E.V.L.





A WANDERER IN HOLLAND


Chapter I

Rotterdam

To Rotterdam by water--To Rotterdam by rail--Holland's
monotony of scenery--Holland in England--Rotterdam's few
merits--The life of the river--The Rhine--Walt Whitman--Crowded
canals--Barge life--The Dutch high-ways--A perfect holiday--The
canal's influence on the national character--The florin
and the franc--Lady Mary Wortley Montagu--The old and the
poor--Holland's health--Funeral customs--The chemists'
shops--Erasmus of Rotterdam--Latinised names--Peter de
Hooch--True aristocracy--The Boymans treasures--Modern
Dutch art--Matthew Maris--The Rotterdam Zoo--The herons--The
stork's mission--The ourang-outang--An eighteenth-century
miser--A successful merchant--The Queen-Mother--Tom Hood
in Rotterdam--Gouda.

It was once possible to sail all the way to Rotterdam by either of
the two lines of steamships from England--the Great Eastern, _viâ_