Chapter II: Part 2

It is an iron structure a mile and a half long, over which passes the railway to Dordrecht and Rotterdam. From a distance it looks like fourteen enormous edifices put in line across the river: each one of the fourteen high arches supporting the tracks is in truth a huge edifice. In passing over it, as I did a few months later on my return to Holland, I saw nothing but sky and water, so wide is the river at this point, and I felt almost afraid the bridge might suddenly come to an end, and plunge the train into the water.

The boat turned to the left, passing in front of the bridge, and entered a very narrow branch of the Meuse called Dordsche Kil, which had dykes on either side, and hence looked more like a canal than a river. It was already the seventh turn we had made since we crossed the frontier.

Passing down the Dordsche Kil, we began to see signs of the proximity of a large town. There were long rows of trees on the banks, bushes, cottages, canals to the right and left, and much moving of boats and barges. The passengers became more animated, and here and there were heard exclamations of "Dordrecht! we shall see Dordrecht." All seemed preparing themselves for some extraordinary scene.

The spectacle was not long delayed, and was extraordinary indeed.

The boat turned for the eighth time, to the right, and entered the Oude Maas or Old Meuse.

In a few moments the first houses of the suburbs around Dordrecht came into view. It was a sudden apparition of Holland, a gratification of our curiosity immediate and complete, a revelation of all the mysteries which were tormenting our brains: we seemed to be in a new world.

Immense windmills with revolving arms were to be seen on every side; houses of a thousand extraordinary shapes were dotted along the banks: some were like villas, others like pavilions, kiosks, cottages, chapels, theatres,--their roofs red, their walls black, blue, pink, and gray, their doors and windows encircled with white borders like drifts of snow. Canals little and big were leading in every direction; in front of the houses and along the canals were groups and rows of trees; ships glided among the cottages and boats were moored before the doors; sails shone in the streets--masts, pennons, and the arms of windmills projected in confusion above the trees and roofs. Bridges, stairways, gardens on the water, a thousand corners, little docks, creeks, openings, crossways on the canals, hiding-places for the boats, men, women, and children passing each other on the ways from the river to the bank, from the canals to their houses, from the bridges to the barges,--all these made the scene one of motion and variety. Everywhere was water,--color, new forms, childish figures, little details, all glossy and fresh,--an ingenuous display of prettiness--a mixture of the primitive and the theatrical, of grace and absurdity, which was partly European, partly Chinese, partly belonging to no land,--and over all a delightful air of peace and innocence.

So Dordrecht flashed upon me for the first time, the oldest and at the same time the freshest and brightest town of Holland, the queen of Dutch commerce in the Middle Ages--the mother of painters and scholars. Honored in 1572 by the first meeting within its walls of the deputies of the United Provinces, it was also at different times the seat of memorable synods, and was particularly famous for that meeting of the protestant theologians in 1618, the Ecumenical Council of the Reformation, which decided the terrible religious dispute between Arminians and Gomarists, established the form of national worship, and gave rise to that series of disturbances and persecutions which ended with the unfortunate murder of Barneveldt and the sanguinary triumph of Maurice of Orange. Dordrecht, because of its easy communication with the sea, with Belgium, and with the interior of Holland, is still one of the most flourishing commercial towns of the United Provinces. To Dordrecht come the immense supplies of wood which are brought down the Rhine from the Black Forest and Switzerland--the Rhine wines, the lime, the cement and the stone; in its little port there is a continual movement of snowy sails and of smoking steamers, while little flags bring greetings from Arnhem, Bois-le-Duc, Nimeguen, Rotterdam, Antwerp, and from all their mysterious sisters in Zealand.

The boat stopped for a few minutes at Dordrecht, and I unexpectedly observed near by a number of fresh little cottages which were purely Dutch, and which aroused in me the greatest desire to land and make their acquaintance. But I conquered my curiosity by the thought that at Rotterdam I should see many such sights. The boat started, turned to the left (it was the ninth turning), and entered a narrow branch of the Meuse called De Noord, one of the numerous threads of that inextricable network of the waters which covers Southern Holland.

The captain approached me as I was looking for him to explain the position of Dordrecht on the map, for it seemed to me very singular. In fact, it is singular. Dordrecht is situated at the extremity of a piece of ground separated from the continent, and forming in the midst of the land an island crossed and recrossed by numerous streams, some of which are natural, some the work of man, rivers made half by man, half by nature--a bit of Holland encircled and imprisoned by the waters, like a battalion overcome by an army. It is bounded on the four sides by the river Merwede, the ancient Mosa, the Dordsche Kil, and the archipelago of Bies-Bosch, and is crossed by the New Merwede, a large artificial water-course. The imprisonment of this piece of land on which Dordrecht lies is an episode in one of the great battles fought by Holland with the waters. The archipelago of Bies-Bosch did not exist before the fifteenth century. In its place there was a beautiful plain covered with populous villages. During the night of the 18th of November, 1431, the waters of the Waal and the Meuse broke the dykes, destroyed more than seventy villages, drowned almost a hundred thousand souls, and broke up the plain into a thousand islands, leaving in the midst of this ruin one upright tower called Merwede House, the ruins of which are still visible. Thus was Dordrecht separated from the continent, and the archipelago of Bies-Bosch made its appearance, which, as though to show its right of existence, provides hay, reeds, and rushes to a little village which hangs like a swallow's nest on one of the neighboring dykes. But this is not all that is remarkable in the history of Dordrecht. Tradition relates, many believe, and some uphold, that at the time of this remarkable inundation Dordrecht--yes, the whole town of Dordrecht, with its houses, mills, and canals--made a short journey, like an army moving camp; that is to say, it was transported from one place to another with its foundations intact: in consequence whereof the inhabitants of the neighboring villages, coming to the town after the catastrophe, found nothing where it had been. One can imagine their consternation. This prodigy is explained by the fact that Dordrecht is founded on a stratum of clay, which had slipped on to the mass of turf which forms the basis of the soil. Such is the story as I heard it.

