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A short mile's walk to the west of Knocke brings us to Duinbergen, one of the newest of the Flemish plages, founded in the year 1901 by the Société Anonyme de Duinbergen, a company in which some members of the Royal Family are said to hold shares.
The larger portions, which are possessed by private owners, are partly the property of the descendants of those who bought them at the Revolution, and partly of building societies, incorporated for the purpose of developing what Mr. Plage de Westende, Le Coq, and Duinbergen three charming summer resorts have been created by building societies.
So artistic is the appearance of the houses that the term 'Style Duinbergen' is used by architects to describe it.
But at Duinbergen the good example set by the founders of La Panne has been followed and improved upon, and nothing could be more chic than this charming little place, which was planned by Herr Stübben, of Cologne, an architect often employed by the King of the Belgians, whose idea was to create a small garden city among the dunes.
The effect is extremely picturesque, and the example of the builders of La Panne is being followed at other places, notably at Duinbergen, one of the very latest bathing stations, which has risen during the last three years about a mile to the east of Heyst. Another very interesting place is the Plage de Westende, the present terminus of the electric railway from Ostend.
As soon as there was light next morning, the English weighed anchor and sailed along the coast to the east; past lonely yellow sands, which have swarmed during recent years with workmen toiling at the construction of the immense harbour of See-Brugge, which is to be the future port of Bruges; past what was then the small fishing hamlet of Heyst; past a range of barren dunes, amongst which to-day Duinbergen, the latest of the Flemish watering-places, with its spacious hotel and trim villas, is being laid out; past a waste of storm-swept sand and rushes, on which are now the digue of Knocke, a cluster of hotels and crowded lodging-houses, and a golf-course; and so onwards till they opened the mouth of the Zwijn, and saw the French ships crowding the entrance, 'their masts appearing to be like a great wood, and beyond them the walls of Sluis rising from the wet sands left by the receding tide.
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