ble walls of brick. Grottoes
and fountains are some of the principal ornaments. The grottoes are
adorned with masses of calcareous stuff, corals and shells, some
of them apparently from the East Indies, others natives of our own
seas. The principal grotto is large, and studded with thousands of
crystals and shells. We were told that its construction was the labour
of twelve years. The fountains are of various devices, and though
old, some of them were still capable of being put in action. Frogs
and lizards placed at the edgings of the walks, and spouting water
to the risk of passengers, were not quite so agreeable; and other
figures were still in worse taste.

"There is a long berceau walk of beech, with numerous windows or
openings in the leafy side wall, and many statues and busts, chiefly of
Italian marble, some of them of exquisite workmanship. Several large
urns and vases certainly do honour to the sculptor. The subjects of
the bas-relief ornaments are the histories of Saul and David, and of
Esther and Ahasuerus."

I saw no old Dutch garden in Holland which seemed to me so attractive
as that at Levens in Westmorland.

It is important at Haarlem to take a drive over the dunes--the billowy,
grassy sand hills which stretch between the city and the sea. If it
is in April one can begin the drive by passing among every variety
of tulip and hyacinth, through air made sweet and heavy by these
flowers. Just outside Haarlem the road passes the tiniest deer park
that ever I saw--with a great house, great trees, a lawn and a handful
of deer all packed as close as they can be. Now and then one sees a
stork's nest high on a pole before a house.

On leaving the green and luxuriant flat country a climbing pave road
winds in and out among the pines on the edge of the dunes; past little
villas, belonging chiefly to Amsterdam business men, each surrounded by
a naked garden with the merest suggestion of a boundary. For the Dutch
do not like walls or hedges. This level open land having no natural
secrecy, it seems as if its inhabitants had decided there should be
no artificial secrecy either. When they sit in their gardens they
like to be seen. An Englishman's first care when he plans a country
estate is not to be overlooked; a Dutchman would cut down every tree
that intervened between his garden chair and the high road.

Fun has often been made of the names which the Dutch merchants give
to their country houses, but they seem to