14

=

74

86

81

1= 12

Eupen Aix la Chapelle 2 Total distance, 1164 English miles. Add post royal at Brussels, and post at Liége.

The shortest road to Aix la Cha. pelle is by Louvain (Route XXVII.) and Battice (Route XXVI.); but this road is generally preferred, since it passes by Waterloo and the beautiful vallies of the Meuse and Vesdre.

Several diligences pass to and fro every day upon this road. It takes about 11 hours to go to Liége, and more to reach Aix la Chapelle. The barriers are very numerous.

Near the village of Ixelles, one of the best views of the town of Brussels and the country far and wide is obtained, on which account it is a crowded place of resort with the citizens upon Sundays.

The coal-carts met with constantly on this road are laden with the produce of the rich mines of Charleroi.

About 2 miles from Brussels the road enters the Forest of Soignies, which Byron, by a poetical licence, has identified with the ancient Forest of Ardennes. The march of the British troops through it, on their way to the battle, is described by him in these beautiful lines:

"Ardennes waves above them her green

leaves,

Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass,
Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves,
Over the unreturning brave, - alas!
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass
Which, now beneath them, but above shall
grow

In its next verdure, when this fiery mass
Of living valour, rolling on the foe
And burning with high hope, shall moulder
cold and low."

The forest is about 9 miles long and 7 broad. The Duke of Wellington is the owner of 1000 acres, a property of great value from the timber that grows on it, presented to him by the King of the Netherlands, along with the title of Prince of Waterloo, in token of gratitude for his services. No cheerful woodland this of antique trees, With thickets varied and with sunny glade; Look where he will, the weary traveller sees One gloomy, thick, impenetrable shade Of tall straight trunks, which move before his sight,

With interchange of lines of long green light. Here, where the woods receding from the road Have left on either hand an open space For fields and gardens, and for man's abode, Stands Waterloo; a little lowly place, Obscure till now, when it hath risen to fame, And given the victory its English name. WATERLOO. Inn H. de l'Argentine. This small village, on the outskirts of the forest, about ten miles from Brussels, was the head-quarters of the English army, on the days before and following the battle to which it has given its name (June 17. and 19. 1815).

The moment a traveller comes in sight of the spot, he will be assailed by a set of harpies in the shape of guides and relic venders, all claiming the honour of serving him in the capacity of guide. The only mode of appeasing the clamours and rescuing himself from the annoyance is to fix upon one or other, informing him at the same time what will be his remuneration. 3 or 4 francs will be enough for his services over the whole field; but if this be not settled beforehand, he will not hesitate to demand at least double. Edward Cotton, late sergeant-major in the 7th hussars, may be recommended as the best guide to the field of Waterloo.

He

The little Church and church-yard are crowded with melancholy memorials of English officers: it contains nearly 30 monuments to those who fell.

That temple to our hearts was hallowed now; For many a wounded Briton there was laid, With such poor help as time might then allow

From the fresh carnage of the field conveyed; And they whom human succours could not save,

Here in its precincts found a hasty grave.
And here on marble tablets set on high,
In English lines by foreign workmen traced,
Are names familiar to an English eye;
Their brethren here the fit memorials placed,
Whose unadorned inscriptions briefly tell
Their gallant comrades' rank, and where
they fell.

The stateliest monument of public pride,
Enriched with all magnificence of art,

To honour chieftains who in victory died,
Would wake no stronger feeling in the heart
Than these plain tablets, by the soldier's
hand

Raised to his comrades in a foreign land. SOUTHEY.

Among the curiosities of Waterloo, to the examination of which the most strenuous persuasion is used to invite the passing stranger, is the grave of the Marquis of Anglesea's leg, and the house in which it was cut off, and where the boot belonging to it is preserved. The owner of the house to whose share this relic has fallen, finds it a most lucrative source of revenue, and will, in spite of the absurdity of the thing, probably bequeath it to his children as a valuable property. He has interred the leg most decorously within a coffin, under a weeping willow, and has honoured it with a monument and an epitaph.