Before the vessel left the Noord Canal the hope of seeing my first Dutch sunset was disappointed by another sudden change in the weather. The sky was obscured, the waters became livid, and the horizon disappeared behind a thick veil of mist.

The ship entered the Meuse, and turned for the tenth time, to the left. At this point the Meuse is very wide, as it carries away and imprisons the waters of the Waal, the largest branch of the Rhine, and the waters of the Leck and Yssel also empty themselves into it. Its banks are flanked on either side by long rows of trees, and are dotted with houses, workshops, manufactories, and arsenals, which grow thicker as Rotterdam is approached.

However little acquainted one may be with the physical history of Holland, the first time one sees the Meuse and thinks of its memorable overflowings, of the thousand calamities and innumerable victims of that capricious and terrible river, one regards it with a sort of uneasy curiosity, much as one looks at a famous brigand. The eye rests on the dykes with a feeling almost of satisfaction and gratitude, as on the brigand when he is safely handcuffed and in the hands of the police.

While my eyes were roving in search of Rotterdam, a Dutch passenger told how, when the Meuse is frozen, the currents, coming unexpectedly from warmer regions, strike the ice that covers the river, break it, upheave enormous blocks with a terrific crash, and hurl them against the dykes, piling them in immense heaps which choke the course of the river and make it overflow. Then begins a strange battle. The Dutch answer the threats of the Meuse with cannonade. The artillery is called out, volleys of grape-shot break the towers and barricades of ice which oppose the current, into a storm of splinters and briny hail. "We Hollanders," concluded the passenger, "are the only people who have to take up arms against the rivers."

When we came in sight of Rotterdam it was growing dark and drizzling. Through the thick mist I could barely see a great confusion of ships, houses, windmills, towers, trees, and moving figures on dykes and bridges. There were lights everywhere. It was a great city different in appearance from any I had seen before, but fog and darkness soon hid it from my view. By the time I had taken leave of my fellow-travellers and had gathered my luggage together, it was night. "So much the better," I said getting into a cab. "I shall see for the first time a Dutch city by night; this must indeed be a novel spectacle." In fact, Bismarck, when at Rotterdam, wrote to his wife that at night he saw "phantoms on the roofs."

ROTTERDAM.

One cannot learn much about Rotterdam by entering it at night. The cab passed directly over a bridge that gave out a hollow sound, and while I believed myself to be--and, in fact, was--in the city, to my surprise I saw on either side a row of ships which were soon lost in the darkness. When we had crossed the bridge we drove along streets brightly lighted and full of people, and reached another bridge, to find ourselves between other rows of ships. So we went on for some time, from bridge to street, from street to bridge. To increase the confusion, there was everywhere an illumination such as I had never seen before. There were lamps at the corners of the streets, lanterns on the ships, beacons on the bridges, lights in the windows, and smaller lights under the houses,--all of which were reflected by the water. Suddenly the cab stopped in the midst of a crowd of people. I put my head out of the window, and saw a bridge suspended in mid-air. I asked what was the matter, and some one answered that a ship was passing. In a moment we were again on our way, and I had a peep at a tangle of canals crossing and recrossing each other, and of bridges that seemed to form a large square full of masts and studded with lights. Then, at last, we turned a corner and arrived at the hotel.

The first thing I did on entering my room was to examine it to see if it sustained the great fame of Dutch cleanliness. It did indeed; and this was the more to be admired in a hotel, almost always occupied by a profane race, which has no reverence for what might be called in Holland the worship of cleanliness. The linen was white as snow, the windows were transparent as air, the furniture shone like crystal, the walls were so clean that one could not have found a spot with a microscope. Besides this, there was a basket for waste paper, a little tablet on which to strike matches, a slab for cigar-ashes, a box for cigar-stumps, a spittoon, a boot-jack, in short, there was absolutely no excuse for soiling anything.

When I had surveyed my room, I spread the map of Rotterdam on the table, and began to make my plans for the morrow.

