After all, we drove out five miles to Broek, the clean village;
across the Y, up the canal, over flatness flattened. Broek is a
humbug, as almost all show places are. A wooden little village on a
stagnant canal, into which carriages do not drive, and where the
front doors of the houses are never open; a dead, uninteresting
place, neat but not specially pretty, where you are shown into one
house got up for the purpose, which looks inside like a crockery
shop, and has a stiff little garden with box trained in shapes of
animals and furniture. A roomy-breeched young Dutchman, whose
trousers went up to his neck, and his hat to a peak, walked before us
in slow and cow-like fashion, and showed us the place; especially
some horrid pleasure-grounds, with an image of an old man reading in
a summer-house, and an old couple in a cottage who sat at a table and
worked, or ate, I forget which, by clock-work; while a dog barked by
the same means. In a pond was a wooden swan sitting on a stick, the
water having receded, and left it high and dry. Yet the trip is
worth while for the view of the country and the people on the way:
men and women towing boats on the canals; the red-tiled houses
painted green, and in the distance the villages, with their spires
and pleasing mixture of brown, green, and red tints, are very
picturesque. The best thing that I saw, however, was a traditional
Dutchman walking on the high bank of a canal, with soft hat, short
pipe, and breeches that came to the armpits above, and a little below
the knees, and were broad enough about the seat and thighs to carry
his no doubt numerous family. He made a fine figure against the sky.




COLOGNE AND ST. URSULA