ALONG THE ZUYDER ZEE.
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A LOAD OF HAY, HOLLAND.
DUTCH TOILERS.
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A WATERY LANE, DEN HAAG.
In the morning we spent delightful hours in the national picture galleries looking at the priceless collections of the Rembrandts and Rubens, which the Dutch government has here assembled; in the afternoon we strolled about the clean, quiet city, beneath the over-spreading elms; and then we supped at Scheveningen, where we saw the sea again and the last of the season’s fashionable folk.
A moment before leaving our hotel to take the train, which would carry us to The Hook, I had my last adventure among the canny Dutch. Upon the table in our chamber lay an attractive little ash-receiver, which any smoker must needs long to own. Quite naturally, it became entangled with our sundry purchases and scattered belongings and with them was inadvertently put away. Just as we were quitting the apartment, the head waiter of the inn, in whose charge we seemed to be, burst in upon us with wild anxiety in his eye and explained in broken English, that he instantly observed, upon scrutinizing the chamber, that a most valuable piece of Delft ware had mysteriously disappeared. Perhaps we had broken it? At any rate, it was gone and he would be held responsible for its loss. Two gulden would barely replace it! “What should he do?” Naturally, I explained that my wife by mistake had probably packed it up, and begged him to advise the office that, upon settling my bill, it would give me pleasure to deposit two gulden against the loss. At a later time, when exhibiting this relic to wiser eyes, I was forced to recognize that the little ash-receiver was merely common ware, of value perhaps ten Dutch cents! So much for the knowing Dutchman who traps the traveler in search of souvenirs!
Two hours after leaving The Hague we were upon the ship which would carry us to England. By early morning we were again at Harwich, and we arrived in London by mid-afternoon. Our only fellow passenger upon the train was a tall, dark, silent man, who carried with him an enormous overcoat of fur. We thought him a Russian, and wondered if he also had come directly from the Empire of the Czar.
We are now returned to London, whence we departed five weeks ago. We have crossed the North Sea, and journeyed through Denmark, and Norway, and Sweden, and visited their capitals. We have voyaged across the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland; we have caught a passing glimpse of Helsingfors, and looked upon St. Petersburg and Moscow, and traveled many hundred versts through the Empire of the Czar. We have sped through Germany and felt at home in the noble cities of Berlin and Hamburg. We have tarried in Amsterdam and Den Haag, where we felt the strangely familiar atmosphere of Dutch New York. We have looked upon many peoples of the Teutonic races and, when among them, have felt that subtle throb of kinship, which common blood and common origin awake; we have also plunged a moment within the mediaeval and yet semi-barbarous dominions of the Slav and found ourselves upon the threshold of mysterious Asia.
THE GOSSIPS, DEN HAAG.
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THE FISH MARKET, DEN HAAG.