ception
and arrangement were admirable, his drawing carefully done, and his
coloring harmonious and masterly.

Rubens, the prince of Flemish painters, was knighted. He was handsome and
amiable, and his celebrity as an artist procured for him the friendship
and patronage of princes and men of distinction throughout Europe.

Not far from the cathedral the young artists came to the museum, in
front of which rises a statue to Van Dyck, pupil of Rubens. "Here,
Alfonso," said Leo, "is encouragement for you, for Van Dyck like yourself
was the son of a wealthy man or merchant of Antwerp. He was educated in
Italy, where he executed several fine portraits which I saw in Genoa as
I journeyed to Paris." Charles I. of England appointed Van Dyck
court-painter and knighted him. Van Dyck's ambition was to excel in
historical works, but the demand upon him for portraits never left him
much leisure for other subjects. How often "man proposes, but God
disposes."

Alfonso and Leo reached Dort or Dordrecht, which in the middle ages was
the most powerful and wealthy commercial city in Holland. Huge rafts
float down from the German forests, and at Dordrecht the logs are sawed
by the many windmills. The Dutch province of Zealand is formed by nine
large islands on the coast of the North Sea, and it has for its heraldic
emblem a swimming lion with a motto _Luctor et Emergo_.

Most of the province, which is created by the alluvial deposits of the
Scheldt, is below the sea-level, and is protected against the
encroachments of the sea by vast embankments of an aggregate length of
300 miles. Willows are planted along the dykes, the annual repairs of
which cost $425,000. An old proverb says, "God made the land, we Dutch
made the sea."

This fertile soil produces abundant crops of wheat and other grain. Near
Dort is a vast reed-forest, covering more than 100 islands, which is also
called, "Verdronken land," drowned land. This area of forty square miles,
once a smiling agricultural tract, was totally inundated on the 18th of
November, 1421. Seventy-two thriving market towns and villages were
destroyed, and 100,000 persons perished. Leo made a sketch of the tower
of Huis Merwede, the solitary and only relic of this desolate scene.

The two artists visited Rotterdam, the second commercial city in Holland,
which is fourteen miles from the North Sea and on the right bank of the
Maas. An attractive quay a mile in length is the arriving and starting
po