A deep-laden coaster steering down the river.

are other majestic cathedrals in Europe, and no lack of old masters, forsooth, but there is no waterside like that of the mighty port on the Scheldt, its atmosphere so mediæval, its equipment so amazingly modern. Up the broad estuary that leads from the North Sea, into the river held between the ramparts of the

port less advantageously situated and broken the spirit of a people less tenacious. Battered and gutted, swept by the Spanish Fury, Antwerp was given no chance to rally and one generation after another of her burghers beheld the blockading fleets of the Dutch closing the Scheldt at Flushing to commerce in order that Amsterdam should have no rival. As recently as 1803 Napoleon found this melancholy city "little better than a heap of ruins," as he expressed it. The canals were choked with debris, the streets grass-grown, the wharves empty of shipping.

The greatness of Antwerp is therefore not a matter of slow growth but a renaissance, swift and brilliant. The awakened Hamburg, giant of the north, is its only Continental rival, and the gaze of Germany is hostile and envious as she surveys the streams of traffic which flow in and out of the Rhine country through the gateway of the Scheldt. This river is the life blood of Belgium and of many thickly peopled regions beyond her bor

dykes, the shipping rolls home from all the world and Antwerp empties the holds to put the cargoes afloat again in vast flotillas of canal boats and barges which traverse the myriad waterways of Holland, Germany, and France.

It is this far-flung inland traffic by river and canal that has given Antwerp her rank among the greatest seaports, a prestige won almost four hundred years ago when her commerce was waxing more splendid than that of Genoa or Venice and the house-flags of her merchant princes floated over vessels in every known sea. There followed two centuries of such misery and stagnation as would have obliterated a

The Dutch barges go dropping down the river to Hanswerth.

ders. Held and lost by Spain, Holland, France, and Germany, it is one of the golden prizes of European dominion.

As one nears the entrance of the Scheldt from the North Sea, the surf foams on crumbling yellow beaches whose monotony is unbroken by rock or cliff or summit. To the northward, along the coast of Zeeland, stretches a watery landscape of shifting islands almost awash, wind-blown dunes, and eriant channels. As much of it as was worth fighting to reclaim as dry land, the sturdy courage of the Dutch has saved from the submersion which Nature obviously intended. Although the river and its commerce are no longer theirs, they

still hold the mouth of the Scheldt, the gateway to Antwerp, with Flushing as the key.

A few miles inland and the checkered patchwork of tilled fields fenced by tiny canals and the cheerful red-brick villages begin to drop below the surface of the river, a topsy-turvy phenomenon in which the keels of the shipping are level with steeple, roof and windmill. Along this elevated highway moves a singular variety of traffic under steam and sail. A deepladen freighter from the Congo whistles for the right of way. Black seamen are chattering at her hatch-covers, and under the deck awning is a group of colonial officials bound home on leave, gaunt, sombre men dressed in tropical duck, who have been marooned for years in fever-stricken ports that the rubber, oil, and ivory might be fetched to Antwerp warehouses.

In her wake crawls a Norwegian steamer almost hidden under a deck-load of lumber which rises higher than her bridge. Bad weather and a shift of cargo have listed her so far to port that the landsman expects her to capsize before his eyes. The skipper and his crew are used to living on a fearsome slant, however, and display practised agility in climbing up a deck that slopes like a house-top. If they find nothing to worry about, then the men of yonder sea-worn old sailing ship were not born to be drowned. Once a fine Scotch clipper in the Australian trade, she, too, brings lumber from Norway, and so rotten and strained are her timbers that the hull is wrapped about with four stout chains to hold it together.

Grimy colliers from Hull and Cardiff surge past French and Italian craft from the Mediterranean, whose disorderly decks are bright with the flash of red neckerchiefs and the glint of ear-rings. Ore boats from Spain, rusty tramps from Hongkong and Manila with blue-clad Chinese crews, tall barks from the nitrate coast, cotton-laden steamers from Savannah and New Orleans, dodge the small fry leisurely steering for the canal route to Holland and the reaches of the Zuyder Zee. Dutch fishermen and coasters are working clumsily to windward with leeboards down, their models more like the lines of a wooden shoe than anything else, and long strings of barges blunder across the fairway.

At a bight of the broad river, fifty miles from the North Sea, Antwerp reveals itself behind an immense expanse of quays and docks and ships. Built on the low marshlands and surrounded by fat meadows which the Scheldt would overflow

but for the dykes, the city has an inconspicuous sky-line beyond the water-front, and the dominating spire of the cathedral, rising as from a broken plain, is certainly the noblest landmark to greet the mariner's eye in any port.

The old world welcomes sea-borne commerce as a bulwark of the common welfare and provides every facility for shipping as a public duty and a profitable investment. It is only in the United States that improvements of this kind are begrudged or actively opposed. Antwerp is still tearing down, building, excavating, to find more room for the craft that swarm up the Scheldt to make her richer. All the

A fishing sloop in the William Dock.

rotting, picturesque wharves that belted the water-front in the Middle Ages were long ago obliterated and in their stead there stretches for three and a half miles a massive wall fashioned of cut stone. It rises sheer from deep water and along its length, moored stern and bow, ride the squadrons of ocean steamers flying the flags of a dozen nations. Often they must swing at anchor in the stream waiting for vacant berths at these spacious quays.

This extended parade of shipping makes an unusual appeal to one fond of things maritime. It is an exhilarating pageant. Other ports lack this ensemble. You see the vessels in glimpses, a dock here, a