because Zaandam is superficially
the gayest town in Holland and the capital of windmill land. In an
hour's drive (obviously no excursion for Don Quixote) one may pass
hundreds. These mills do everything except grind corn. For the most
part the Dutch mills pump: but they also saw wood, and cut tobacco,
and make paper, and indeed perform all the tasks for which in countries
less windy and less leisurely steam or water power is employed. The one
windmill in Holland which always springs to my mind when the subject is
mentioned is, however, not among Zaandam's legions: it is that solitary
and imposing erection which rises from the water in the Coolsingel
in Rotterdam. That is my standard Dutch mill. Another which I always
recall stands outside Bergen-op-Zoom, on the way to Tholen--all white.

The Dutch mill differs from the English mill in three important
respects: it is painted more gaily (although for England white
paint is certainly best); it has canvas on its sails; and it is
often thatched. Dutch thatching is very smooth and pretty, like an
antelope's skin; and never more so than on the windmills.

Zaandam lies on either side of the river Zaan, here broad and placid
and north of the dam more like the Thames at Teddington, say, than
any stretch of water in Holland. A single street runs beside the
river for about a mile on both banks, the houses being models of
smiling neatness, picked out with cheerful green paint. At Zaandam
green paint is at its greenest. It is the national pigment; but
nowhere else in Holland have they quite so sure a hand with it. To
the critics who lament that there is no good Dutch painting to-day,
I would say "Go to Zaandam". Not only is Zaandam's green the greenest,
but its red roofs are the reddest, in Holland. A single row of trees
runs down each of its long streets, and on the other side of each
are illimitable fields intersected by ditches which on a cloudless
afternoon might be strips of the bluest ribbon.

We sat for an hour in the garden of "De Zon," a little inn on the west
bank half-way between the dam and the bridge. The landlady brought us
coffee, and with it letters from other travellers who had liked her
garden and had written to tell her so. These she read and purred over,
as a good landlady is entitled to do, while we watched the barges
float past and disappear as the distant lock opened and swallowed them.

South of the dam the interest is centred in the hut where for a
while