from the middle of the parapet a beam with cord and pulley to pull up baskets and buckets. In others, jutting from a round window, is the carved head of a deer, a sheep, or a goat. Under the head, a line of whitewashed stone or wood cuts the whole façade in half. Under this line there are two broad windows with projecting awnings of striped linen. Under these again, over the upper panes, a little green curtain. Below this green curtain two white ones, divided in the middle to show a suspended bird-cage or a basket of flowers. And below the basket or the cage, the lower panes are covered by a net-work of fine wire that prevents the passer-by from seeing into the room. Within, behind the netting, there stands a table covered with objects in porcelain, crystal, flowers, and toys of various kinds. Outside on the stone sill is a row of small flower-pots.

stone sill or from one side projects an iron stem curving upward, which sustains two small mirrors joined in the form of a book, movable, and surmounted by another, also movable, so that those inside the house can see, without being seen, everything that passes in the street.

On some of the houses there is a lamp projecting between the two windows, and below is the door of the house or a shop-door. If it is a shop, over the door there is the carved head of a Moor with his mouth wide open, or that of a Turk with a hideous grimace; sometimes there is an elephant or a goose; sometimes a horse's or a bull's head, a serpent, a half-moon, a wind-mill, or an arm extended, the hand holding some object of the kind sold in the shop. If it is the house-door-always kept closed-there is a brass plate with the name of the occupant, another with a slit for letters, another with the handle of a bell, the whole, including the locks and bolts, shining like gold. Before the door there is a small bridge of wood, because in many of the houses the ground-floor or basement is much lower than the street; and before the bridge two little stone columns surmounted by two balls; two more columns in front of these are united by iron chains, the large links of which are in the form of crosses, stars, and polygons; in the space between

the street and the house are pots of flowers; and at the windows of the ground-floor more flower-pots and curtains. In the more retired streets there are bird-cages on both sides of the windows, boxes full of green growing things, clothes hung out to air or dry, a thousand objects and colors, like a universal fair.

But without going out of the older town, one need only to go away from the center to see something new at every step.

In some narrow, straight streets one may see the end suddenly closed as if by a curtain concealing the view; but it disappears as it came, and is recognized as the sail of a vessel moving in a canal. In other streets a net-work of cordage seems to stop the way; the rigging of vessels lying in some basin. In one direction there is a draw-bridge raised, and looking like a gigantic swing provided for the diversion of the people who live in those preposterous houses; and in another there is a wind-mill, tall as a steeple and black as an antique tower, moving its arms like a monstrous firework. On every side, finally, among the houses, above the roofs, between the distant trees, are seen masts of vessels, flags, and sails and rigging, reminding us that we are surrounded by water, and that the city is a seaport.

Meantime, the shops were opened and the streets became full of people. There was great animation, but no hurry, the absence of which distinguishes the streets of Rotterdam from those of London, between which some travelers find great resemblance, especially in the color of the houses and the grave aspect of the inhabitants. White faces, pallid faces, faces the color of Parmesan cheese; light hair, very light hair, reddish, yellowish; broad, beardless visages, beards under the chin and around the neck; blue eyes, so light as to seem almost without a pupil; women stumpy, fat, rosy, slow, with white caps and earrings in the form of corkscrews-these are the first things one observes in the crowd.

But for the moment it was not the people that first stimulated my curiosity. I crossed the Hoog Street, and found

myself in the new city. Here it is impossible to say if it be port or city, if land or water predominate, if there are more ships than houses, or vice versâ.

Broad and long canals divide the city into so many islands, united by draw-bridges, turning bridges, and bridges of stone. On either side of every canal extends a street, flanked by trees on one side and houses on the other. All these canals are deep enough to float large vessels, and all are full of them from one end to the other, except a space in the middle left for passage in and out—an immense fleet imprisoned in a city.

When I arrived it was the busiest hour, so I planted myself upon the highest bridge over the principal crossing. From thence were visible four canals, four forests of ships, bordered by eight files of trees; the streets were crammed with people and merchandise; droves of cattle were crossing the bridges; bridges were rising in the air, or opening in the middle, to allow vessels to pass through, and were scarcely replaced or closed before they were inundated by a throng of people, carts and carriages; ships came and went in the canals, shining like models in a museum, and with the wives and children of the sailors on the decks; boats darted from vessel to vessel; the shops drove a busy trade; servant-women washed the walls and windows; and all this moving life was rendered more gay and cheerful by the reflections in the water, the green of the trees, the red of the houses, the tall wind-mills showing their dark tops and white sails against the azure of the sky, and still more by an air of quiet simplicity not seen in any other northern city.

I took observations of a Dutch vessel. Almost all the ships crowded in the canals of Rotterdam are built for the Rhine and Holland; they have one mast only, and are broad, stout, and variously colored like toy ships. The hull is generally of a bright grass-green, ornamented with a red or a white stripe, or sometimes several stripes, looking like a band of different-colored ribbons. The poop is usually gilded. The deck and mast are varnished and shining like the cleanest of house-floors. The outside of the hatches,

the buckets, the barrels, the yards, the planks, are all painted red, with white or blue stripes. The cabin where the sailors' families are is colored like a Chinese kiosk, and has its windows of clear glass, and its white muslin curtains tied up with knots of rose-colored ribbon. In every moment of spare time sailors, women, and children are busy washing, sweeping, polishing every part with infinite care and pains; and when their little vessel makes its exit from the port, all fresh and shining like a holiday-coach, they all stand on the poop and accept with dignity the mute compliments which they gather from the glances of the spectators along the canals.

From canal to canal, and from bridge to bridge, I finally reached the dike of the Boompjes upon the Maas, where boils and bubbles all the life of the great commercial city.

On the left extends a long row of small many-colored steamboats, which start every hour in the day for Dordrecht, Arnhem, Gonda, Schiedam, Brilla, Zealand, and continually send forth clouds of white smoke and the sound of their cheerful bells. To the right lie the large ships which make the voyage to various European ports, mingled with fine three-masted vessels bound for the East Indies, with names written in golden letters-Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Samarang -carrying the fancy to those distant and savage countries. like the echoes of distant voices. In front the Maas, covered with boats and barks, and the distant shore with a forest of beech-trees, wind-mills, and towers; and over all the unquiet sky, full of gleams of light and gloomy clouds, fleeting and changing in their constant movement, as if repeating the restless labor on the earth below.

EUROPE

WHIL

On the Road in Russia

By D. MACKENZIE WALLACE

THILST I was considering how I could get beyond the sphere of West European languages, a friend came to my assistance and suggested that I should go to his estate in the province of Novgorod, where I should find an intelligent, amiable parish priest, quite innocent of any linguistic acquirements. This proposal I at once adopted, and accordingly found myself one morning at a small station of the Moscow Railway, endeavoring to explain to a peasant in sheep's clothing that I wished to be conveyed to Ivánofka, the village where my future teacher lived. At that time I still spoke Russian in a very fragmentary and confused way-pretty much as Spanish cows are popularly supposed to speak French. My first remark therefore, being literally interpreted, was "Ivánofka. Horses. You can?" The point of interrogation was expressed by a simultaneous raising of the voice and the eyebrows.

"Ivánofka?" said the peasant, in an interrogatory tone of voice. In Russia, as in other countries, the peasantry when speaking with strangers like to repeat questions, apparently for the purpose of gaining time.

"Ivánofka," I replied.

"Now?''

Now!"

After some reflection the peasant nodded and said something which I did not understand, but which I assumed to