SKETCHES
IN
HOLLAND AND SCANDINAVIA

PREFACE.

The slight sketches in this volume are only theresult of ordinary tours in the countries theyattempt to describe. Yet the days they recall were sodelightful, and their memory—especially of the tourin Norway—is so indescribably sunny, that I cannothelp hoping their publication may lead others to enjoywhat is at once so pleasant and so easy of attainment.

Augustus J. C. Hare.

CONTENTS.

[1]

IN HOLLAND.

AT Roosendal, about an hour's railway journeyfrom Antwerp, the boundary between Belgiumand Holland is crossed, and a branch line divergesto Breda.

Somehow, like most travellers, we could not helpexpecting to see some marked change on reaching anew country, and in Holland one could not repress theexpectation of beginning at once to see the picturesof Teniers and Gerard Dou in real life. We werecertainly disappointed at first. Open heaths weresucceeded by woods of stunted firs, and then by fieldswith thick hedges of beech or alder, till the towers ofBreda came in sight. Here a commonplace omnibustook us to the comfortable inn of Zum Kroon, andwe were shown into bedrooms reached by an openwooden staircase from the courtyard, and quickly joinedthe table d'hôte, at which the magnates of the townwere seated with napkins well tucked up under theirchins, talking, with full mouths, in Dutch, of which to[4]our unaccustomed ears the words seemed all in onestring. Most excellent was the dinner—roast meatand pears, quantities of delicious vegetables cookedin different ways, piles of ripe mulberries and cake,and across the little garden, with its statues andbright flower-beds, we could see the red sails of thebarges going up and down the canals.

As soon as dinner was over, we sallied forth to seethe town, which impressed us more than any Dutchcity did afterwards, perhaps because it was the firstwe saw. The winding streets—one of them ending in

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