It is a singular fact that the large towns of Holland have remarkably regular forms, although they were built on unstable land and with great difficulty. Amsterdam is a semicircle, the Hague is a square, Rotterdam an equilateral triangle. The base of the triangle is an immense dyke, protecting the town from the Meuse, and known as the Boompjes, which in Dutch means little trees,--the name being derived from a row of elms that were planted when the embankment was built, and are now grown to a great size. Another large dyke, dividing the city into two almost equal parts, forms a second bulwark against the inundations of the river, extending from the middle of the left side of the triangle to the opposite angle. The part of Rotterdam which lies between the two dykes consists of large canals, islands, and bridges: this is the modern town; the other part, lying beyond the second dyke, is the old town. Two large canals extend along the other two sides of the city up to the vertex, where they join and meet a river called the Rotte, which name, prefixed to the word dam, meaning dyke, gives Rotterdam.

When I had thus performed my duty as a conscientious traveller, and had observed a thousand precautions against defiling, even with a breath, the spotless purity of that jewel of a room, I entered my first Dutch bed with the timidity of a country bumpkin.

Dutch beds--I am speaking of those to be found in the hotels--are usually short and wide, with an enormous eider-down pillow which would bury the head of a cyclops. In order to omit nothing, I must add that the light is generally a copper candlestick as large as a plate, which might hold a torch, but contains instead a short candle as thin as the little finger of a Spanish lady.

In the morning I dressed in haste, and ran rapidly down stairs.

What streets, what houses, what a town, what a mixture of novelties for a foreigner,--a scene how different from any to be witnessed elsewhere in Europe!

First of all, I saw Hoog-Straat, a long straight roadway running along the inner dyke of the city.

Most of the houses are built of unplastered brick, ranging in color through all the shades of red from black to pink. They are only wide enough to give room for two windows, and are but two stories in height. The front walls overtop and conceal the roofs, running up and terminating in blunted triangles surmounted by gables. Some of them have pointed facades, some are elevated in two curves, and resemble a long neck without a head; others are indented step-fashion, like the houses children build with blocks; others look like conical pavilions; others like country churches; others, again, like puppet-shows. These gables are generally outlined with white lines and ornamented in execrable taste; many have coarse arabesques painted in relief on plaster. The windows, and the doors too, are bordered with broad white lines; there are other white lines between the different stories of the houses; the spaces between the house-and shop-doors are filled in with white woodwork; so all along the street white and dark red are the only colors to be seen. From a distance all the houses produce an effect of black trimmed with strips of linen, and present an appearance partly festal, partly funereal, leaving one in doubt whether they enliven or depress. At first sight I felt inclined to laugh: it seemed impossible that these houses were not playthings and that serious people could live inside them. I should have said that after the fete for which they had been constructed they must disappear like paper frames built for a display of fireworks.

While I was vaguely regarding the street I saw a house which amazed me. I thought I must be mistaken: I looked at it more closely,--looked at the houses near it, compared them with the first house and then with each other, and even then I believed that it was an optical illusion. I turned hastily down a side street, and still I seemed to see the same thing. At last I was persuaded that the fault was not with my eyes, but with the entire city.

All Rotterdam is like a city that has reeled and rocked in an earthquake, and has still remained standing, though apparently on the verge of ruin.

All the houses--the exceptions in each street are so few they can be counted on one's fingers--are inclined more or less, and the greater number lean so much that the roof of one projects half a meter beyond that of the next house if it happens to be straight or but slightly inclined. The strangest part of it all is, that adjoining houses lean in different directions; one will lean forward as if it were going to topple over, another backward, some to the right, others to the left. In some places, where six or seven neighboring houses all lean forward, those in the middle being most inclined, they form a curve, like a railing that is bent by the pressure of a crowd. In some places two houses which stand close together bend toward each other, as if for mutual support. In certain streets for some distance all the houses lean sideways, like trees which the wind has blown one against the other; then again, they all lean in the opposite direction, like another row of trees bent by a contrary wind. In some places there is a regularity in the inclination, which makes the effect less noticeable. On certain crossways and in some of the smaller streets there is an indescribable confusion, a real architectural riot, a dance of houses, a disorder that seems animated. There are houses that appear to fall forward, overcome by sleep; others that throw themselves backward as if in fright; some lean toward each other till their roofs almost touch, as if they were confiding secrets; some reel against each other as though tipsy; a few lean backward between others that lean forward, like malefactors being dragged away by policemen. Rows of houses seem to be bowing to church-steeples; other groups are paying attention to one house in their centre, and seem to be plotting against some palace. I will soon let you into the secret of all this.

But it is neither the shape of the houses nor their inclination that seemed to me the most curious thing about them.

One must observe them carefully, one by one, from top to bottom, and in their diversity they are as interesting as a picture.

