Peeps At Many Lands: Belgium

s see before you a long expanse of yellow sand, and rising behind it a low ridge of sandhills, which look in the distance like a range of baby mountains. These sandhills are called "dune

which is bounded on the east by Holland, and on the west by

ash fiercely on the shore. It is cold and stormy, with mist and dark clouds, and sometimes violent showers of hail. But in summer all is changed. Often, week after week, the waves roll gently in, and break in ripples on the beach. The sky is blue, and the sands are warm. It is the best pla

e people made ramparts of earth to keep back the water, till by degrees many parts of the Belgian shore were thus protected. They still continue to build defences against

on bundles of branches lashed together, are wedged into the foundations, and slope inwards and upwards to within a few feet of the height to which it is intended to carry the digue. On the top another solid bed of branches is l

from Ostend for about nine miles. It is a good plac

is a row of villas and hotels facing the sea. Among the dunes behind the digue there are more villas.

sands. It is a very gay sight. There are prizes for those who build the best castles, and it is curious to see hundreds of little Belgian, English, French, and

s a boat anchored a little way out, in which two men in red shirts, with ropes and lifebelts, sit watching to see that no one goes too far out, for the tide is often ve

ng on the digue to the music of a barrel-organ. The Belgians are very fon

heir doors. The windows are boarded up. The bathing-machines are pulled away from the beach, and put in some sheltered place among the dunes. The digue is left in