and one spends it at the Hague.

One understands from this why Rotterdam is rather looked down upon by
the other two cities, and is regarded as a _parvenu_. But there is yet
another reason for this: Rotterdam is a merchant city pure and simple,
and is exclusively occupied with her own affairs. She has but a small
aristocracy, which is neither wealthy nor proud. Amsterdam, on the
contrary, holds the flower of the old merchant princes. Amsterdam has
great picture-galleries,--she fosters the arts and literature; she
unites, in short, distinction and wealth. Notwithstanding their
peculiar advantages, these sister cities are mutually jealous; they
antagonize and fret each other: what one does the other must do; what
the government grants to one, the other insists upon having. At the
present moment (_in 1874_), they are opening to the sea two canals
which may not prove serviceable; but that is of no consequence: the
government, like an indulgent father, must satisfy both his elder and
his younger daughter.

After I had seen the port, I went along the Boompjes dyke, on which
stands an uninterrupted line of large new houses built in the Parisian
and London style--houses which the inhabitants greatly admire, but
which the stranger regards with disappointment or neglects altogether;
I turned back, re-entered the city, and went from canal to canal, from
bridge to bridge, until I reached the angle formed by the union of
Hoog-Straat with one of the two long canals which enclose the town
toward the east.

This is the poorest part of the town.

I went down the first street I came to, and took several turns in that
quarter to observe how the lower classes of the Dutch live. The streets
were extremely narrow, and the houses were smaller and more crooked than
those in any other part of the city; one could reach many of the roofs
with one's hand. The windows were little more than a span from the ground;
the doors were so low that one was obliged to stoop to enter them. But
nevertheless there was not the least sign of poverty. Even there the
windows were provided with looking-glasses--spies, as the Dutch call
them; on the window-sills there were pots of flowers protected by green
railings; there were white curtains,--the doors were painted green or
blue, and stood wide open, so that one could see the bedrooms, the
kitchens, all the recesses of the houses. The rooms were like little
boxes; everything was heaped up as in an old-clothes