1936 On the Continent

matter, my dear?”
    “You’ll wear out the superlative, Pierre! This is the tenth time you’ve said: the largest belfry in the world; the most important harbour on the Continent; the widest beach; the most massive monument; the biggest clock.… Aren’t you exaggerating a little?”
    “Not a whit, and it’s certainly not foolish national vainglory that prompts me to say so. Get yourself afootrule and measure, young sceptic. Besides, you’ll admit that one church in Belgium is bound to be the biggest! Well, this is the one. And Antwerp is a very rich and powerful city.”
    “Don’t get upset about it, Pierre.”
    “One of our writers, George Eekhoud, called it the ‘New Carthage,’ and the poet Verhaeren said it was one of the ‘tentacular towns.’ Just follow me, we’re going to the top of that great skyscraper over there. Do you see it?”
    “One can’t help seeing it, it’s so high.”
    “Well, forgive me, but it is the
first
and
highest
skyscraper in Europe. The first and highest, do you hear?”
    “You’re incorrigible, Pierre!”
    “Eighty-eight metres high, twenty-four storeys! Take out your foot-rule again and come into the lift, we’re going to count them.”
    “I’ll take your word for it.…”
A View of Antwerp
    From the top of the skyscraper, a great commercial building to the terrace of which the public is admitted, we saw the whole town spread out below us.
    Here is the Market Place with the Town Hall that has known such hard times. Only the outside walls remain of the original building (put up in 1565). In 1576 the Spanish troops burnt it down; later it was destroyed again during the French revolution.
    From this height, too, we get a fine view of the parks and gardens of Antwerp, which are many and beautiful.
    An English statistician proved some years ago that Antwerp surpassed all other towns in the area devoted to its parks and public walks, considering the density of its population and its size. In this respect (I apologise, Muriel) Antwerp steals a march on London, which takes second place.
    You will see the Zoological Gardens close to the station, which we will visit in detail. It contains over 5,000 animals, including some very rare species, a very well planned aquarium, and special pavilions for the different kinds of animals. In the gardens concerts are given nearly every day.
    Here, below, you will notice that there are several old pinions rising above the roofs; they are the guild houses, richly decorated, which were built during the Flemish Renaissance period.
    “And must we visit the museums?”
    “That shall be as you please. Some travellers are seized with a zealous fervour when they come across museums, and visit them all; that is perhaps ‘wasteful and ridiculous excess.’ The natives themselves don’t do that—but then, they are prevented by their daily tasks from exploring their own treasures.”
Museums
    It is with museums as with so many other things—one must not have a surfeit of them. Antwerp has a great number. The Musée Royal des Beaux Arts is very rich in fine things; beside the sculptures there are 925 canvases by old masters (Van Eyck, Memlinc, Metsys, Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens and many others of the Flemish school), and there are over a thousand modern paintings. There is one little museum that you must visit and that you will certainly love—the Plantin Moretus Museum. Here is the residence and the workshop of the famous printer Plantin, who published such a number of beautiful books in the sixteenth century which have now become priceless. Manuscripts are here, incunabula, engravings on copper and wood, ancient presses and all the printer’s paraphernalia. The Steen is another interesting museum: the antiques exhibited there include armour, arms, musical instruments and instruments of torture. It is complete with prison cells and dungeons. One can see it from here. It is built on one of the quays that edge the harbour. Need I say anything about the harbour? They are very much alike all over the world, but this one is so vast that one must climb very high before getting an all-embracing view of it. There beneath us lie the quays, the wharves, the warehouses, the docks. Later on we’ll go round the port by boat and you’ll be able to see everything in detail after having had this bird’s-eye view of it.
    You must allow me to give you a few statistics concerning the port of Antwerp. You know that it is formed by a natural arm of the