The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1891-12-04
OVER LAND AND SEA.
LEAMINGToN, ENGLANI

ride, to Antwerp ION the native maps
1t is written Anuers,) is like leaving
Washington and going to Baltimore.
You leave long boulevards and mas
sive public buildings and splendid
white palaces and crowds of gay peo-
pie, and you go to narrow streets,
tangled beyond all following, to dingy
houses, black with time and weather,
to the noise and the hurry and the
turmoil of q ceaseless traffic that
reaches to the end of the earth. Ihad
somehow expected, without being
able to give a reason for the expecta-
ton, to find Antwerp different from
other cities. had expected it to
have some characteristics distinctly
its own, something quaint and curious
that would give it a decided individu-
atty. But I was disappointed. It is
a commercial city, and it is like all
the rest of them, commonplace and
uninteresting. Be it understood,
however, that these adjectives apply
only to the city as a whole, as It ap-
pears at first glance to the casual and
somewhat city-weary traveller. They
very emphatically do not apply to
a great many of the things that are
to be found in the city. First of all
there is the magnificent Art Museum,
q naxt- huildinn 0na ~ tho v1,oof o,Ia,,
did anywhere in Europe, and the
home of one of the finest collections of
pictures In the world. Strange that
city which prided itself on its ability
to get money aud keep it, should also
have gained and cherished q reputa-
ton as an art center. 1t is not often
that money-making and picture-mak-
ing are rocked in the same cradle.
But it has been SO here in Antwerp.
Rubens and Van Dyke and Teniers
and host of others whose paintings
fill places of honor in the best gal
leries in the world, all lived here.
And the great new Museum is crowd
ed with their canvases. had only
short day in Antwerp, but I spent
half of it looking at these pictures
and count it well spent. Antwerp
has cathedral, of course, and it is
another one of the things that is Meth
or commonplace nor uninteresting. In
the center of the city it stands, lofty
and black and solemn, q silent and
unmOving center about which whirls
and eddies the turbulent ever-chang-
ing life of the noissst and busiest
metropolis in all Europe. The houses
of the people have crowded close
about it, as they have crowded about
ST. Paul's in London, until many of
them, old and gray, have fairly grown
to it like barnacles to the side of a
ship. But instead of being dwarfed
by these encroachments, as st. Paul's
is, it seems all tbs more dignified and
imposing. The architecture is Gothic,
of course, and everything, from the
exquisite and daring spire, five-hun-
dred feet above the pavement, to the
arch which enshrines the smallest
sculptured saint in the chapels below,
points upward, -heavenward. And
the sentimens of devotion which the
exterior of the church inspires is not
lessened when one enters and views
its chiefest treasure,-the descent
from the Cross" by Rubens, the
greatest painting in the world, which
one can no more describe than he can
describe the sea or the mountains.
From the church went to the docks,
frOmthe house of God to the theatre
of Mammon. And if the sight of the
former sends ones thoughts heaven
ward, the sight of the latter brings
them back to the earth, to every part
of it. For here are ships from every
sea, manned by sailors of every
tongue, bringing cargoes from every
cline, flying the flags of every nation
except, alas!, the United States of
America. 1t is a great sight, these
enormous docks, these forests Of
masts, these acres of warehouses,
these armies of red-faced, red-nOsed,
round-shouldered sailors, these eIe-
phantine horses drawing mountain
Gus loads, these innumerable dogs
Juggling at countless carts, these
swarms of children that one fancies
must belong to the whsrfs as the rats
dc. don't think ever had any idea
of what commerce" really meant I'M
til saw the Antwerp docks.
-
1t had been my original intention
to sail directly home from Antwerp.
But the recollection of the enchant-
ing but unsatisfactory glimpse of the
green pastures and still waters of
Old England fingered with me and
the longing was strong to return to
them. 1 wanted to see Scotland also,
and Ireland, and it seemed to- me
to be safer to see them now when
they were only days journey away
than it would be to take the chance of
getting back to them some other day
when they would be 5000 miles away. |
So at the end of the day in Antwerp,
in company with the Man from Mass
achusetts-the same one who had got |
lost with me one rainy day among the
Baden Baden mountains and who was |
going now to Liverpool to start for