Waterloo is now nearly joined to Mont St. Jean, a long straggling village, once almost a mile from it, and lying on the edge of the field of battle.

Here the road divides: the branch on the right leads to Nivelles; the other, continuing straight on, is the high road to Genappe and Namur.

Travellers not strong a-foot ought not to leave their carriage at Waterloo, or even at Mont St. Jean, as it is still a mile short of the centre of the field, and this mile will considerably increase the long walk which they must at any rate take in order to see the ground to advantage. It is more prudent to drive on to La Belle Alliance, and then to send back the carriage to Mont St. Jean, where there is a decent little inn, to await their return. If the traveller intend to proceed on to Namur, and not to return to Brussels, the carriage must stop at La Belle Alliance, which is a sorry kind of public-house.

Leaving the village of Mont St. Jean, the road reaches an open country, uninclosed, and almost entirely without trees; it ascends a gentle rise, and passes the large farm house with offices called Ferme de Mont St. Jean, which during the battle was filled with wounded, and served as a sort of hospital. The Mound surmounted by the Belgic Lion, by far the most conspicuous object in the field of Waterloo, now appears in sight. It marks the spot which may be considered the centre of the conflict.

On arriving at the end of this ascent, the traveller finds himself on the brow of a hill or ridge extending on the right and left of the road, with a gentle hollow or shallow valley before him, and another ascent and nearly corresponding ridge beyond it.

Along the ridge on which he stands the British army was posted, while the position of the French was along the opposite heights. The road on which we are travelling intersected the two armies, or, so to speak, separated the left wing of the British and right wing of the French from the main bodies of their respective armies.

To render the declivity more gradual, the road has been cut through the crest of the ridge several feet deep, so as to form a sort of hollow way. At this point two Monuments have been erected close to the roadside; that on

the right (in the plan) to the memory of Col. Gordon, that on the left (5) in honour of the Hanoverian officers of the German Legion who fell on the spot.

Hereabouts the high road is traversed nearly at right angles by a small country cross-road. During the first part of the action, the Duke of Wellington stood in the angle formed by the crossing of these two roads, and on the right of the highway, at a little distance from a solitary elm, called the Wellington Tree (1 in the plan), from a report that the Duke had placed himself beneath it during the action. The Duke knew better than to post himself and his staff close to an object which must inevitably serve as a mark for the enemy to fire at. Upon the strength of this story, however, the elm, after being mutilated and stripped by relic hunters, was cut down and sold, some time after the battle, to an Englishman.

About half-way down in the hollow which separated the two armies, and in which the most bloody combats took place, is the Farm of La Haye Sainte (6), close to the roadside on the right. It was at first occupied by the soldiers of the German Legion, and gallantly defended till their ammunition was exhausted, when they were literally cut to pieces, and it was captured by the French, who could not, however, long keep possession of it: a terrible carnage took place in the house and garden, and the building was riddled with shot.

Close to this house is shown the grave of Shaw the heroic Lifeguardsman, who killed 9 Frenchmen with his own hand in the battle. Not far off, on the opposite side of the road, the bodies of 4000 men, intermixed with those of many horses, were buried in one common grave. It was near this spot that the brave General Picton was killed, and Colonel Ponsonby wounded. One of the attacks against the English left was led by Ney in person. Four Scotch regiments were engaged in this part of the fight.

La Haye, bear witness! sacred is its height,
And sacred is it truly from that day;
For never braver blood was spent in fight
Than Britain here hath mingled with the
clay.

Set where thou wilt thy foot, thou scarce canst tread,

Here on a spot unhallowed by the dead.
Here was it that the Highlanders withstood
The tide of hostile power, received its weight
With resolute strength, and stemmed and
turned the flood;

And fitly here, as in that Grecian strait,
The funeral stone might say-Go, traveller,

tell

Scotland, that in our duty here we fell.

