crossing the Hollandsch Diep, the detour must be made.

A stroll round Breda, to brush up our history of the siege, a view of
the chateau inside and out, including the reminders of Count Henry of
Nassau and William III. of England, and we were on the road again by
three in the afternoon.

Dordrecht and its Hotel Belle-Vue, on the Boomstraat saw us for
dinner that night. The trip had been without incident, save for the
eternal crossing of canals by high-peaked donkeytack bridges which
demanded careful driving till you found out what was on the other
side of the crest, and the continual dodging from one side of the
road to the other to avoid running over children at play. Clearly
Holland, in this respect, was not far different from other countries.

Dordrecht is delightful and is as nearly canal-surrounded as
Amsterdam or Venice, only it is not so large, and automobilists, must
look out or they will tumble overboard when taking a sharp corner.

You may eat, if you like, on the balcony of the Hotel Belle-Vue, and
you may watch the throng of passers-by strolling through the
courtyard of the hotel, from one street to another, as if it were a
public thoroughfare. The only objection to it is that you fear for
the safety of the loose things which you left in your automobile, but
as you pay a franc for housing it the responsibility falls on the
proprietor. No one ever heard of anything going astray, which argues
well for the honesty of the people of Dordrecht.

The distant view of Dordrecht, with a few spotted cattle in the
foreground, might well pass for a tableau of Cuyps, but as all Dutch
landscapes look more or less alike, at least they all look Dutch,
this description of Dordrecht perhaps does not define it very
precisely.

Of course Dordrecht itself is typically Dutch; one would not expect
anything else of a place with a name like that. The tree-covered
wharves and the typical Dutch crowds, the dog-drawn little carts and
the "morning waker," are all there. Above all, almost in Venetian
splendour, looms the great lone tower of the church of St. Mary, the
Groote Kerk of the town. For six hundred years it has been a faithful
guardian of the spiritual welfare of the people, and the ruggedness
of its fabric has well stood the test of time, built of brick though
it is.

Dordrecht is vulgarly and colloquially known as Dordt, or Dort, and,
as such, is referred to in history and literature in a manner, which
often puzzle