Ostend

Ostend, a fashionable watering-place in the Belgian province of West Flanders, on the German Ocean, 77 miles by rail WNW. of Brussels. Its Digue, or sea-wall, 3 miles long, 40 feet high, and 35 yards broad, forms a favourite promenade, as also do the two Estacades, or wooden piers, projecting on both sides of the harbour's entrance. Two spacious floating basins for the Dover mail- packets (a four hours' passage) were completed in 1874; and as a station also for London steamers, and the terminus of various lines of railway, Ostend is a lively and active place of transport traffic (butter, rabbits, oysters, &c.), and the resort in the season (July to September) of 16,000 to 20,000 visitors from Germany, Russia, and all parts of the Continent. It is, moreover, an important fishing-station, and has a good school of navigation, a handsome Cursaal (1878), a hôtel-de-ville (1711), a fish-market, and a lighthouse (1771; 175 feet). The place is now notorious for gambling facilities. Pop. (1874) 16,533; (1895) 27,250. Dating from 1072, Ostend is memorable for the protracted siege by the Spaniards which it underwent from 7th July 1601 to 20th September 1604. Twice again it surrendered—to the Allies in 1706, and to the French in 1745. The fortifications have been demolished since 1865.—The 'Ostend Manifesto,' in American history, was a despatch forwarded to the United States government in 1854 by its ministers at the courts of Great Britain, France, and Spain, who had met here, by the government's request, to discuss the Cuban question. The despatch declared that, if Spain would not sell Cuba, self-preservation required the United States to take the island by force, and prevent it from being Africanised like Hayti. Nothing, however, came of the 'manifesto.'