Revised History of Harlem (City of New York): Its Origin and Early Annals Book

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. AVESNES AND ITS EXILES. HP HE old province of Picardy took in a strip of the coast from Calais to the river Canche. But its major portion between the Canche and the Bresle, and through which flowed the Somme, stretched eastward, wedge-like, from the Channel to Champagne, having on the north the Walloon provinces of Artois, Cambresis and Hainatilt, and on the south Normandy and Isle of France. Its easterly sections, Thierache and Vermandois, were charmingly diversified by wooded heights, which, however, told of an earlier age, when the adjacent Forest of Ardennes,?the "Neur Pai," or "Black Country," of the Walloons,?spread its sombre shades westward over this region. About these heights four noted streams took their rise,?the Scheldt and Sambre, watering the Netherlands; the Somme and Oise, rivers of Picardy; while the hills here diverged in four several chains, or ridges, which parted the respective valleys or basins of these rivers. Altogether, these formed a most remarkable feature in the topography of the country. Often rising to slight elevations, rarely did these ranges exceed an altitude which in our land of grander proportions would mark them as but ordinary hills; yet, with gentle slopes and summits mantled in woods or vineyards,?and here and there some old chateau or castle rising to view,?they gave a charming variety and beauty to these miniature countries. One range, crossing the eastern borders of the Cambresis, where it formed the large and venerable forest of Mourmal, linked with stirring events soon to be noticed, skirted for some miles the valley of the Sambre; then from northeast wound about to northwest, cutting in halves the Duchy of Brabant, and parting the basins of the Scheldt and Meuse. Another chain,?diverging westerly, then northward, til...Read More