side-wheel
fashion. We declined his help. He paddled on, twisting himself into
knots, and grinning in the most friendly manner. We told him to begone.
"I am," said he, wrenching himself into a new contortion, "I am what
showed Artemus Ward round Stratford." This information he repeated again
and again, as if we could not resist him after we had comprehended that.
We shook him off; but when we returned at sundown across the fields,
from a visit to Anne Hathaway's cottage, we met the sidewheeler
cheerfully towing along a large party, upon whom he had fastened.

The people of Amsterdam are only less queer than their houses. The
men dress in a solid, old-fashioned way. Every one wears the straight,
high-crowned silk hat that went out with us years ago, and the cut of
clothing of even the most buckish young fellows is behind the times.
I stepped into the Exchange, an immense interior, that will hold five
thousand people, where the stock-gamblers meet twice a day. It was very
different from the terrible excitement and noise of the Paris Bourse.
There were three or four thousand brokers there, yet there was very
little noise and no confusion. No stocks were called, and there was no
central ring for bidding, as at the Bourse and the New York Gold Room;
but they quietly bought and sold. Some of the leading firms had desks
or tables at the side, and there awaited orders. Everything was
phlegmatically and decorously done.

In the streets one still sees peasant women in native costume. There was
a group to-day that I saw by the river, evidently just crossed over from
North Holland. They wore short dresses, with the upper skirt looped up,
and had broad hips and big waists. On the head was a cap with a fall of
lace behind; across the back of the head a broad band of silver (or tin)
three inches broad, which terminated in front and just above the ears in
bright pieces of metal about two inches square, like a horse's blinders,
Only flaring more from the head; across the forehead and just above
the eyes a gilt band, embossed; on the temples two plaits of hair in
circular coils; and on top of all a straw hat, like an old-fashioned
bonnet stuck on hindside before. Spiral coils of brass wire, coming to a
point in front, are also worn on each side of the head by many. Whether
they are for ornament or defense, I could not determine.

Water is brought into the city now from Haarlem, and introduced into the
best houses; but it is still sold