Travel by ‘treckschuyt’ [barge]

The distance from Ghent to Bruges is about thirty miles; and as the country is here one continued flat, we resolved to travel, by way of variety, in the treckschuyt, or, as they call it, the barge – a very commodious vessel, with good apartments, and a canopy over the quarter-deck. She is drawn by four horses, which proceed at a gentle trot of about four miles an hour, and they are changed at halfway. The fare for this passage is five and a half francs, or four shillings and seven-pence each person, a tolerably good dinner, and beer into the bargain. For those who are not in haste, or for invalids, there is no mode of travelling to be compared to this for ease and comfort, and, at the same time, it enables the passenger to occupy himself in any kind of employment he may choose to engage in; and in the greater part of this particular passage there is nothing to distract his attention, the banks being so high as to intercept the view of the country. We could see enough, however, to satisfy us that the whole surface was in an admirable stat of tillage. It is said, indeed, that in no part of the Netherlands are finer crops produced than in the district between this line of country and Antwerp, called the Waesland, which, centuries ago, was a continued waste of barren heath, naked sand, and splashes of water.
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There is a similar establishment [beguinage] at Ghent, the chapel of which we attended during service-time, but were not much enraptured by the voices of these ancient virgins; indeed the whole of that institution was much inferior to this at Bruges.

Lees het volledige reisverhaal op GoogleBooks (exempl. UGent, 1839): (John Barrow): A family tour