall glass globes.
1t takes small ladder to climb into one
of these Belgium beds and a fire escape to
climb out. II you are not rolling over at the
sides you are falling over at the foot. The
poor invalid groaned, fell out once or twice,
blamed it all on the Welsh doctor and
finally fell into restless slumber. Bright
and early in the morning came the rolls,
very nice, and the coffee very bad. But as
1t is so all over the country and the invalid
starving, she ate and drank and wished for
more, and when the economical friend said
francs would not admit of further expend-
iture at that early period, blamed it as usual
on the Welsh doctor. At home they
couldn't coax her to eat, and here they
wouldn't let her. Who was to blame if not
the Welsh doctor?
THEY ENJOY LIFE.
Antwerp is a fine old town, with a superb
cathedral and picture gallery. The people
are fat. rosy, good-natured, healthy, polite.
They work from morning until sundown.
Then they don their fine feathers and parade
the streets or sit under the awnings of the
estaminets and drink their extraordinary
beer.
At 10 the following day our party left
Antwerp on foot for Boom, fourishing
town, about Is miles walk. The road is q
long avenue of shaded trees meeting and
forming an archway over head. Thriving
little hamlets occur at every turning point
hamlets alive with bustling danes and
noisy children, all fat, all hearty, all rosy
and each the exact counterpart of the other
I doubt if their mothers can tell them apart
Everyone is at work, even the dogs who
pull the market carts and not unfrequently
the owners, too.
A SORRY EXPERIENCE.
If you have never walked Is miles at &
stretch, don't expect to do it without feel
ing pretty we'll tagged out. Our invalid
didn't. She got SO tired when little NOR,
than half way that she fell to the ground
and only for the fact that there wasn't
railway in the vicinity wouldn't hav,
stirred a step or made SO much as an effor
to go on.
But one needs must when the Welsl
doctor drives. Oh, how his Welsh ear
must have burned that dayl He was al
idiot, an ass, fool. a prig, everything but
Welsh doctor of distinction and repute! Blu
Boom came in sight at 6 P. NJ, and tn,
invalid stumbled into the first cafe, anc
vowed she would stay there if it cost a fran,
minute. They gave her some supper anc
put her to bed, where she slept for IL hour
without moving an inch or growing /;
growl, or matchmaking the Welsh doctor
Thus ended the first course of her treatmen
and the first day of her walk through
Europe. LILLIAN SPENCER.