Beyond the Forest of Soignies the tame, flat fields, the
formal rows of trees, and the long, straight roads begin to disappear,
the landscape becomes more picturesque, and soon you reach a river
called the Meuse, which flows along through a romantic valley, full
of quiet villages, gardens, woods, and hayfields, and enclosed by
steep slopes clothed with trees and thickets, and broken here and
there by dells, ravines, and bold, outstanding pinnacles of rock,
beyond which, for mile after mile, an undulating tableland is covered
by thick forests, where deer, wild boars, and other game abound. This
district is called the Ardennes.
In the Valley of the Meuse there are three old and famous
towns--Liege, Namur, and Dinant--each nestling at the side of the
river, at the foot of a hill with a castle perched upon it.
Other rivers flow into the Meuse. There is the Sambre, which runs from
the west, and joins the Meuse at Namur; the Lesse, which rushes in
from the south through a narrow gorge; and the Semois, a stream the
sides of which are so steep that there is not even a pathway along
them in some places, and travellers must pass from side to side in
boats when following its course.
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