d crossed the bridge we drove along streets
brightly lighted and full of people, and reached another bridge, to
find ourselves between other rows of ships. So we went on for some
time, from bridge to street, from street to bridge. To increase the
confusion, there was everywhere an illumination such as I had never
seen before. There were lamps at the corners of the streets, lanterns
on the ships, beacons on the bridges, lights in the windows, and
smaller lights under the houses,--all of which were reflected by the
water. Suddenly the cab stopped in the midst of a crowd of people. I
put my head out of the window, and saw a bridge suspended in mid-air.
I asked what was the matter, and some one answered that a ship was
passing. In a moment we were again on our way, and I had a peep at a
tangle of canals crossing and recrossing each other, and of bridges
that seemed to form a large square full of masts and studded with
lights. Then, at last, we turned a corner and arrived at the hotel.

The first thing I did on entering my room was to examine it to see if
it sustained the great fame of Dutch cleanliness. It did indeed; and
this was the more to be admired in a hotel, almost always occupied by
a profane race, which has no reverence for what might be called in
Holland the worship of cleanliness. The linen was white as snow, the
windows were transparent as air, the furniture shone like crystal, the
walls were so clean that one could not have found a spot with a
microscope. Besides this, there was a basket for waste paper, a little
tablet on which to strike matches, a slab for cigar-ashes, a box for
cigar-stumps, a spittoon, a boot-jack, in short, there was absolutely
no excuse for soiling anything.

When I had surveyed my room, I spread the map of Rotterdam on the
table, and began to make my plans for the morrow.

It is a singular fact that the large towns of Holland have remarkably
regular forms, although they were built on unstable land and with
great difficulty. Amsterdam is a semicircle, the Hague is a square,
Rotterdam an equilateral triangle. The base of the triangle is an
immense dyke, protecting the town from the Meuse, and known as the
Boompjes, which in Dutch means little trees,--the name being derived
from a row of elms that were planted when the embankment was built,
and are now grown to a great size. Another large dyke, dividing the
city into two almost equal parts, forms a second bulwark against the
inundations