Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/162

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DIARY OF A PILGRIMAGE.

returned to Cologne. From Cologne we went to Brussels; from Brussels to Ghent (where we saw more famous pictures, and heard the mighty "Roland" ring "o'er lagoon and lake of sand"). From Ghent we went to Bruges (where I had the satisfaction of throwing a stone at the statue of Simon Stevin, who added to the miseries of my school-days by inventing decimals), and from Bruges we came on here.

Finding out and arranging our trains has been a fearful work. I have left the whole business to B., and he has lost two stone over it. I used to think at one time that my own dear native Bradshaw was a sufficiently hard nut for the human intellect to crack; or, to transpose the simile, that Bradshaw was sufficient to crack an ordinary human nut. But dear old Bradshaw is an axiom in Euclid for stone-wall obviousness, compared with a through Continental time-table. Every morning B. has sat down with the book before him, and, grasping his head between his hands, has tried to understand it without going mad.

"Here we are," he has said. "This is the train that will do for us. Leaves Munich at 1.45; gets to Heidelberg at 4—just in time for a cup of tea."

"Gets to Heidelberg at 4?" I exclaim. "Does the whole distance in two and a quarter hours? Why, we were all night coming down!"

"Well, there you are," he says, pointing to the timetable. "Munich, depart 1.45; Heidelberg, arrive 4."

"Yes," I say, looking over his shoulder; "but don't