At Liège we crossed the river, with its pretty embankments and bridges, into the more hilly country, climbing up winding roads that followed the ravines and streams, into higher places where the air was fresh and fragrant. Some of the towns through which we passed had a really Alpine look. Finally we turned into the long avenue which led us into Spa.
This pretty town, so famous as the first watering place in Europe, and for a long time the most fashionable, was deadly quiet that warm summer afternoon. On the terraces of the casino there was not a soul to be seen, and only two or three forlorn-looking drinkers at the spring-house. Even the promenades were empty.
We thought it might be the hour when people were resting, so later we fared forth to see the gaieties of which we had heard so much. This time we found half a dozen others walking aimlessly up and down the streets. At dinner, silence reigned. In the evening we tried our best to cheer up, and went to the casino where a few persons were scattered about the auditorium listening to music. This seemed to be the height of the season at Spa, whose name has come into our language as a synonym for gaiety and relaxation.
So we got away next morning and ran up a long, steep, splendid road on to fine rolling uplands that waved away like the Bohemian Highlands, with lovely views in the blue distance. We were some fifteen hundred feet up, and the air was very refreshing as we sped along. Now and then we dipped again into valleys with wooded slopes and ravines with palisades. We were in the real Ardennes country, the famous "Forest of Arden" of "As You Like It," which was sung by Ariosto a century or so before that.
In this region was the church of St. Hubert, to which peasants made Christian pilgrimage. Under the choir was a crypt where they knelt. A thread from the stole of the ancient saint was said to have had the power to cure hydrophobia, if aided by cauterization. But more easily, "one may prevent hydrophobia by carrying on the finger a ring or wearing a medal which has touched the relics of the saint; also by eating or making one's animals eat the blessed bread of St. Hubert." This bread is given chiefly to dogs, I believe.