We arrived towards night at Rotterdam, one of the most considerable sea-ports in Holland. How helpless we felt in this strange country! We had the greatest difficulty to make ourselves understood by the porters; our knowledge of Dutch being nil, we addressed them in German and English, and they answered in Dutch, which did not help us. We hailed a cab and tried to explain to the driver that we wanted to be driven to New Bath Hotel, and doubted somewhat whether we were understood, but our driver replied reassuringly, making our luggage a resting-place for his boots, and clambered into his seat. We arrived, in fact, at the designated hotel, situated on the quay of the river Maas.
Next morning Sergy went to secure tickets for the first boat leaving for London; there was one starting on the following day. When Sergy returned we drove to the Zoological Gardens, the best in Europe. Rotterdam does not inspire me; the houses are built on piles and look as if they were all on one side, and the canals, like those of Venice, are dirty and stinking. After the Zoological Gardens we visited an exhibition of Dutch painters, and saw posthumous pictures said to be painted by Rembrandt. Before returning to the hotel we drove through the park by a broad avenue bordered with elegant villas belonging, for the most part, to rich merchants. Dying of thirst, we drew up at a café and ordered tea. A waiter brought a teapot with boiling water and two cups and nothing else, and told us that the visitors had to supply their own tea and sugar in this singular restaurant!
When we were back at the hotel I sat a long time by the window looking at what was going on in the street, where the tram-cars, the carriages and heavy carts intermingled unceasingly. Muzzled dogs drew large waggonettes led by buxom peasant-women in stiffly starched gowns, who were faithful to their ancient costume and wore red bodices, brown skirts and a strange form of head-gear with heavy gold ornaments over flowing white caps. I was very much interested with the life and traffic in the port, on to a corner of which our windows looked. Large cargo-boats, exporting fruit and vegetables to England, were moored in the port, and numerous barges toiled steadily by, on their way to market, loaded to the water edge. A big American steamer was leaving for New York on the next day, carrying two thousand emigrants.
We spent our evening in a music-hall. The performance was very bad indeed. First came a French “chanteuse” in a short skirt and still shorter bodice, who rattled away indecent songs, then came the so-called tenor, who cooed a sentimental romance both out of tune and time, then a “basso profundo,” who bellowed Mephistopheles’ Serenade, made his appearance. The whole performance was accompanied by dead silence. The Dutch, in general, are a reserved people. All the faces are grave. I never saw a Dutchman smile. We were obliged to return on foot to the hotel and would have given anything for a carriage, but none was to be had and all the trams were overcrowded. So we walked, trying to find our way, which was not an easy thing to do, stopping at every corner to read the name of the street under a lamp-post.
On the following morning we embarked for London on a Dutch steamer named Fjenoord. The lower deck was closely packed with calves and sheep for sale. As soon as we were out in the open sea, we began to feel a slight rocking. It was too windy to remain on deck, and in our cabin the air was so close and stifling! We asked the stewardess to wake us before entering the Thames. I was up before six, dressed quickly and mounted on deck. It had been raining in the night and the wet wool of the sheep smelt very badly, whilst passing the English lighthouse, the syren on our ship whistled loudly, calling out the pilot, who came alongside on a small skiff; a rope-ladder was dropped, and the pilot clambered on board. At half-past six we landed at Blackwall. After having passed through the customs on a floating raft, we then took the train to London. We regretted that we couldn’t enter London by the docks, but it was Sunday, and the boats going that way had a holiday.
CHAPTER XXXIX
LONDON
We put up at Charing-Cross Hotel. After a good wash and brush-up, we went to find out the Rydes, my old Stuttgart friends who had settled in London for some years. I did not hear from Ettie Ryde, with whom I used to have great fun, since our school-days. What a chance to meet again! It was some little time before we found out the Rydes. We were received by Ettie’s sisters, who had just returned from church. I was very much disappointed when I was told that Ettie was out of town at the present moment, but the Rydes are going to spend most of the summer at Blackgang, in the Isle of Wight, and I hope to see a great deal of Ettie.
It was Sunday that day, which reduced us to inactivity, and we had nothing else to do than to return to our hotel. There was a great demonstration in the streets, and we met on our way a procession of the “Westminster Democratic Society,” composed of a deputy of cabmen and wine-merchants and other corporations, who were shouting and waving flags. They marched with their bands at the head, without disturbing the order in the streets. Three ragamuffins opened the march, mounted on decrepit old hacks, holding large banners. The police gazed upon this demonstration with the phlegm of an elephant whom a fly would like to sting.
The next day we visited the Health Exhibition in Kensington Palace. The trains left every five minutes and stopped with great jerks; we were thrown out of our places so violently that I found myself sitting on the knees of my neighbour opposite. There were many interesting things to see at the Exhibition, but the Russian section was rather poorly represented—furs and stuffed animals predominated. We had a good laugh when we stopped before a manikin representing a Russian soldier, a frightful guy, more like a bear than a human being, with a beard right up to the eyes. The “quarter of old London,” attracted us the most. Whilst walking the narrow dark streets lined with houses and shops, and crowded with people dressed in the costumes belonging to the fifteenth century, we had a vivid sensation of the past ages.