In some of the houses, in the middle of the gable, at the top of the facade, a crooked beam projects, fitted with a pulley and a piece of cord to raise and lower buckets or baskets. In others, a stag's, sheep's, or goat's head looks down from a little round window. Under this head there is a line of whitewashed stones or a wooden beam which cuts the facade in two. Below the beam there are two large windows, shaded by awnings like canopies, under which hang little green curtains, over the upper panes of the window. Under the green curtain are two white curtains, draped back to reveal a swinging bird-cage or a hanging basket full of flowers. Below this flower-basket screening the lower window-panes there is a frame with a very fine wire netting, which prevents pedestrians from looking into the rooms. Behind the wire netting, in the divisions between the netting and the framework of the window, there are tables ornamented with china, glass, flowers, statuettes and other trifles. On the stone sills of windows which open into the street there is a row of little flower-pots. In the middle or at one side of the window-sill there is a curved iron hook which supports two movable mirrors joined like the backs of a book, surmounted by a third movable glass, so arranged that from within the house one can see everything that happens in the street without one's self being seen. In some houses a lantern projects between the windows. Below the windows is the house-door or shop-door. If it be a shop-door, there will be carved above it either a negro's head with the mouth wide open or the smirking face of a Turk. Sometimes the sign is an elephant, a goose, a horse's head, a bull, a serpent, a half-moon, a windmill, and sometimes an outstretched arm holding some article that is for sale in the shop. If it be a house-door--in which case it is always kept closed--it bears a brass plate on which is written the name of the tenant, another plate with an opening for letters, and a third plate on the wall holding the bell-handle. The plates, nails, and locks are all kept shining like gold. Before the door there is frequently a little wooden bridge--for in many houses the ground floor is made lower than the street--and in front of the bridge are two small stone pillars surmounted by two balls; below these stand other pillars united by iron chains made of large links in the shape of crosses, stars, and polygons. In the space between the street and the house are pots of flowers. On the window-seats of the basement, hidden in the hollow, are more flowers and curtains. In the less frequented streets there are bird-cages on either side of the windows, boxes full of growing plants, clothes and linen hung out to dry. Indeed, innumerable articles of varied colors dangle and swing about, so that it all seems like a great fair.

But without quitting the old town one need only walk toward its outskirts in order to see novel sights at every step.

In passing through certain of the straight, narrow streets one suddenly sees before him, as it were, a curtain that has fallen and cut off the view. It is immediately withdrawn, and one perceives that it is the sail of a ship passing down one of the canals. At the foot of other streets a network of ropes seems to be stretched between the two end houses to stop the passage. This is the rigging of a ship that is anchored at one of the docks. On other streets there are drawbridges surmounted by long parallel boards, presenting a fantastic appearance, as though they were gigantic swings for the amusement of the light-hearted people living in these peculiar houses. Other streets have at the foot windmills as high as a steeple and black as an ancient tower, turning and twisting their arms like large wheels revolving over the roofs of the neighboring houses. Everywhere, in short, among the houses, over the roofs, in the midst of the distant trees, we see the masts of ships, pennons, sails, and what not, to remind us that we are surrounded by water, and that the city is built in the very middle of the port.

In the mean time, the shops have opened and the streets have become animated.

There is a great stir of people, who are busy, but not hurried: this absence of hurry distinguishes the streets of Rotterdam from those of certain parts of London, which, from the color of the houses and the serious faces of the citizens, remind many travellers of the Dutch city. Faces white and pale--faces the color of Parmesan cheese--faces encircled by hair flaxen, golden, red, and yellowish--large shaven faces with beards below the chin--eyes so light that one has to look closely to see the pupil--sturdy women, plump, pink-cheeked, and placid, wearing white caps and earrings shaped like corkscrews,--such are the first things one observes in the crowd.

But my curiosity for the present was not aroused by the people. I crossed Hoog-Straat and found myself in new Rotterdam.

One cannot decide whether it is a city or a harbor, whether there is more land than water, or whether the ships are more numerous than the houses.

The town is divided by long, wide canals into many islands, which are united by drawbridges, turning bridges, and stone bridges. From both sides of each canal extend two streets, with rows of trees on the side next to the water and lines of houses on the opposite side. Each of these canals forms a port where the water is deep enough to float the largest vessels, and every one of them is full of shipping throughout its length, a narrow space being kept clear in the middle which serves as a thoroughfare for the vessels. It seems like a great fleet imprisoned in a town.

I arrived at the hour of greatest activity, and took my stand on the highest bridge of the principal crossway.

Thence I could see four canals, four forests of ships, flanked on either side by eight rows of trees.

The streets were encumbered with people and merchandise. Droves of cattle passed over the bridges, which were being raised and swung to let the ships pass. The moment they closed or lowered again fresh crowds of people, carriages, and carts passed over them. Ships as fresh and shining as the models in a museum passed in and out of the canals, carrying on their decks the wives and children of the sailors, while smaller boats glided rapidly from ship to ship. Customers thronged the shops. Servants were washing the walls and windows. This busy scene with all its movement was made yet more cheerful by its reflection in the water,--by the green of the trees, the red of the houses, by the high windmills, whose black tops and white wings were outlined against the blue sky, and still more by an air of repose and simplicity never seen in any other northern town.

I examined a Dutch ship attentively.

