d no shade
of tedium to cross her smiling courteous face, although the display
of these ancient pictures and implements, ornaments and domestic
articles must have been her daily work for years. In the top room
of all is a curious piece of carved stone on which may be read these
inscriptions:--

This most illustrious Prince,
Henry Lord Darnley, King of Scotland,
Father to our Soveraigne Lord King James.
He died at the age of 21.

The most excellent Princesse Marie, Queen of Scotland,
Mother of our Soveraigne, Lord King James.
She died 1586, and entombed at West Minster.

It would be interesting to know more of this memorial.

In another room are two carved doors from a house in Hoorn that had
been disfurnished which give one a very vivid idea of the old good
taste of this people and the little palaces of grave art in which
they lived.

Thursday is Hoorn's market day, and it is important to be there then
if one would see the market carts of North Holland in abundance. We
had particularly good fortune since our Thursday was not only market
day but the Kermis too. I noticed that the principal attraction of
the fair, for boys, was the stalls (unknown at the Kermis both at
Middelburg and Leyden) on which a variety of flat cake was chopped
with a hatchet. The chopper, who I understand is entitled only to
what he can sever with one blow, often fails to get any.

Nieuwediep and The Helder, at the extreme north of Holland, are one,
and interesting only to those to whom naval works are interesting. For
they are the Portsmouth and Woolwich of the country. My memories of
these twin towns are not too agreeable, for when I was there in 1897
the voyage from Amsterdam by the North Holland canal had chilled me
through and through, and in 1904 it rained without ceasing. Nieuwediep
is all shipping and sailors, cadet schools and hospitals. The Helder
is a dull town, with the least attractive architecture I had seen,
cowering beneath a huge dyke but for which, one is assured, it would
lie at the bottom of the North Sea. Under rain it is a drearier town
than any I know; and ordinarily it is bleak and windy, saved only
by its kites, which are flown from the dyke and sail over the sea at
immense heights. Every boy has a kite--one more link between Holland
and China.

I climbed the lighthouse at The Helder just before the lamp was lit. It
was an