hotograph by Franz Hanfstaengl

Preface

It would be useless to pretend that this book is authoritatively
informing. It is a series of personal impressions of the Dutch country
and the Dutch people, gathered during three visits, together with an
accretion of matter, more or less pertinent, drawn from many sources,
old and new, to which I hope I have given unity. For trustworthy
information upon the more serious side of Dutch life and character I
would recommend Mr. Meldrum's _Holland and the Hollanders_. My thanks
are due to my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Emil Lueden, for saving me from
many errors by reading this work in MS.

E.V.L.

A WANDERER IN HOLLAND

Chapter I

Rotterdam

To Rotterdam by water--To Rotterdam by rail--Holland's
monotony of scenery--Holland in England--Rotterdam's few
merits--The life of the river--The Rhine--Walt Whitman--Crowded
canals--Barge life--The Dutch high-ways--A perfect holiday--The
canal's influence on the national character--The florin
and the franc--Lady Mary Wortley Montagu--The old and the
poor--Holland's health--Funeral customs--The chemists'
shops--Erasmus of Rotterdam--Latinised names--Peter de
Hooch--True aristocracy--The Boymans treasures--Modern
Dutch art--Matthew Maris--The Rotterdam Zoo--The herons--The
stork's mission--The ourang-outang--An eighteenth-century
miser--A successful merchant--The Queen-Mother--Tom Hood
in Rotterdam--Gouda.

It was once possible to sail all the way to Rotterdam by either of
the two lines of steamships from England--the Great Eastern, _via_
Harwich, and the Batavier, direct from London. But that is possible
now only by the Batavier, passengers by the better-known Harwich
route being landed now and henceforward at the Hook at five A.M. I am
sorry for this, because after a rough passage it was very pleasant
to glide in the early morning steadily up the Maas and gradually
acquire a sense of Dutch quietude and greyness. No longer, however,
can this be done, as the Batavier boats reach Rotterdam at night;
and one therefore misses the river, with the little villages on its
banks, each with a tiny canal-harbour of its own; the groups of trees
in the early mist; the gulls and herons; and the increasing traffic
as one drew nearer Schiedam and at last reached that forest of masts
which is known as Rotterdam.

But now that the only road to Rotterdam by daylight is the road
of iron a