Dordrecht is vulgarly and colloquially known as Dordt, or Dort, and, as such, is referred to in history and literature in a manner, which often puzzles the stranger. It is one of the most ancient cities of Holland, and, in the middle ages, the most busy in its intercourse with the outside world.
We left Dordrecht in the early morning, expecting to cover quickly the twenty-seven kilometres to Rotterdam. Ever and ever the thin wisps of black smoke streaked into the sky from the flat directly ahead, but not until we had almost plumped down on the Boompjes itself did things take material shapes and forms.
There are many things to do and see at Rotterdam, but the great, ceaseless commerce of the great world-port is one of the marvels which is often sniffed at and ignored; yet nowhere in any port in Europe or America, unless it be at Antwerp, is there to be seen such a ship-filled river as at Rotterdam on the Maas.
The Hotel Weimar on the Spanishkade, and the Maas Hotel on the Boompjes, cater for the automobilist at rather high prices, but in an intelligent fashion, except that they charge a franc for garaging your machine overnight. We found the same thing at Dordrecht; and in general this is the custom all over Holland.
We left the automobile to rest a day at Rotterdam while we took a little trip by water, to Gouda, famed for its cheeses. It is an unworldly sleepy place, though its commerce in cheeses is enormous. Its population, when it does travel, goes mostly by boat on the Maas. You pay an astonishingly small sum, and you ride nearly half a day, from Rotterdam to Gouda, amid a mixed freight of lovable fat little Dutch women with gold spiral trinkets in their ears, little calves and cows, pigs, ducks, hens, and what not, and on the return trip amid a boat-load of pungent cheeses.
We got back to Rotterdam for the night, having spent a tranquil, enjoyable day on one of the chief waterways of Holland, a foretaste of a projected tour yet to come, to be made by automobile boat when the opportunity comes.
No one, not even the most naïve unsophisticated and gushing of travellers, has ever had the temerity to signalize Rotterdam as a city of celebrated art. But it is a fondly interesting place nevertheless, far more so indeed than many a less lively mart of trade.
As we slowly drifted our way into the city at dusk of a long June evening, on board that little slow-going canal and river-craft from Gouda—known by so few casual travellers, but which are practically water stage-coaches to the native—it was very beautiful.
The brilliant crimson sun-streaks latticed the western sky, the masts, spars, and sails of the quay-side shipping silhouetted themselves stereoscopically against this gleaming background, and the roar and grime of the city's wheels of trade blended themselves into a mélange which was as intoxicating to the artist and rhapsodist as would have been more hallowed ground.
We left Rotterdam at eight-thirty on a misty morning which augured that we should be deluged with rain forthwith; but all signs fail in Holland with regard to weather, for we hardly passed the Delftsche Poort, the great Renaissance gateway through which one passes to Delft, Schiedam, The Hague, and all the well-worn place names of Dutch history, before a rift of sunlight streaked through the clouds and framed a typical Holland landscape in as golden and yellow a light as one might see in Venice. It was remarkable, in every sense of the word, and we had good weather throughout a week of days when storm was all around and about us.