If we now proceed across the valley and up the opposite slope, we reach the farm of La Belle Alliance, a solitary white house, on, the left of the road (7). It was occupied by the French, whose lines were drawn up close behind it; though towards the end of the engagement, Napoleon in person marshalled his imperial guard in front of it, for a final charge. Napoleon's place of observation during a great part of the battle was nearly on a line with La Belle Alliance, at some distance on the right of the road. In this house, now a poor inn, Wellington and Blucher met after the battle. The Prussians have erected a cast-iron monument (9) at a short distance on the left, in memory of their fellow-countrymen who fell here.

A little way beyond La Belle Alliance is the house of Coster (8), Napoleon's guide (since dead); and near this spot, a glimpse may be had of the farm of Hougoumont, about 2 miles off on the right.

Gros Caillou (10), a farm house in which Napoleon slept, was burnt in consequence by the Prussians next day, to show their hatred of their enemy.

The foregoing enumeration of the various localities of the field, has been made in the order in which a traveller would pass them in following the high road from Brussels. If he intend to turn aside and examine the field more minutely, the following description may assist him:

The Mound of the Belgic Lion (2) is by far the best station for surveying

the field. It is a vast tumulus, 200 feet high, beneath which the bones of friends and foes lie heaped indiscriminately together. A flight of steps leads up to the top. The lion was cast (by Mr. Cockerill of Liége) from cannon taken in the battle, and is intended to stand on the spot where the Prince of Orange was wounded.

To show with what different eyes various travellers behold the same object, the following extracts are given, touching the commemoratory mound:

"There is bad taste in thus seeking to glorify one particular wound amidst so many instances of devotedness to death. The great mass of earth too, obstructing the view, and changing the face of the field, is an ill-imagined excrescence. Boddington's Reminiscences of the Rhine.

"The appearance of this earthen pyramid is exceedingly striking; it is by far the most prominent object in the landscape; and whether considered in reference to itself, or the great events which it illustrates, partakes in no small degree of the sublime."—. -Notes of a Journey from Paris to Ostend.

A third critic, the author of the Family Tour, takes a middle course:

"The mound and the lion have equally been the subject of ill-natured censures, but would appear appropriate enough, since they serve at once as a memorial, a trophy, and a tomb."

The lion's teeth and nails were mutilated by some of the French troops in their passage to the siege of Antwerp. They would have vented their ill-humour in further injuries, had not Marshal Gerard put a stop to the proceedings.

The present appearance of the field differs considerably from what it was at the time of the battle, owing to the excavation made along the front of the British position, to obtain earth for this artificial mound. ridge of Mont St. Jean has been considerably reduced in height; and the spot where the duke of Wellington stood is quite cut away; the

The

ground near being lowered several feet by the removal of the earth.

From the top of the Mound, it will be perceived, that the ground is a perfectly open and undulating plain. The British force was disposed in two lines along one of these undulations: the foremost line occupied the brow of the eminence, and was partly protected by a hedge, running from Mont St. Jean to Ohain, which gives the name to the farm of La Haye Sainte (6); the second stood a little way behind, on the reverse of the slope, so as to be partly sheltered from the enemy's fire. The British were separated by the shallow valley above mentioned-varying from 500 to 800 yards in breadth-from the French, who were posted on the opposite ridge. The situation of both armies was in many parts within point-blank range of their opponent's artillery

The position of the British from right to left did not much exceed a mile and a half,-"small theatre for such a tragedy;" yet on this limited front did its commander place and manoeuvre an army of 54,000 men, a remarkable instance of concentration of force. It was drawn up in a sort of curve, to suit the ground along the heights, and the right wing extended as far as Mirbe Braine. The right flank of the centre stood 400 yards behind the house of Hougoumont (3), which was very strongly occupied ; the left of the centre was posted at a considerable distance behind the farm house of La Haye Sainte (6), which stood nearly midway between the two armies, and was also occupied and fortified as well as its small size and the time would admit. The left wing reached to the farm house called Ter la Haye.

The distance between the two farms of Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte is 1300 yards. The French columns could not pass between them without being exposed to a flank fire, nor did Napoleon think it prudent to leave two such posts in his rear in the