Rotterdam Was At That Time In
The Midst Of A Fair Which Filled The Open Squares And The Wider Streets
Of
the city with booths, and attracted crowds of people from the country.
There were damsels from North Holland, fair
As snow, and some of them
pretty, in long-eared lace caps, with their plump arms bare; and there
were maidens from another province, the name of which I did not learn,
equally good-looking, with arms as bare, and faces in white muslin caps
drawn to a point on each cheek. Olycoeks were frying, and waffles baking
in temporary kitchens on each side of the streets.
The country about Rotterdam is little better than a marsh. The soil serves
only for pasture, and the fields are still covered with "yellow blossoms,"
as in the time of Goldsmith, and still tufted with willows. I saw houses
in the city standing in pools of dull blue water, reached by a bridge from
the street: I suppose, however, there might be gardens behind them. Many
of the houses decline very much from the perpendicular; they are, however,
apparently well-built and are spacious. We made no long stay in Rotterdam,
but after looking at its bronze statue of Erasmus, and its cathedral,
which is not remarkable in any other respect than that it is a Gothic
building of brick, stone being scarce in Holland, we took the stage-coach
for the Hague the next day.
Green meadows spotted with buttercups and dandelions, flat and low, lower
than the canals with which the country is intersected, and which bring in
between them, at high tide, the waters of the distant sea, stretched on
every side. They were striped with long lines of water which is constantly
pumped out by the windmills, and sent with the ebb tide through the canals
to the ocean. Herds of cattle were feeding among the bright verdure. From
time to time, we passed some pleasant country-seat, the walls bright with
paint, and the grounds surrounded by a ditch, call it a moat if you
please, the surface of which was green with duck-weed. But within this
watery inclosure, were little artificial elevations covered with a
closely-shaven turf, and plantations of shrubbery, and in the more
extensive and ostentatious of them, were what might be called groves and
forests. Before one of these houses was a fountain with figures, mouths of
lions and other animals, gushing profusely with water, which must have
been pumped up for the purpose, into a reservoir, by one of the windmills.
Passing through Schiedam, still famous for its gin, and Delft, once famous
for its crockery, we reached in a couple of hours the Hague, the cleanest
of cities, paved with yellow brick, and as full of canals as Rotterdam. I
called on an old acquaintance, who received me with a warm embrace and a
kiss on each cheek. He was in his morning-gown, which he immediately
exchanged for an elegant frock coat of the latest Parisian cut, and took
us to see Baron Vorstolk's collection of pictures, which contains some
beautiful things by the Flemish artists, and next, to the public
collection called the Museum.
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