upon the water gate of Dort;
and she had, during her life, and her's for ever, an allowance of
fifty pounds per annum. A noble requital for a virtuous action."

Dort's great day of prosperity is over; but once she was the richest
town in Holland--a result due to the privilege of the Staple. In
other words, she obtained the right to act as intermediary between
the rest of Holland and the outer world in connection with all the
wine, corn, timber and whatever else might be imported by way of
the Rhine. At Dort the cargoes were unloaded. For some centuries she
enjoyed this privilege, and then in 1618 Rotterdam began to resent
it so acutely as to take to arms, and the financial prosperity of
the town, which would be tenable only by the maintenance of a fleet,
steadily crumbled. To-day she is contented enough, but the cellars
of Wyn Straat, once stored with the juices of Rhenish vineyards,
are empty. The Staple is no more.

Dort is perhaps the most painted of all Dutch towns, and with reason;
for certainly no other town sits with more calm dignity among the
waters, nor has any other town so quaintly medieval a canal as that
which extends from end to end, far below the level of the streets,
crossed by a series of little bridges. Seen from these bridges it is
the nearest thing to Venice in all Holland--nearer than anything in
Amsterdam. One may see it not only from the bridges, but also from
little flights of steps off the main street, and everywhere it is
beautiful: the walls rising from its surface reflected in its depths,
green paint splashed about with perfect effect, bright window boxes,
here and there a woman washing clothes, odd gables above and bridges
in the distance.

Dordrecht's converging facades, which incline towards each other
like deaf people, are, I am told, the result not of age and sinking
foundations, but of design. When they were built, very many years ago,
the city had a law directing that its roofs should so far project
beyond the perpendicular as to shed their water into the gutter, thus
enabling the passers-by on the pavement to walk unharmed. I cannot
give chapter or verse for this comfortable theory; which of course
preceded the ingenious Jonas Hanway's invention of the umbrella. In a
small and very imperfect degree the enactment anticipates the covered
city of Mr. H.G. Wells's vision. A Dutch friend to whom I put the
point tells me that more probably the preservation of bricks and
mural carvings