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National Geographic : 1925 May
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'ITHE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE AN AIRPLANE VIEW OF TIHE GOTHIC CHURCH OF SAINTE GUDUILE: BRUSSELS Dedicated to the tutelary saint of Brussels, this sacred edifice was begun in 1220, and is considered one of the finest examples of pointed Gothic architecture. It contains some rich stained glass and a curious oak pulpit, Verbruggen's masterpiece, representing the expulsion i, Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. The church, sometimes erroneously called the cathedral, is built on a slope now covered by the fashionable quarters of Brussels. cleaning day on canal boats as on shore. As far as eye could see along the out stretched line of barges, washing flapped in the wind. The women were at scrub bing boards; the men, with swabs on long poles, were repainting the sides of their craft. The small boys were burnish ing the decks, and the little girls were watering window boxes planted with geraniums. Cleaning day leaves a Belgian barge as spotless as blanched linen. Everyone has been at it, for nobody aboard is lazy, not even the dog, who not uncommonly is hitched up and harnessed to the towrope, in the case of those slowest of slow barges whose sole motive power is the family's biceps. The sight of ocean freighters coaling at some near-by docks revealed that the Maritime Canal had brought us to Brus sels. We slipped our tow, stored the canoe at a hospitable boat club, then headed for the town. At Brussels, according to your taste, you may either wander among the "hill's" modern beauty spots or in the older "val- ley," where a blaze of smart shops, radi ating from the Grand' Place-the city's medieval masterpiece of architecture relegates to dim remoteness the days when Brussels was Brucsella, or "the l)welling in the Marsh." BRUSSELS AND TIlE STORY OF ITS GUILDS When it comes to cosmopolitanism, Brussels yields little to its gigantic neigh bor on the Seine. If Paris is the greater diamond, Brussels glitters with a more concentrated luster. Or, if you seek the mellow past, Paris gives it to you on a big canvas, while at Brussels its close packed lineaments resemble a miniature. Rightly, indeed, should quaint old ladies under huge umbrellas tend their veritable garden spots of cut flowers from end to end of the gabled Grand' Place. They are but continuing the trade tradition which has centered there for five cen turies. But trade . . . ? You stare around at that glorious uprearing of edi fices, their balustrades, carved woodwork, and gildings, and envisage not trade but emperors. Yet, in fact, here are the 526
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