in the distance.

Dordrecht's converging facades, which incline towards each other
like deaf people, are, I am told, the result not of age and sinking
foundations, but of design. When they were built, very many years ago,
the city had a law directing that its roofs should so far project
beyond the perpendicular as to shed their water into the gutter, thus
enabling the passers-by on the pavement to walk unharmed. I cannot
give chapter or verse for this comfortable theory; which of course
preceded the ingenious Jonas Hanway's invention of the umbrella. In a
small and very imperfect degree the enactment anticipates the covered
city of Mr. H.G. Wells's vision. A Dutch friend to whom I put the
point tells me that more probably the preservation of bricks and
mural carvings was intended, the dryness of the wayfarer being quite
secondary or unforeseen.

Dort's greatest artist was Albert Cuyp, born in 1605. His body
lies in the church of the Augustines in the same city, where he
died in 1691--true to the Dutch painters' quiet gift of living and
dying in their birthplaces. Cuyp has been called the Dutch Claude,
but it is not a good description. He was more human, more simple,
than Claude. The symbol for him is a scene of cows; but he had great
versatility, and painted horses to perfection. I have also seen good
portraits from his busy brush. Faithful to his native town, he painted
many pictures of Dort. We have two in the National Gallery. I have
reproduced opposite page 30 his beautiful quiet view of the town in
the Ryks Museum. Dort has changed but little since then; the schooner
would now be a steamer--that is almost all. The reproduction can
give no adequate suggestion of Cuyp's gift of diffusing golden light,
his most precious possession.