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purple. Really, it was like fairyland · all now and then he came close up to my end color. Marken at the back, we on a great to watch me better, and then I had to clear field of open ice, land looming out make great appearances of revelling in only at one point on the horizon. For that the viands, for he was so interested and point we made, and without any stoppages kindly I had no heart to show him that I of any sort we laid ourselves out for a thought the bulk of his food was of about steady run. the sort to put in the swill-tub, and it was only by grasping my nose tight, and holding it so, that I could swallow certain of his mixtures. One evening he came up to me and mysteriously put before me a great paper form, which I discovered he wanted me to fill up. I thought at first it was for some local charity — a subscription list and I demurred. "No, no," I said, “take it away;" but he would not have it so. I grasped from him that the police would carry me off if I didn't sign it, and I at last mastered that it was a customary declaration that all inns have to make from time to time of those staying at their houses. I filled it in as best Ï could, but fear I put the answers into all sorts of wrong places; for I had to put my age. so he said- and how long I had been there, and why I was there, and where I came from, and what was my trade, etc., and I dabbed these bits of information down simply anywhere wherever there seemed to be room; so it is quite possible that it read I had been there thirty-five years, and that my age was ten days, and that my country was an artist, and that I had come there to be in England, and similar nonsense; but, anyhow, I heard no more of it, although I did notice that the police looked at me rather suspiciously. Breakfast was the most satisfactory meal; a neat little table, linen spotlessly clean; a tray with a quaint little metal box, which I found held the requisite dose of tea for my own consumption; a great brass pail full of lighted charcoal, with a snug copper kettle hissing away most sociably, was placed on the floor alongside my chair. Then there was some sort of fish, boned and rolled, and a dish of bits of meat floating about in syrup and plums. Fortified thus, I felt ready for anything, and had some grand skating. All about the ice here, just as round the larger towns of Rotterdam and Amsterdam, were sweepers at regular intervals, cap in hand, ready for the little copper coin (five for a penny), and never failing to give you back the regulation dankvmijheer. It is really owing to this prevalent custom throughout the country that making such trips as I am describing is possible, and it is a duty incumbent on every visitor to always have a pocketful of these little coins ready. The toll is a small one,

I had for some time been feeling rather uncomfortable in the instep of my right foot, and now I found the left also was chafed and sore, all because I had been foolhardy enough to do so much walking on my skates, in all between two and three miles. Walking on skates I found, then, does not pay; the time you may save in not having to take off and put on is more than lost, later on, by the strained condition your feet get into; further, though my blades did not suffer as much as I was forewarned they would, still they were certainly not improved. It was getting dark by this time; the sun had gone down; still we kept on, I the last of the four, and feeling awfully done, every stroke giving me a really nasty twinge; but it was no good saying a word, the punishment I felt I had earned. I had two bad falls, owing to not seeing cracks, and was heartily glad | when twinkling gas-lamps showed we were nearing Amsterdam. Needless to add, after a long day, having done between twenty-five and thirty miles, one sleeps like a top; the trouble was to keep awake. Oh, those terrible, tedious table d'hôte dinners! How they dragged along, course after course so many dishes that one didn't want, and so few of the sort one did! After a few days I decided that I would start for Alkmar, and, as my friends could not well leave Amsterdam, I went alone. Arrived at Alkmar, I found I had my work cut out for me; for the hotel I was directed to was of a primitive sort, the landlord did not speak English, no waiters glib of tongue, not a soul about the house who could translate for me, and it took me quite half an hour to explain I was dying of hunger and must have soup. I found I was the only person staying in the house. Whether this was usual or not I don't know, and it certainly was rather a dismal lookout after the cheerful society I had left behind me that morning. Then it was I discovered, as I have already told, what a fraud I was as a companion. Not a book in the place, not a paper! However, I soon got acclimatized, and learnt to relish the stillness and the solitary meals not quite solitary, for the landlord was his own waiter, and he paced up and down the end of the room, keeping an eye on me to see I ate enough. Every

and, though not decreed by law, should be as honored as if it were; for it is only where sweepers are properly encouraged that pleasant skating can be had. Whenever I found I was running short, I always pulled up at some wayside booth and got change. At these booths you get hot milk or cocoa, and little cakes which look like gingerbread, but which have no taste at all beyond a faint suspicion of having rubbed against a spice box when they were young (all the samples I came across were antiques, and somewhat soft and flabby), Sitting on benches, you usually found some two or three old men keeping the fur-capped proprietor company, for they pitch their tents in most lonely spots sometimes not a house within sight-and yet there will be the little canvas shelter, with a small flag floating above it, and you may be certain of finding a red-hot stove and boiling kettle. The whole company look at one curiously, and start by asking you some question in double Dutch. You shake your head. Then they continue their staring and look at your skates, and one or another is sure to say "Engleesh," at which they all nod and shrug their shoulders, and give you a pitying smile. Sometimes they flavor the hot milk with aniseed, sometimes with other unknown ingredients, which give it a peculiar, abiding taste; but, anyhow, it is always hot, and I enjoyed it, as one only can enjoy things when out in the keen open air and after hard exercise.

looking down through the ice at all this food with longing eyes, and two or three times I disturbed hard-working birds who were trying to pick and hack through the ice with their bills. As it was certainly a foot thick, I fear they never succeeded in gaining their prize; but I was astounded at the big holes they did make.

