barrels were green and white, and marvellous landscapes were painted ca the ends. There was a neat raised cabin at the stern, gaily ornamented in green and yellow, with little white-curtained, flower decked windows, through which one caught glimpses of a spotless dolls'-house interior, with shining pots and pans and quaint shapes of blue and brown earthen vessels. Of course all the items of household life-cooking, washing, the baby's toilet, and so on-were performed in the most open and unconcerned manner on deck.

The river Yssel from Rotterdam to Gouda is somewhat tame and uninteresting. The chief impression was that everything was slowly gliding-ourselves, the craft we met or passed, the high banks, and the farmers' chariots (the word cart conveys no idea of the quaint shapes of these vehicles), and the hazy clouds which made the day so soft and silvery. A stork's nest in a tall tree, with the old birds and young perched upon it, was the first excitement, and then we noticed many storks and herons in the bays which, between breakwaters, are numerous. Many of these bays are utilised for setting the fishermen's nets. In others, men were digging up the deposited mud which supplies the material to the many brickyards along the river. In these yards are made the clinkers or narrow bricks with which so many of the streets and roads of Holland are paved, a neat and cleanly method, only available in a land where the heavy traffic goes by water.

It was afternoon when we arrived at Gouda, and casting loose from the steamer, we had to pole the yacht through the lock and into the narrow town canals. In these we made nearly the entire circuit of the town in company

with many other craft. It was a slow progress, as there were a score of bridges which had to be opened. Only two vessels were allowed to pass through each time, and then the bridge would be shut to allow the passengers to cross.

At length we reached the main canal, and moored under a grove of trees in front of some little shops, with jalks before. behind, and outside of us. The canal looked doubly dirty, as they always do in the towns; but there was no perceptible smell, and we saw a boy lie down on his stomach, part the floating filth with his hands, and drink heartily. come up with two buckets, one of which, filled with slops, they would empty into the canal, and the other they would fill with water for household use.

Women would

Nearly every street in Gouda had a canal down it, and in this respect and the general quaintness of its tree-shaded houses, I should call Gouda one of the most thoroughly typical towns in Holland. In its vast plain church we saw a tailor plying his trade, the halfmade clothes spread out over the pews. He was probably the sacristan of the church also. Enkhuisen church we saw a baby's perambulator, and clothes hung out to dry. Of course the Dutchman does not take off his hat when he walks about an empty church, nor does he cease smoking.

In

At Gouda, as everywhere in Holland, we noticed the perfect whiteness of the linen of the poorest people. est people. The little children playing in the street had on the whitest of stockings and pinafores even at the close of the day. The extreme softness of the water in the canals makes it easy to wash with a moderate amount of elbow

grease. The formal blue wiregauze blinds in every front sitting

room window, of cxactly the same pattern; the heavily handsome, shining front doors, ornamented with scroll-work; the formal rows of flat-branched and close-trimmed trees, between the houses and the canal; the deep shade, and the extreme dislike to admitting sunlight into the houses; the heavy lace-edged blinds, never more than half drawn up; the glimpses through the windows of trim teatables, with tiny paraffin - lamps glowing under tea-urns; the outdoor mirrors set at an angle outside the windows, to show the curious frouw within who comes along the street, and also reflecting her own face to the passer-by,-all and every one of these characteristics of Dutch towns were noted during our evening walk in Gouda.

But on this evening, as on every cvening during our cruise, we felt sleepy at ten o'clock; and the deep delicious sleep of the yachtsman on quiet waters was too rudely broken at four the next morning, when a steam-tug took us in tow in company with four other craft bound to Amsterdam by Overtoom, the direct trading-route, but one which, for reasons to be presently seen, yachtsmen should avoid.

Early as it was, busir ess on the canal had all begun. We moved very slowly round the sharp curves of the canal out of Gouda, and at no time went faster than a man's quick walk. Thus it was easy for the numerous pedlar boats to hitch alongside the craft and sell their bread, cheese, butter, milk, and vegetables, being towed a mile or two in the process. were fairly successful with limited Dutch in asking them the names of places. "Who ate dat?" sounds niggerish, but is the proper way of pronouncing (not of spelling) "What place is that?" If

We

our

one man only replied we understood, and could spot the place on the map; but generally three or four would shout out the name together, and then the result was confusing, being double Dutch with a vengeance. We glided

dreamily along the broad canal passing Boskoop; a collection of brightly coloured dolls'-houses on both sides of the canal, with wellkept gardens, smart summer-houses with complacent mottoes, as "Ons Genoegen," "Our Delight." The women's washing-tubs amused us. They are sunk in the canal at the foot of each garden, and have a ledge around. In these the housewife may stand dry foot, though up to her matronly waist in water, and wash her clothes in the canal without stooping.

