part the streets and the cafés are the great attraction. Each town has
one street above all others which is frequented in this way. At The
Hague it is the Lange Pooten, running into Spui Straat; at Amsterdam
it is Kalverstraat.

Dutch shops are not very interesting, and the book-shops in
particular are a disappointment. This is because it is not a reading
people. The newspapers are sound and practical before all things:
business before pleasure is their motto; and native literature is
not fostered. Publishers who bring out new Dutch books usually do
so on the old subscription plan. But the book-shops testify to the
popularity of translations from other nations and also of foreign
books in the original. The latest French and German fiction is always
obtainable. Among translations from the English in 1904 I noticed a
considerable number of copies of the Sherlock Holmes tales and also of
two or three of Miss Corelli's works. These for adults; for boys the
reading _par excellence_ was a serial romance, in weekly or monthly
parts, entitled "De Wilsons en de Ring des Doods of het Spoor van
pen Diamenten". The Wilsons, I gather, have been having a great run
in Holland. A lurid scene in Maiden Lane was on the cover. Another
story which seemed to be popular had the engaging title "Beleaguered
by Jaguars".

The Hague is very proud of the Bosch--the great wood to the east
of the city, with a few deer and many tall and unpollarded trees,
where one may walk and ride or drive very pleasantly.

The Bosch has no restaurant within its boundaries. I mention this in
order to save the reader the mortification of being conducted by a
polite but firm waiter back to the gates of the pavilion in which he