As is so often the case in skating, you do not notice that there is any wind at all when you are going in one direction; but turn back, and you find to your astonishment that you are facing quite a smart breeze. So it was on this occasion, and when I restarted I felt I had my work to do to get home. My way through the desolate bit of country I have described was very exposed, and I felt the full force of the wind most uncomfortably. No one who has not experienced it would believe the difference it makes (a bicyclist knows it well) whether the wind is with you or against you.

The wind, too, seemed to be bringing the water along with it, and I soon was fairly ploughing through the water. My feet felt quite dry, however, and I was congratulating myself I was making way better than I could have expected, when suddenly it dawned on me I was not on the same run I had come; and, sure enough, I had somehow or other gone wrong-where, I never could find out. To avoid the wind I had been skating very low, with my head down to the ice, and I can only suppose that, without noI made a run to Hoorn from Alkmar; ticing it, I took a wrong turning, or kept but there was a decided thaw on that day, straight on when I ought to have turned and, before I had gone far, the water was off. To make all worse, it now began to perceptibly on the ice; but I went on and get very misty and foggy, and down came reached my destination fairly easily. The the rain. I was about to retrace my steps last part of the track was through a dreary when I saw a man approaching me, gesflat-not a bush, nothing in shape of ticulating, arms in the air; and when he building or even windmill. Here, for got up to me I managed to grasp that he some two or three miles, I skated over the wished to tell me the water was coming. dead bodies of fish, who lay stomach up- (I presume, as I saw windmills at work, wards, killed from lack of air. Nearly that the authorities had settled the frost everywhere there are houses from time to was at an end, and that now they were time by the waterside, and holes are made, pumping the water on the ice to break it which are the fishes' salvation. They down, and so hasten the thaw and reopen crowd there for the life-giving air. The the waterways, which had been so disaspeople do not make these holes in the ice trously long frozen up.) "Vater, vater!" for the benefit of the fish, but for their he kept on repeating, and urged me to own use; for from them they get their turn back. Then I asked him if that way water for all domestic purposes; but they led to Alkmar. "Yes." "Then that's are so well known as being haunted by my way, water or no." He fairly caught the fish that often you will see a patient hold of my arm to stop me; but it was Dutchman sitting angling, and catching, getting so late and dark that I saw I must too, good baskets of fish. As there were make a push for it; so I left him standing no houses, however, here, there were no aghast and started off. Very soon the holes, and thousands of fish must have" swish, swish" of water came right over been killed. Here I saw hungry crows the toecap of my boot; then higher; then

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I felt my boots were full. I could see by | own. This is owing, no doubt, to both the ripples that the tide was coming down countries having so great a seaboard. But against me, and I felt very done; not a let me give an account of another day's house in sight, not a soul to be seen. On skate where there was not a single thorn I went, taking as long, slow strokes as I of any sort. could. Sometimes I got my blade into a We determined rather late one day to crack, which, being covered by the water, skate from Amsterdam to the Hague. I could not see to avoid, and it struck me, What settled us was finding that there if I should have a spill, I should be liter- was a good wind rising, which would be ally wet to the skin. Comfortable, this! at our back nearly all the way, and, walkAt last I saw a man on the bank ahead of ing past the central station westwards, we me, and hope came. Alkmar?" "Ja!" soon were on the canal that, practically Good, hope returned; then a few cottages; without a single stoppage, runs straight and it was just here that happened the last into Haarlem. On this stretch the wind straw that clinched the conviction in my was only three-quarters behind us, yet we mind that the low-class Dutchman is very went along at a great pace (it was on this low; for some three or four loutish men, same run that, some years before, when seeing me, shouted Dutch Billingsgate, I was one of a party with the late Mr. and, not satisfied with that, threw some Neville Goodman and Mr. Tebbutt, that great lumps of ice straight at me. I was phenomenal time was made entirely by reapowerless to do anything, as, if I had at- son of the wind being dead behind us), and tempted running up the bank to give them we did the ten or eleven miles without the what they deserved, I, having my skates least feeling that we had been for more on, should have ludicrously failed; so, than a mere stroll. But it was really disswallowing my rage, I went on. About a tressing to meet skaters in long strings, mile further I was done, and I had to give one behind another, toiling along, with it up. Feeling certain I could not now be heads bent down, fairly fighting every inch far from home, I determined to walk the of the way, whilst we were rushing by rest of the way; so I got to the bank, took them with such comparative ease. They, off my skates, and, with the water squeez- too, felt the cold more than we did going ing out of my boots at every step, set off with the wind, and men and women were at a sharp trot, and soon in the distance I piteously holding their ears with their could see lights here and there a town, gloved hands to shelter them from the anyhow, I thought and it turned out to biting cold. The ice was good right into be my goal. I met, coming out of the the town, and we skated under the bridge town, the very funniest little couple in a on which stands a magnificent old redcart, about the size of an ordinary child's brick gateway with drawbridge. It was mail-cart. It was drawn by two dogs, and so peculiarly picturesque that we longed came along at a great pace. Both occu- to sketch it. Crowds of picturesquely pants, a man and a woman, were wrapped dressed men and women were passing in in macintoshes, and the shining wet on and out; women, with white caps and red them as they sat with their knees crowded faces, with big baskets on arms or heads; up to their noses made them look like dogs harnessed to little carts were pullsome quaint marine creatures. I could ing their burdens along bravely; men in not have been more wet had I fallen; for, blouses, leaning over the bridge, made when I reached the inn, I found I had not merry at our expense as we just stopped a dry rag on me. Fortunately, I had a long enough to note it all and then on complete change with me and I would again. We were soon outside the town, strongly insist on the importance of every and rather glad as, whenever your road one who takes skating trips abroad always runs through a town, you always have the having an entire change, for you never ice broken and cracked, and, worse, covknow what will happen-and presently, ered with grit and dirt, which clings to when I had got into comfortable slippers your skate and trips you up in a way which, and sat down to my well-earned meal, quite when once experienced, makes you ever forgot the little troubles, and only revelled after dread that kind of fall almost more in the solid comforts of my cosy quarters. than any. Our course now was This was a sample of what one must ex-southerly, and we had the wind, which had pect in a skating trip. Thaws happen just grown almost to a gale, dead at our backs. as frequently in Holland as in England; What a pace we went at from this stage! indeed, on each of my four trips I have We literally tore along, far too quickly been struck with the many points of sim- to see anything properly. We hardly met ilarity that Dutch weather has with our a single person right into Leyden; so

