, over the main
portion.

The historical pictures of Harel de Moor and other famous Dutch artists
interested them for a while, and Ben had to be almost pulled away from
the dingy old portrait of Van der Werf.

The town hall, as well as the Egyptian Museum, is on the Breedstraat,
the longest and finest street in Leyden. It has no canal running
through it, and the houses, painted in every variety of color, have a
picturesque effect as they stand with their gable ends to the street;
some are very tall with half their height in their step-like roofs;
others crouch before the public edifices and churches. Being clean,
spacious, well-shaded, and adorned with many elegant mansions, it
compares favorably with the finery portions of Amsterdam. It is kept
scrupulously neat. Many of the gutters are covered with boards that open
like trapdoors, and it is supplied with pumps surmounted with shining
brass ornaments kept scoured and bright at the public cost. The city
is intersected by numerous water roads formed by the river Rhine, there
grown sluggish, fatigued by its long travel, but more than one hundred
and fifty stone bridges reunite the dissevered streets. The same
world-renowned river, degraded from the beautiful, free-flowing Rhine,
serves as a moat from the rampart that surrounds Leyden and is crossed
by drawbridges at the imposing gateways that give access to the city.
Fine broad promenades, shaded by noble trees, border the canals and add
to the retired appearance of the houses behind, heightening the effect
of scholastic seclusion that seems to pervade the place.

Ben, as he scanned the buildings on the Rapenburg Canal, was somewhat
disappointed in the appearance of the great University of Leyden. But
when he recalled its history--how, attended with all the pomp of a grand
civic display, it had been founded by the Prince of Orange as a tribute
to the citizens for the bravery displayed during the siege; when he
remembered the great men in religion, learning, and science who had once
studied there and thought of the hundreds of students now sharing the
benefits of its classes and its valuable scientific museums--he was
quite willing to forego architectural beauty, though he could not
help feeling that no amount of it could have been misplaced on such an
institution.

Peter and Jacob regarded the building with an even deeper, more
practical interest, for they were to enter it as students in the course
of a few months.