April xxviii.
Returning again to Harlem, Mr. Van Dale carries me to visit Mynhéer Koolaert, a merchant, and father of a beautiful daughter, named Hester, about seventeen years of age, born deaf and consequently dumb; but taught to speak (tho not very articulately) by one Dr. Amman, who has published a book upon that art, of which the young lady gave me a copy in Dutch, and her father another in Latin. She asked me after Mr. Rombouts of Constantinople; and I answering he is dead, she discerned what I said by the motion of my lips. By the same means she can discourse at large with her mother even in the dark, by feeling her lips when speaking. She writes well, and paints curiously. And her mother is an excellent Latinist. The same day Mr. Van Dale shewed me a specimen of the first printing, kept in the town house of this place; and in the market place the inscription, asserting that invention to Harlem:
MEMORIAE SACRVM
TYPOGRAPHICA ARS ARTIVM OMNIVM CONSERVATRIX
HIC PRIMVM INVENTA A L. COSTERO HARLEMENSI MCCCCXXIIX.
The next day I leave Harlem, and return to Amsterdam.