There was ever the same stream of passing craft, sailing, and towed by steamers, horses, and by dogs. Of course it is a common sight to see small carts drawn along the streets and roads by dogs; but it looked outlandish to see dogs marching gravely along the canal-banks towing the small boats laden with green milk-pails, or red cheeses, or flowers and vegetables. This mode of towing was, however, generally confined to the smaller side-canals. The dogs look well fed and happy, doing their work willingly and cheerfully, and distinctly proud of their equipage, and jealous of other dog-carts.

We took a sharp turn through the sluice at Gouwsluis, and shortly reached the very quaintest of canal-side villages-Alphen-with a stork's nest on a chimney-top, the bird on one leg calmly surveying the busy scene below as the vessels glided through the bridge, with groups of waiting passengers on each side.

From Alphen our long proces

sion went peacefully along until of a sudden we entered the large lake known as Brassemmer Meer, which was calm and placid. with low reedy shores fading on either hand. It was about two miles across it, and took us a very agreeable half-hour. At the other side we entered a little village, the canal being the street thereof. as usual, and the houses close to the water's-edge. Our route now lay along the border of the great Polder, which took the place of the renowned Haarlem Meer, a polder being the low meadows intersected with dykes, which were once the bed of a lake, but have been drained, and now form the very greenest and most fertile of marshes. As far as the eye could reach stretched the perfectly flat meadows straightly cut, with numberless gleaming dykes, instead of the sea where once naval battles were fought between Dutch and Spaniard The level was some twelve feet below the surrounding canal on which we were sailing, and into which by a series of easy steps, from dyke to little canal, and little canal to big canal, the water was pumped by wind and steam mills. Holland is largely made out of such polders.

On our right was a very large lake, on which the title of Haarlem Meer has descended. It has openings into the canal, and had many small crafts sailing on it.

This particular route was new to all of us. Haarlem was on our left, and the river Amstel on our right, and Overtoom in front of

where it could be seen for the crowd of vessels upon it, and smelling vilely.

Our steamer had cast us off and gone ahead, and for more than an hour we had to pole through a crowd of barges, all struggling to enter a lock, into which at last we got.

Through the lock our steamer took us in tow again, along the most awful sewer, with chemical works, scavengers' heaps, manurefactories, and unnameable abominations on its banks-the lighter in front of us, being deeply laden, churning up the pestilential mud from the bottom. We shut the wife down below with a bottle of eau-de-Cologne in front of her, and we held our breath and wondered where we were going to. We ought of course to have taken the route by the Amstel or by Haarlem.

Matters improved by-and-by, and we reached a basin hard by the railway bridge, where the steamer cast us off for good, and we presently poled to a dock communicating with the Y. As the wind lay we should have to beat out of the dock through a narrow opening into the river, and a host of longshore loafers gathered round and offered to pilot us to Amsterdam (which was just around the corner so to speak), coolly demanding from ten to thirty shillings for the service, and prophesying our destruction if we ventured without them. Quickly hoisting our sails and making a few inquiries as to the depth of water from a customs officer who had boarded us, we set sail, and at the third tack were standing for the entrance, while a large East India steamer conting up the river was also making for it. Seeing that we should meet in the entrance, and as sails have pride of place over steam irrespec

tive of size. she shut off steam. and we held on our course. A boat load of pilots had followed us, and seeing what they thought was our predicament cried, "What do you think of it now? Won't you take a pilot now?" receiving a reply in forcible if not polite English. We judged our distance accurately, and slid out between the bow of the steamer and the jetty, with at least six feet to spare on either side.

It was a treat to be on the fresh and sparkling Y after the horrors of Overtoom, and bowling gaily along we soon reached the littl piers jutting out from the quay near the station, and were moored and stowed, and with dinner under way, and a group of the curiously dressed Marken people, who had come from a schuyt close by, surveying us. On this old world island on the Zuyder Zee, close as it is to Amsterdam, the people wear a costume which is comically picturesque.

