students and soldiers. It has, I think, the prettiest red roofs in
any considerable Dutch town: not prettier than Veere's, but Veere
is now only a village. Philosophers surely live here: book-worms to
whom yesterday, to-day and to-morrow are one. The sense of commercial
enterprise dies away: whatever they are at Amsterdam, the Dutch at
Leyden cease to be a nation of shopkeepers.

It was holiday time when I was there last, and the town was
comparatively empty. No songs floated through the windows of the
clubs. In talk with a stranger at one of the cafés, I learned that
the Dutch student works harder in the holidays than in term. In term
he is a social and imbibing creature; but when the vacation comes and
he returns to a home to which most of the allurements which an English
boy would value are wanting, he applies himself to his books. I give
the statement as I heard it.

One of the pleasantest buildings in Leyden is the Meermansburg--a
spreading almshouse in the Oude Vest, surrounding a square garden
with a massive pump in the midst. A few pictures are shown in the
Governors' room over the entrance, but greater interest attaches
to the little domiciles for the pensioners of the Meerman trust. A
friendly concierge with a wooden leg showed us one of these compact
houses--a sitting-room with a bed-cupboard in one wall, and below it
a little larder, like the cabin of a ship. At the back a tiny range,
and above, a garret. One could be very comfortable in such quarters.

Leyden has other _hofjes_, as these homes of rest are called, into
one of which, gay with geraniums, I peeped--a little court of clean
cottages seen through the doorway like a Peter de Hooch.