great danger that
he would run into us, as he was like a steamer with only one
side-wheel and no rudder. He came up puffing and blowing, and
offered to show us Shakespeare's tomb. Shade of the past, to be
accompanied to thy resting-place by such an object! But he fastened
himself on us, and jerked and hitched along in his 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 a