The streets of Amsterdam are delightful, with their curious and variegated gables, and the angles at which the houses lean, supported as they are more by each other than by their rotting pile-foundations driven into peaty mud. From the enthralling (to womankind) shops in the Niewendijk and Kaalverstraat to the odds and ends of the Jews' quarter, there is a picture at every step; but most of all do I like the Y itself, that broad river which was once an arm of the Zuyder Zee, but is now cut off from it by immense sluices. Fresh and breezy and wide, it is a kaleidoscope of craft, from the great East India steamers and ocean-going ships which have come by the deep ship-canal from the new haven at Ymuiden, to the schuyts from the Zuyder Zee, long lighters from the Rhine, and tjalks and barges of many kinds fron

the inland canals. The small craft sail through rapidly opening bridges among the queer gables along the town canal, and other craft are disgorged as it were out of the houses, and scatter upon the Y.

Yachting is a pastime growing more into favour with the Dutch, especially within the last two years. Their pleasure - craft are of two kinds: the flat-bottomed boiejer, with its bluff bows and great lee-boards, simply a dandified model of the usual tjalk, most solidly built of varnished oak, clumsy to look at, but really fast in sailing, particularly in running before the wind; and the beamy centre-board yacht, of American model, of which there are many at Amsterdam. All the yachts are kept up with the utmost care, the ironwork not galvanised but kept bright polished, and the brasswork and varnish dazzling to behold. The internal arrangements are also remarkably neat and good.

Then, as a relief from the admiration of the craft, we can go to the Rijks Museum, one of the finest in Europe, and never tire of the pictures. Let whosoever goes there be sure not to miss the part known as the Netherlands Museum, where there are natural size models of peasant homes, with family groups, life-size, of the inhabitants. Zeeland, Friesland, Walcheren, Hindeloopen are all eproduced with startling fidelity.

One fine morning we ran across the Y, under foresail only, to the locks at the entrance of the North Holland Canal, and through these we hoisted all sail and ran quickly along the canal before a light fair wind.

The North Holland Canal was the great highway for ships from the sea at Nieuwediep until the

shorter canal from Ymuiden to

Amsterdam took away all the heavy traffic. Now only the country craft and small steamers navigate it, and it is comparatively deserted, but it is broad and deep and kept in perfect order. The villages and houses on the banks are all of one type, the houses square with pyramidal roofs of great height, partly thatched and partly tiled in ornamental patterns, the tiles so highly glazed as to shine as if varnished. The land

being lower than the canal, frequently only the roofs of the farm houses were visible above the banks; but, where walls wer visible, we saw hanging on them rows of milk-pails, some of copper bright scoured outside, but painted red or green inside, and sometimes of gaily painted wood. The houses were gaily painted also, with green gables pricked out with white or yellow. Around each square farmhouse was a square plot, with generally a square of trees in rows, and a square of green weed-covered dyke. A little bridge crossing the dyke would have a gaily ornamented gate across it, by its size and decoration indicating the owner's wealth or taste. The paths up to the house were often painted with patterns and borders, and very commonly the trunks of the trees up to the height of six feet from the ground were painted, chiefly blue, but sometimes red or brown. The shorn sheep tethered to the banks, and with canvas jackets on to replace the warm wool; the black-and-white cattle in the meadows, many of these hav. ing canvas coats on also; the numerous windmills, revolving the opposite way to English windmills; the brilliant green of the grass, silver of the dykes, and sheen of flowers in the sunshine,—all gave food for remark as we slipped quietly along.

When we reached Purmerend, where there are locks, the wind had shifted to the westward, and, as the canal takes a sudden turn in that direction, we could not sail any further, but we arranged with a man and horse to tow us as far as Molenbuurt, where the canal again turns to the northward. Our steed went at a jogtrot, with the man sitting sideways on its back, and took us along faster than a man could walk. When we met other craft also towing, one or the other, according to the rule of the road and the side on which the tow-path might be, stopped his horse and let the tow-line slack, so that the meeting horse and vessel might pass over.

This was in all cases very skilfully done just at the right moment.

The country on the right was chiefly polders, taking the place of the great Beemster Lake and others. On the left was a large mere, called Langemeer. At Molenbuurt our towman cast us off, receiving three guelders, about 6d. a-mile, for his services. We hoisted all sail, but it fell calm, and we had to employ another

man to tow us.

At Alkmaar we moored under a pleasant grove of trees in a small park, and were soon besieged by the usual inquisitive crowd: the boys were rather troublesome, but the grown-up people were exceedingly civil, and apparently were much impressed by the Prince of Wales' feathers which, as the badge of our club, appeared upon our caps and flag. They were all much interested to find that a lady war on board such a little boat.

The weigh-house at Alkmaar is a well-known subject for a sketch; and the market on a fair-day is a sight, crammed as it is with piles of cheeses, brought by the craft