Almost all of the vessels which are crowded in the canals of Rotterdam sail only on the Rhine and in Holland. They have only one mast, and are broad and strongly built. They are painted in various colors like toy boats. The planks of the hull are generally of a bright grass green, ornamented at the edge by a white or bright-red stripe, or by several stripes which look like broad bands of different colored ribbons. The poop is usually gilded. The decks and the masts are varnished and polished like the daintiest drawing-room floor. The hatches, the buckets, the barrels, the sailyards and the small planks are all painted red, and striped with white or blue. The cabin in which the families of the sailors live is also colored like a Chinese joss-house; its windows are scrupulously clean, and are hung with white embroidered curtains tied with pink ribbons. In all their spare moments the sailors, the women, and the children are washing, brushing, and scrubbing everything with the greatest care; and when their vessel makes its exit from the port, all bright and pompous like a triumphal car, they stand proudly erect on the poop and search for a mute compliment in the eyes of the people who are gathered along the canal.

Passing from canal to canal, from bridge to bridge, I arrived at the dyke of the Boompjes, in front of the Meuse, where is centred the whole life of this great commercial town. To the left extends a long line of gay little steamers, which leave every hour of the day for Dordrecht, Arnhem, Gouda, Schiedam, Briel, and Zealand. They are continually filling the air with the lively sound of their bells and with clouds of white smoke. To the right are the larger vessels that run between the different European ports, and among them are to be seen the beautiful three-masted ships that sail to and from the East Indies, with their names, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Samarang, written on them in letters of gold, bringing to the imagination those far-off ports and savage nations like the echo of far-off voices. In front, the Meuse is crowded by numbers of boats and barges, while its opposite bank is covered with a forest of beech trees, windmills, and workshop chimneys. Above this scene is a restless sky, with flashes of light mingling with ominous darkness, with scudding clouds and changing forms, which seemed to be trying to reproduce the busy activity of the earth.

Rotterdam, with the exception of Amsterdam, is the most important commercial city in Holland. It was a flourishing commercial town as early as the thirteenth century. Ludovico Guicciardini, in his work on the Netherlands which I have already mentioned, tells, in proof of the riches of the town, that in the sixteenth century within a year it rebuilt nine hundred houses which had been destroyed by fire. Bentivoglio, in his history of the war of Flanders, calls it "the greatest and the most important commercial town that Holland possesses." But its greatest prosperity dates only from 1830; that is to say, after the separation of Holland from Belgium, which brought to Rotterdam all that prosperity of which it deprived her rival, Antwerp. Her situation is most advantageous. By means of the Meuse she communicates with the sea, and this river can carry the largest merchantmen into her ports in a few hours; through the same river she communicates with the Rhine, which brings her whole forests from the mountains of Switzerland and Bavaria--an immense quantity of timber, which in Holland is changed into ships, dykes, and villages. More than eighty splendid ships come and go between Rotterdam and India in the space of nine months. From every port merchandise pours in with such abundance that it has to be divided among the neighboring towns. Meanwhile, Rotterdam increases in size: the citizens are now constructing vast new store-houses, and are now working on a huge bridge which will span the Meuse and cross the entire town, thus extending the railway, which now stops on the left bank of the river, as far as the gate of Delft, where it will join the railway of the Hague.

In short, Rotterdam has a more brilliant future than Amsterdam, and for a long time has been feared as a rival by her elder sister. She does not possess the great riches of the capital, but she is more industrious in using what wealth she has; she risks, dares, and undertakes, after the manner of a young and adventurous city. Amsterdam, like a wealthy merchant who has grown cautious after a life of daring speculations, has begun to doze and to rest on her laurels. To briefly characterize the three Dutch cities, it may be said that one makes a fortune at Rotterdam, one consolidates it in Amsterdam, and one spends it at the Hague.

One understands from this why Rotterdam is rather looked down upon by the other two cities, and is regarded as a _parvenu_. But there is yet another reason for this: Rotterdam is a merchant city pure and simple, and is exclusively occupied with her own affairs. She has but a small aristocracy, which is neither wealthy nor proud. Amsterdam, on the contrary, holds the flower of the old merchant princes. Amsterdam has great picture-galleries,--she fosters the arts and literature; she unites, in short, distinction and wealth. Notwithstanding their peculiar advantages, these sister cities are mutually jealous; they antagonize and fret each other: what one does the other must do; what the government grants to one, the other insists upon having. At the present moment (_in 1874_), they are opening to the sea two canals which may not prove serviceable; but that is of no consequence: the government, like an indulgent father, must satisfy both his elder and his younger daughter.

After I had seen the port, I went along the Boompjes dyke, on which stands an uninterrupted line of large new houses built in the Parisian and London style--houses which the inhabitants greatly admire, but which the stranger regards with disappointment or neglects altogether; I turned back, re-entered the city, and went from canal to canal, from bridge to bridge, until I reached the angle formed by the union of Hoog-Straat with one of the two long canals which enclose the town toward the east.

This is the poorest part of the town.