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never should have such another. A good steak, coffee, and then a pipe, and once again we put on skates for our last bit of the journey to the Hague. About a mile outside we were ill-advised enough to fol

us a short cut, and we went along thinking it was a lovely short cut; but, from being a small canal at first, it gradually became smaller and smaller, and worse, the snow was not swept. Still we kept on. It went right through some great estate, and on the fields at the side we frequently saw hares and partridges; then it ran straight through a picturesque wood, and frightened pheasants flew noiselessly over our heads; then into open country again, where we saw nothing but an occasional grey crow. Here we encountered little bridges at every three or four hundred yards, and we had to get off the ice, as they were too low to skate under; and at last our waterway ran slap into a sort of farmyard, and we had to get off once for all. We were, however, now within comfortable walking distance of the Hague, which seemed to stand on higher ground than most of the towns, and bustling through the town, we were soon at the railway station.

utterly futile would skating against such a wind have been, that all forebore. Occasionally some Dutchman would rattle by us as we slowed up a bit simply to get our breath; but, for the most part, we had the whole twelve miles or more all to our-low the guidance of a man who pointed selves. The wind carried with it fine powdered snow, which enveloped us in a sort of thick cloud. Still the wind increased in force, till we found we went along even faster than we wanted, without taking a stroke at all. About this point the whole canal was, I found, swept clean, and we had not to keep to the regulation path. Small bits of reeds or broken bits of ice frozen on had to be avoided as best we could. As we were travelling so fast, there was not much time to put down the helm. At one stage I tried to stop myself, and really could not. The canal was not wide enough to take a big tack, and so come up in the wind, and we were going so awfully fast that, had I attempted to turn sharp, I should have been blown head over heels on to the bank. Fortunately, there were miles of clear ice in front; so away we tore, and gradually the worst fury of the storm abated. Now we came in sight of Leyden, and the canal opened into a large lagoon; and here we had the grandest climax of all, for we fairly sported with the wind. We sailed into it, we tacked, we ran this way and that, never giving a stroke, our legs rigidly together. The wind took us here, there, and everywhere in the most glorious fash-ting a thousand-fold more skating there ion. I had two or three spills, because than you could here. I should personally I would rashly experiment in steering, advise for outfit plenty of flannel underand tried running over and between all clothing, ordinary knickerbocker suit, a sorts of rough places. One spill I had pair of “Standard” running skates, Cadknocked me rather silly for a time, and man's "Go-ahead," and a complete change when I got up I had lost sight of my com-packed away in a medium sized bag that panions; so I suppose I must have lain for a minute or more. When I got up I found I had cut my hand and my knee; so, rather sobered, I gave up sailing and pegged away in the direction of the town, and caught up my friends, who had kindly drawn rein a bit. Together we started into Leyden, took off our skates, and all agreed without a dissentient that never had we had such a magnificent run, and, come what might in the future, we probably

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In conclusion, no one must go to Holland and expect to find Arctic weather whilst we are having a mild winter; but if, by chance, we get a real good bout of frost, you may safely go and be certain of get

is not too heavy for you to carry yourself. (The Great Eastern Railway grant skaters' tickets at reduced prices to bona fide skaters; and to prove this it is necessary to show some tangible proof - receipt of membership of the Skating Association, for instance.) Thus equipped, with a pleasant companion, I can promise that a most enjoyable holiday will reward all who take a skating trip in Holland.

C. W.

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