But with all its past grandeur, the old city is best known to us Americans through the chimes from its belfry tower, and we were some of Longfellow's pilgrims. We drove into the great paved Place under the shadow of the belfry tower when its shadows were growing long, and watched the stragglers across the square--women in queer black-hooded cloaks; chubby little blue-eyed maidens with school-books in hand; a party of tourists; and last, but by no means least, the ubiquitous American girl, with an immense bow on the back of her dress, and her eye fixed steadily upon the milliner's shop just visible around the corner. Almost three hundred feet the dingy brick tower rose above us, with low wings on either side, where were once the halls of some guilds, in the days when the tower was a lookout to warn of coming foes,--when the square was planned for defence. In a little court-yard, gained by passing under its arch, we watched and listened, until at last the sweet tinkle of the silver-toned bells broke the hush of waiting--so far away, so heavenly, we held our breath, lest we should lose the sound that fell
"Like the psalms from some old cloister when the nuns sing in the choir, And the great bell tolled among them like the chanting of a friar."
We came back to Antwerp that night, tired, but triumphant, feeling as though we had read a page from an old book, or sung a strain from an old song.
Up the Meuse to Rotterdam.--Dutch sights and ways.--The pretty milk-carriers.--The tea-gardens.--Preparations for the Sabbath.--An English chapel.--"The Lord's barn."--From Rotterdam to the Hague.--The queen's "House in the Wood."--Pictures in private drawing-rooms.--The bazaar.--An evening in a Dutch tea-garden.--Amsterdam to a stranger.--The "sights."--The Jews' quarter.--The family whose home was upon the canals.--Out of the city.--The pilgrims.
AT nine o'clock, the next morning, we left Antwerp for Rotterdam. Two hours by rail brought us to a place with an unpronounceable name, ending in "djk," where we were to take a steamer. How delightful, after the dust and heat of the railway carriage, were the two hours that followed! The day was charming, the passengers numerous, but scattered about the clean, white deck, picturesquely, upon the little camp stools, drinking brandy and water as a preventive to what seemed impossible, eating fruit, reading, chatting, or pleased, like ourselves, with the panorama before their eyes. In and out of the intricate passages to the sea we steamed, the land and water all around us level as a floor; the only sign of life the slow-revolving arms of the windmills, near and far, with here and there a solitary mansion shut in by tall trees; or, as we wound in and out among the islands fringed with green rushes, and waving grasses that fairly came out into the water to meet us, and sailed up the Meuse, the odd Dutch villages that had turned their backs to the river, though their feet were still in the water over which hung rude wooden balconies, or still ruder bay-windows, filled with pots of flowers. This monotonous stretch of sea and land might grow tiresome after a while, but there was something peculiarly restful in that sail up the wide mouth of the river, beckoned on by the solemn arms of the windmills.