I went down the first street I came to, and took several turns in that quarter to observe how the lower classes of the Dutch live. The streets were extremely narrow, and the houses were smaller and more crooked than those in any other part of the city; one could reach many of the roofs with one's hand. The windows were little more than a span from the ground; the doors were so low that one was obliged to stoop to enter them. But nevertheless there was not the least sign of poverty. Even there the windows were provided with looking-glasses--spies, as the Dutch call them; on the window-sills there were pots of flowers protected by green railings; there were white curtains,--the doors were painted green or blue, and stood wide open, so that one could see the bedrooms, the kitchens, all the recesses of the houses. The rooms were like little boxes; everything was heaped up as in an old-clothes shop, but the copper vessels, the stoves, the furniture, were all as clean and bright as those in a gentleman's house. As I passed along these streets, I did not see a bit of dirt anywhere,--I met with no bad smells, nor did I see a rag, or a hand extended for alms; one breathes cleanliness and well-being, and thinks with shame of the squalid quarters in which the lower classes swarm in our cities, and not in ours only, for Paris too has its Rue Mouffetard.

Turning back to my hotel, I passed through the square of the great new market. It is placed in the centre of the city, and is not less strange than all that surrounds it.

It is an open square suspended over the water, being at the same time a square and a bridge. The bridge is very wide and unites the principal dyke--the Hoog-Straat--with a section of the town surrounded by canals. This aerial square is enclosed on three sides by venerable buildings, between which runs a street long, narrow, and dark, entirely filled by a canal, and reminding one of a highway in Venice. On the fourth side is a sort of dock formed by the widest canal in the city, which leads directly to the Meuse. In this square, surrounded by carts and stalls, in the midst of heaps of vegetables, oranges and earthenware, encircled by a crowd of hucksters and peddlers, enclosed by a railing covered with matting and rags, stands the statue of Desiderius Erasmus, the first literary celebrity of Rotterdam.

This Gerrit Gerritz--for, like all the great writers of his time, he assumed the Latin name--this Gerrit Gerritz belonged by his education, by his literary attainments, and by his convictions to the circle of the Italian humanists and literati. An elegant, learned, and indefatigable writer on literature and science, he filled all Europe with his fame between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; he was overwhelmed with favor by the popes, sought after and feted by princes. Of his innumerable works, all of which were written in Latin, the "Praise of Folly," dedicated to Sir Thomas More, is still read. The bronze statue, erected in 1622, represents Erasmus dressed in a fur cloak and cap. The figure is slightly bent forward as if he were walking, and he holds in his hand a large open book, from which he is reading. There is a double inscription on the pedestal in Latin and Dutch, which calls him _vir saeculi sui primarius et civis omnium praestantissimus_. Notwithstanding this pompous eulogy, poor Erasmus, stood in the centre of the market-place like a municipal guard, excites our compassion. There is not, I believe, on the face of the earth another statue of a scholar that is so neglected by those who pass it, so despised by those who surround it, and so pitied by those who look at it. However, who knows but that Erasmus, subtle professor that he was and will ever be, is contented with his corner, if indeed, as tradition tells, it be not far from his house? In a little street near the square, in the wall of a small house which is now used as a tavern, there is to be seen in a niche a bronze statuette of the great writer, and under it runs the inscription: _Haec est parva domus magnus qua natus Erasmus_. Eight out of ten of the inhabitants of Rotterdam have probably never seen nor read it.

In an angle of the same square is a small house called "The House of Fear," where upon the wall is a picture whose subject I have forgotten. According to the tradition it is called "The House of Fear," because the most prominent people of the city took shelter in it when Rotterdam was sacked by the Spaniards, and were imprisoned in it three days without food. This is not the only record of the Spaniards to be found in Rotterdam. Many buildings, erected during the time of their dominion suggest the style of architecture then fashionable in Spain, and many still bear Spanish inscriptions. In the cities of Holland inscriptions on the houses are very common. The buildings, like old wine, glory in their antiquity and declare the date of their construction in large letters on the facades.

In the market square I had every opportunity of observing the earrings of the women, which deserve to be minutely described.

At Rotterdam, I saw only the earrings which are worn in South Holland, but even in this province alone the variety is very great. However, they are all alike in this respect,--instead of hanging from the ears, they are attached to a gold, silver, or gilded copper semicircle, which girds the head like a half diadem, its extremities resting on the temples. The commonest earrings are in the form of a spiral with five or six circles; they are often very wide, and are attached to the two ends of the semicircle. They project in front of the face like the frames of a pair of spectacles. Many of the women wear another pair of ordinary earrings attached to the spirals. These are very large and reach almost to the bosom, dangling in front of the cheeks like the head-gear of Italian oxen. Some women wear golden circles which gird the forehead also, and are chased and ornamented in relief with leaves, studs, and buttons. They nearly all dress their hair smooth and tight, and wear white caps embroidered and trimmed with lace. These fit the head closely like a night-cap, and cover the neck and shoulders, descending in the form of a veil, which is also embroidered and trimmed with lace. These flowing veils, resembling those of the Arabs, and the peculiar and enormous earrings, give these women an appearance partly regal and partly barbarous. If they were not so fair as they are, one would take them for women of some savage land who had still preserved the ornaments of their native dress. I am not surprised that some travellers, seeing these earrings for the first time, have thought that they were at once an ornament and an instrument, and have asked their use. One might suppose that they are made thus for another purpose than that of beautifying the wearer--that they may serve as a defence to female modesty. For if any impertinent person should attempt to salute a cheek so guarded, he would encounter these obstacles and be kept at bay some distance from the coveted object. These earrings, which are worn chiefly by the peasant-women, are nearly all made of gold, and because of the size of the spirals and of the other accessories they cost a large sum. But I saw signs of even greater riches amongst the Dutch peasantry during my country rambles.

