RYKS MUSEUM

This museum is an impressive stone and brick building, constructed in 1877-1885, and filling nearly three acres of ground. It holds a place among the greatest museums of the world, and in its devotion to its own particular subject—Dutch art and history—it is unique. It is not the lover of art alone who will find the place fascinating: the historian will be held by the military, naval, and colonial collection; the antiquarian will linger over the old works in gold and silver, the models of ships of different periods, antique books and furniture, textiles and stained glass; while the artist will regard the picture galleries as a treasure house.

For the artist, if interested in the Dutch masters of art, the museum is the one particular place in Europe. There about him he will find some of the most celebrated works of Rembrandt, Franz Hals, Paul Potter, Jan Steen (stane), Hobbema (hob´-be-mah), and other Dutch painters.

The picturesque old buildings of Amsterdam, especially those in the inner city, will delight the visitor. Many of these have great historic interest—notable among them Admiral de Ruyter’s (ry´-ter; Dutch, roi´-ter) house, bearing his portrait in relief on its front, and a little beyond that the old Montalbans Tower.

A STREET IN AMSTERDAM

The Royal Palace is a solid building which was begun in 1648, just after the Peace of Westphalia, and was finished in the course of seven years at a cost of 8,000,000 florins ($3,216,000). It is not a beautiful building; but in its structure and its inner equipments it is interesting as showing the character of Dutch life and government. You bring from a visit to the palace an impression of the solidity, power, and the enduring virtues that are the ancestral inheritance of the Hollander.

No visit to Amsterdam is complete without a sight of the Zoölogical Garden, which is one of the best in Europe, and a trip out to the unique little Island of Marken. There in that odd spot you will find all the picturesqueness of Holland in solid deposit. Gaily colored costumes are everywhere; houses are queer in structure and in furnishing; and manners and habits of life are peculiar and interesting. But let the visitor be cautious in Marken. It has of recent years come to be a show place, stocked with all sorts of Dutch articles of no special value, most of which are manufactured solely to catch the fancy of the unwary tourist.