py
fellow of no personal appearance whatever, who couldn't be overcome
except by a much bigger champion, and the immensest quantity of
thrashing. A perfect citadel of a boy, with a General Chasse sitting
in that bomb-proof casemate, his heart, letting blow after blow come
thumping about his head, and never thinking of giving in.

And we go home, and we dine in the company of Britons, at the
comfortable Hotel du Parc, and we have bought a novel apiece for a
shilling, and every half-hour the sweet carillon plays the waltz from
Dinorah in the air. And we have been happy; and it seems about a month
since we left London yesterday; and nobody knows where we are, and we
defy care and the postman.

SPOORWEG.--Vast green flats, speckled by spotted cows, and bound by a
gray frontier of windmills; shining canals stretching through the green;
odors like those exhaled from the Thames in the dog-days, and a fine
pervading smell of cheese; little trim houses, with tall roofs, and
great windows of many panes; gazebos, or summer-houses, hanging over
pea-green canals; kind-looking, dumpling-faced farmers' women, with
laced caps and golden frontlets and earrings; about the houses and towns
which we pass a great air of comfort and neatness; a queer feeling of
wonder that you can't understand what your fellow-passengers are saying,
the tone of whose voices, and a certain comfortable dowdiness of dress,
are so like our own;--whilst we are remarking on these sights, sounds,
smells, the little railway journey from Rotterdam to the Hague comes to
an end. I speak to the railway porters and hackney coachmen in English,
and they reply in their own language, and it seems somehow as if we
understood each other perfectly. The carriage drives to the handsome,
comfortable, cheerful hotel. We sit down a score at the table; and there
is one foreigner and his wife,--I mean every other man and woman at
dinner are English. As we are close to the sea, and in the midst of
endless canals, we have no fish. We are reminded of dear England by
the noble prices which we pay for wines. I confess I lost my temper
yesterday at Rotterdam, where I had to pay a florin for a bottle of ale
(the water not being drinkable, and country or Bavarian beer not being
genteel enough for the hotel);--I confess, I say, that my fine temper
was ruffled, when the bottle of pale ale turned out to be a pint bottle;
and I meekly told the waiter that I had bought beer at Jerusalem at a