Near the market square stands the cathedral, which was founded toward the end of the fifteenth century at the time of the decadence of Gothic architecture. It was then a Catholic church consecrated to St. Lawrence; now it is the first Protestant church in the city. Protestantism, with religious vandalism, entered the ancient church with a pickaxe and a whitewash brush, and with bigoted fanaticism broke, scraped, rasped, plastered, and destroyed all that was beautiful and splendid, and reduced it to a bare, white, cold edifice, such as ought to have been devoted to the Goddess of _Ennui_ in the time of the _False and Lying Gods_. In the cathedral there is an immense organ with nearly five thousand pipes, which gives, besides other sounds, the effect of the echo. There are also the tombs of a few admirals, decorated with long epitaphs in Dutch and Latin. Besides these I saw nothing but a great many benches, some boys with their hats on, a group of women who were chattering loudly, and an old man with a cigar in his mouth. This was the first Protestant church I had entered, and I must confess I felt a disagreeable sensation, partly of sadness, partly of scandal. I compared the dismantled appearance of this church with the magnificent cathedrals of Italy and Spain, where a soft and mysterious light shines from the walls, and where one meets the loving looks of angels and saints through the clouds of incense directing one's gaze toward heaven; where one sees so many pictures of innocence that calm one, so many images of pain that help one to suffer, that inspire one with resignation, peace, and the sweetness of pardon; where the poor, without food or shelter, spurned from the rich man's gate, may pray amid marble and gold, as if in a palace,--where, surrounded by a pomp and splendor that do not humiliate, but rather honor and comfort their misery, they are not despised;--those cathedrals, finally, where as children we knelt beside our mothers, and felt for the first time a sweet assurance that we should some day live afresh in those deep azure spaces that we saw painted in the dome suspended above us. Comparing this church with those cathedrals, I perceived that I was more of a Catholic than I had believed myself to be, and I felt the truth of those words of Castelar: "Well, yes, I am a free-thinker, but if some day I were to return to a religion, I would return to the splendid one of my fathers, and not to this squalid and nude doctrine that saddens my eyes and my heart."

From the top of the tower one gets a bird's-eye view of the whole city of Rotterdam with its steep little red roofs, its wide canals, its ships standing out against the houses, and all around the city a boundless plain of vivid green traversed by canals, fringed with trees, dotted with windmills and villages hidden in masses of verdure and showing only the points of their steeples. At that moment the sky was clear, and it was possible to see the gleaming waters of the Meuse from Bois-le-Duc almost to its mouth. I distinguished the steeples of Dordrecht, Leyden, Delft, the Hague, and Gouda; but nowhere, either near or far off, was there a hill, a rise in the ground, or a curve to break the straight even line of the horizon. It was like a sea, green and motionless, on which the steeples were the masts of anchored ships. The eye wandered over that vast plain with a sense of repose, and for the first time I experienced that indefinable feeling which the Dutch landscape inspires. It is a feeling neither of sadness, of pleasure, nor of weariness, yet it embraces them all, and holds one for a long time motionless, without knowing at first what one is looking at or of what one is thinking. I was suddenly aroused by strange music; at first I could not tell whence it came. Bells were ringing a lively chime with silvery notes, now breaking slowly on the ear, as if they could scarcely detach themselves from each other; now blending in groups, in strange flourishes; now trilling, and swelling sonorously. The music was merry and fantastic, although of a somewhat primitive character, it is true, like the many-colored town over which it poured its notes like a flight of birds; indeed, it seemed to harmonize so well with the character of the city that it appeared to be its natural voice, an echo of the quaint life of the people, reminding me of the sea, the solitude, and the cottages, and at the same time it amused me and touched my heart. All at once the music stopped and the hour struck. At the same moment other steeples flung on the air other chimes, of which only the highest notes reached me, and when their chimes were ended they likewise struck the hour. This aerial concert, as I was told when its mechanism was explained to me, is repeated at every hour in the day and night by all the steeples of Holland, and the chimes are national airs, psalms, Italian and German melodies. Thus in Holland the hour sings, as though to draw the mind from contemplating the flight of time, and it sings of country, of religion, and of love, with a harmony surpassing all the sounds of earth.

Now, to continue in order my story of what I saw and did, I must conduct my readers to a coffee-house and beg them to sit beside me at my first Dutch dinner.

