ll that is past, and yet there is some compensation, for
short as the journey is one may in its progress ground oneself very
thoroughly in the characteristic scenery of Holland. No one who looks
steadily out of the windows between the Hook and Rotterdam has much
to learn thereafter. Only changing skies and atmospheric effects can
provide him with novelty, for most of Holland is like that. He has the
formula. Nor is it necessarily new to him if he knows England well,
North Holland being merely the Norfolk Broads, the Essex marshlands
about Burnham-on-Crouch, extended. Only in its peculiarity of light
and in its towns has Holland anything that we have not at home.

England has even its canal life too, if one cared to investigate
it; the Broads are populous with wherries and barges; cheese is
manufactured in England in a score of districts; cows range our
meadows as they range the meadows of the Dutch. We go to Holland to
see the towns, the pictures and the people. We go also because so
many of us are so constituted that we never use our eyes until we
are on foreign soil. It is as though a Cook's ticket performed an
operation for cataract.

But because one can learn the character of Dutch scenery so quickly--on
a single railway journey--I do not wish to suggest that henceforward it
becomes monotonous and trite. One may learn the character of a friend
very quickly, and yet wish to be in his company continually. Holland
is one of the most delightful countries to move about in: everything
that happens in it is of interest. I have never quite lost the
sense of excitement in crossing a canal in the train and getting a
momentary glimpse of its receding straightness, perhaps broken by a
brown sail. In a country where, between the towns, so little happens,
even the slightest things make a heightened appeal to the observer;
while one's eyes are continually kept bright and one's mind stimulated
by the ever-present freshness and clearness of the land and its air.

Rotterdam, it should be said at once, is not a pleasant city. It
must be approached as a centre of commerce and maritime industry,
or not at all; if you do not like sailor men and sailor ways, noisy
streets and hurrying people, leave Rotterdam behind, and let the
train carry you to The Hague. It is not even particularly Dutch: it
is cosmopolitan. The Dutch are quieter than this, and cleaner. And
yet Rotterdam is unique--its church of St. Lawrence has a grey and
sombre to