also is a friendly
unspoiled northern inn, where the bill of fare is arranged with a
nice thought to the requirements of the Free Frisian. I kept no note
of the meal, but I recollect the occurrence at one stage of plovers'
eggs (which the Dutch eat hot, dropping them into cold water for an
instant to ensure the easy removal of the shell), and at another,
some time later, of duckling with prunes.

The popularity of the name Doelen as a Dutch sign might have a word
of explanation. Doelen means target, or shooting saloon; and shooting
at the mark was a very common and useful recreation with the Dutch
in the sixteenth century. At first the shooting clubs met only to
shoot--as in the case of the arquebusiers in Rembrandt's "Night Watch,"
who are painted leaving their Doelen; later they became more social
and the accessories of sociability were added; and after a while
the accessories of sociability crowded out the shooting altogether,
and nothing but an inn with the name Doelen remained of what began
as a rifle gallery.

At Groningen, which is a large prosperous town, and the birthplace
both of Joseph Israels and H.W. Mesdag, cheese and dairy produce are
left behind. We are now in the grain country. Groningen is larger
than Leeuwarden--it has nearly seventy thousand inhabitants--and its
evening light seemed to me even more beautifully liquid. I sat for a
long time in a cafe overlooking the great square, feeding a very greedy
and impertinent terrier, and alternately watching an endless game of
billiards and the changing hue of the sky as day turned to night and
the clean white stars came out. In Holland one can sit very long in
cafes: I had dined and left a table of forty Dutchmen just settling
down to their wine, at six o'clock, with the whole evening before me.

Groningen takes very good care of itself. It has trams, excellent
shops and buildings, a crowded inland harbour, and a spreading park
where once were its fortifications. The mounds in this park were the
first hills I had seen since Laren. The church in the market square is
immense, with a high tower of bells that kept me awake, but had none of
the soothing charm of Long John at Middelburg, whose praises it will
soon be my privilege to sound. The only rich thing in the whitewashed
vastnesses of the church is the organ, built more than four hundred
years ago by Rudolph Agricola of this province. I did not hear it.

At Groningen Roman Catholic priests become notice