The traffic ceased without a struggle.

Parma himself could not have better arranged the blockade.
Meantime a vast and almost general inundation had taken place.

The aspect of the country for many miles around was strange and desolate.

The sluices had been opened in the neighbourhood of Saftingen, on, the Flemish side, so that all the way from Hulst the waters were out, and flowed nearly to the gates of Antwerp.

A wide and shallow sea rolled over the fertile plains, while church-steeples, the tops of lofty trees, and here and there the turrets of a castle, scarcely lifted themselves above the black waters; the peasants' houses, the granges, whole rural villages, having entirely disappeared.