The Valley Of The Meuse Is Graced Everywhere At
Intervals With Fantastic Piles Of Limestone Cliff, And Certainly,
In A
Proper light, is pretty; but there is far too much quarrying
and industrialism between Liege and Namur, and far too
Many
residential villas along the banks between Namur and Dinant,
altogether to satisfy those who have high ideals of scenery.
Wordsworth, in a prefatory note to a sonnet that was written in
1820, and at a date when these signs of industrialism were
doubtless less obtrusive, says: "The scenery on the Meuse pleases
one more, upon the whole, than that of the Rhine, though the river
itself is much inferior in grandeur"; but even he complains that
the scenery is "in several places disfigured by quarries, whence
stones were taken for the new fortifications." Dinant, in
particular, has an exceptionally grand cliff; but the summit is
crowned (or was) by an ugly citadel, and the base is thickly
clustered round with houses (not all, by any means, mediaeval and
beautiful) in a way that calls to mind the High Tor at Matlock
Bath. Dinant, in short, is a kind of Belgian Matlock, and appeals
as little as Matlock to the "careful student" of Nature. If at
Dinant, however, you desert the broad valley of the Meuse for the
narrow and secluded limestone glen of the Lesse, with its clear
and sparkling stream, you will sample at once a kind of scenery
that reminds you of what is best in Derbyshire, and is also best
and most characteristic in the Belgian Ardennes.
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