battle over which the spectre of
Philip II. presides from the top of the Binnenhof Tower.

[Illustration: Main Drive in the Bosch, The Hague.]

But, alas! everything changes, even the winter, and with it the art of
skating and the use of sleighs. For many years the severe winters of
Holland have been followed by such mild ones that not only the large
rivers, but even the small canals in the towns, do not freeze. In
consequence the skaters who have been so long out of practice do not
risk giving public exhibitions when the occasion presents itself; and
so, little by little, their number becomes smaller, and the women
especially are forgetting the art. Last winter they hardly skated at
all, and this winter (1873) there has not been a race, and not even a
sleigh has been seen. Let us hope that this deplorable state of
affairs will not last, and that winter will return to caress Holland
with its icy bear's paw, and that the fine art of skating will once
more arise with its mantle of snow and its crown of icicles. Let me
announce meanwhile the publication of a work called "Skating," upon
which a Dutch legislator has been employed for many years--a work that
will be the history, the epic, and code of this art, from which all
European skaters, male and female, will be able to draw instruction
and inspiration.

While I remained at the Hague I frequented the principal club in the
town, composed of more than two thousand members. It is located in a
palace near the Binnenhof, and there it was that I made my observations
upon the Dutch character.

The library, the dining-room, and the card-room, the large drawing-room
for conversation, and the reading-room were as full as they could be from
four o'clock in the afternoon until midnight. Here one met artists,
professors, merchants, deputies, clerks, and officers. The greater number
come to drink a small glass of gin before dinner, and return later to take
another comforting sip of their favorite liquor. Nearly all converse, and
yet one hears only a light murmur, so that if one's eyes were shut one
would say that about half of the actual number was present. One can go
round the rooms many times without seeing a gesture of excitement or
hearing a loud voice: at a distance of ten steps from the groups one would
not know that any one was speaking, except by the movement of his lips.
One sees many corpulent gentlemen with broad, clean-shaven faces and
bearded throats, who talk withou