The Dutch are great eaters. Their greatest pleasure, as Cardinal Bentivoglio has said, is to be at a feast or at some repast. But they are not epicures; they are voracious: they prefer quantity to quality. Even in ancient times they were famous among their neighbors, not only for the roughness of their habits, but for the simplicity of their diet. They were called eaters of milk and cheese. They usually eat five times a day. When they rise they take tea, coffee, milk, bread, cheese, butter; shortly before noon comes a good breakfast; before dinner they partake of some light nourishment, such as a glass of wine and biscuits; then follows a heavy dinner; and late in the evening, to use their own words, some trifle, so as not to go to bed with an empty stomach. They eat in company on many occasions. I do not mean on the occasions of christenings or marriages, as in other countries, but, for example, at funerals. It is the custom that the friends and relatives who have accompanied the funeral procession shall go home with the family of the deceased, where they are then invited to eat and drink, and they generally do great honor to their hosts. If there were no other witnesses, the Dutch paintings are there to testify to the great part eating has always played in the life of this people. Besides the infinite number of domestic subjects, in which we might say that dishes and bottles are the protagonists, nearly all the large pictures representing historical personages, burgomasters, and national guard, show them seated at table in the act of eating, carving, or pouring out wine. Even their hero, William the Silent, the incarnation of New Holland, shared this national love of the table. He had the first cook of his time, who was so great an artist that the German princes sent beginners to perfect themselves at his school, and Philip II., in one of those periods of apparent reconciliation with his mortal enemy, begged for him as a present.

But, as I said, the principal characteristic of the Dutch kitchen is abundance, not delicacy. The French, who are _bon-vivants_, find much to criticise. I remember a writer of certain _Memoires sur la Hollande_ who inveighs with lyrical fervor against the Dutch cuisine, saying, "What style of eating is this? They mix soup and beer, meat and comfits, and devour quantities of meat without bread." Other writers of books about Holland have spoken of their dinners in that country as if they were domestic misfortunes. It is superfluous to say that all these statements are exaggerations. Even a fastidious palate can in a very short time accustom itself to the Dutch style of cooking. The substantial part of the dinner is always a dish of meat, with which four or five side dishes of salt meat and vegetables are served. These every one mixes according to his taste and eats with the principal dish. The meats are excellent, the vegetables, which are cooked in a thousand different ways, are even better. Those which they cook in an especially worthy manner are potatoes and cabbages, and their way of making omelets is admirable. I do not speak of game, fish, milk-foods, and butter, because their praises need not be repeated, and I am silent for fear of being too enthusiastic about that celebrated cheese into which, when once one has plunged one's knife, one continues with a sort of increasing fury, thrusting and gashing and abandoning one's self to every style of slashing and gouging until the rind is empty, and desire still hovers over the ruins.

A stranger who dines for the first time in a Dutch restaurant sees a number of strange things. In the first place, the plates are very large and heavy, in proportion to the national appetite; in many places the napkins are of very thin white paper, folded at three corners, and ornamented with a printed border of flowers, with a little landscape in the corner, and the name of the restaurant, or _Bon appetit_, printed on them in large blue letters. The stranger, to be sure of having something he can eat, orders roast beef, and they bring him half a dozen great slices as large as a cabbage leaf; or a steak, and they bring him a lump of very rare meat which would suffice for a family; or fish, and they set before him an animal as long as the table; and each of these dishes is accompanied by a mountain of mashed potatoes and a pot of strong mustard. They give him a slice of bread a little larger than a dollar and as thin as a wafer. This is not pleasant for us Italians, who eat bread like beggars, so that in a Dutch restaurant, to the great surprise of the waiters, we are obliged to ask for more bread every moment. On any one of these three dishes and a glass of Bavarian or Amsterdam beer a man may venture to say he has dined. Any one who has a lean pocket-book need not dream of wine in Holland, for it is frightfully dear; but, as the people's purses there are generally well filled, nearly all the Dutch, from the middle class up, drink wine, and there are few other countries where there is so great an abundance and variety of foreign wines, particularly of those from French and Rhenish vineyards.

Those who like liqueurs after dinner are well served in Holland. There is no need to mention that the Dutch liqueurs are famous the world over. The most famous of them all is "Schiedam," an extract of juniper-berries that takes its name from the little town of Schiedam, only a few miles from Rotterdam, where there are more than two hundred distilleries. To give an idea of the quantity made, it is sufficient to say that thirty thousand pigs are fed annually on the dregs of the distilled material. The first time one tastes this renowned Schiedam he swears he will never take another drop of it if he lives to be a hundred years old; but, as the French proverb says, "Who has drunk will drink again," and one begins to try it with a great deal of sugar,--then with a little less,--then with none at all, until, _horribile dictu_! under the excuse of the damp and the fog one tosses down two small glasses with the freedom of a sailor. Next on the list comes Curacoa, a fine feminine liqueur, not nearly so strong as Schiedam, but much stronger than that nauseating sweetened stuff that is sold in other countries under the recommendation of its name. After Curacoa there are many others liqueurs, of every gradation of strength and flavor, with which an expert winebibber can indulge in every style of intoxication, slight, heavy, noisy, or stupid, and whereby he can dispose his brain to see the world in the manner most pleasing to his humor, much as one would do with an optical instrument by changing the color of the lens.