and Wafelen--America's master.

We travelled to Leyden from The Hague by the steam-tram, through
cheerful domestic surroundings, past little Englishy cottages and
gardens. It was Sunday morning, and the villagers of Voorburg and
Voorschoten and the other little places _en route_ were idle and gay.

In England light railways are a rarity; Holland is covered with
a net-work of them. The little trains rush along the roads all
over the country, while the roadside willows rock in their eddying
wake. To stand on the steam-tram footboard is one very good way to
see Holland. In England of course we can never have such conveniences,
England being a free country in which individual rights come first. But
Holland exists for the State, and such an idea as the depreciation or
ruin of property by running a tram line over it has never suggested
itself. It is true that when the new electric tramway between Amsterdam
and Haarlem was projected, the comic papers came to the defence of
outraged Nature; but they did not really mean it, as the æsthetic
minority in England would have meant it.

The steam-tram journeys are always interesting; and my advice to a
traveller in Holland is to make as much use of them as he can. This
is quite simple as their time-tables are included in the official
Reisgids. I like them at all times; but best perhaps when one has
to wait in the heart of some quiet village for the other tram to
come up. There is something very soothing and attractive in these
sudden cessations of noise and movement in the midst of a totally
strange community.

Leyden is a paradise of clean, quiet streets--a city of professors,