thin
doors; in Rotterdam at the corresponding hour it overflows into the
street. A dense crowd passes through the Hoog-Straat until late at
night. The shops are open, for then the servants make their purchases
and the coffee-houses are crowded. The Dutch coffee-houses are of a
peculiar shape. They usually consist of one long saloon, divided in
the middle by a green curtain, which is drawn at night, like the
curtain of a theatre, hiding all the back part of the room. This part
only is lighted. The front part, separated from the street by a large
window, remains in the dark, so that from the outside one can see
only dim forms and the glowing ends of cigars, which look like
fire-flies, and among these shadowy forms appears the uncertain
profile of some woman, to whom light would be unwelcome.

After the coffee-houses, the tobacco-shops attract the attention, not
only in Rotterdam, but in all other Dutch cities. There is one at
almost every step, and they are beyond comparison the finest in
Europe, not excepting even the great Havana tobacco-stores in Madrid.
The cigars are kept in wooden boxes, on each of which is a printed
portrait of the king or queen or of some illustrious Dutch citizen.
These boxes are arranged in the high shop-windows in a thousand
architectural styles,--in towers, steeples, temples, winding
staircases, beginning on the floor and reaching almost to the ceiling.
In these shops, which are resplendent with lights like the stores of
Paris, one may find cigars of every shape and flavor. The courteous
tobacconist puts one's purchase into a special tissue-paper envelope
after he has cut off the end of one of the cigars with a machine made
for the purpose.

The Dutch shops are brilliantly illuminated, and, although in
themselves they do not differ materially from stores of other large
European cities, they present at night a very unusual appearance,
because of the contrast between the ground floor and the upper part of
the house. Below, all is glass, light, color, and splendor; above,
the gloomy facades with their steep sharp lines, steps, and curves.
The upper part of the house is plain, dark, and silent--in a word,
ancient Holland; the ground floor is the new life--fashion, luxury,
and elegance. Moreover, the houses are all very narrow, so the shops
occupy the whole ground floor, and are generally so close together
that they touch each other. Consequently at night, in streets like
Hoog-Straat, one sees v