written in 1622, describing some of the odd things to be seen at that
day in or about the Dutch city: "We went afterwards to the _Hague_,
where there are hard by, though in several places, two wonderful things
to be seen, the one of _Art_, the other of _Nature_; that of _Art_ is
a Waggon or Ship, or a monster mixt of both like the _Hippocentaure_
who was half man and half horse; this Engin hath wheels and sails that
will hold above twenty people, and goes with the wind, being drawn
or mov'd by nothing else, and will run, the wind being good, and the
sails hois'd up, above fifteen miles an hour upon the even hard sands:
they say this Invention was found out to entertain _Spinola_ when he
came thither to treat of the last Truce." Upon this wonder, which
I did not see, civilisation has now improved, the wind being but a
captious and untrustworthy servant compared with petrol or steam. None
the less there is still a very rapid wheeled ship at Zandvoort.

But the record of Howell's other wonder is visible still. He continues:
"That wonder of _Nature_ is a Church-monument, where an Earl and
a Lady are engraven with 365 children about them, which were all
delivered at one birth; they were half male, half female; the two
Basons in which they were Christened hang still in the Church, and the
Bishop's Name who did it; and the story of this Miracle, with the year
and the day of the month mentioned, which is not yet 200 years ago;
and the story is this: That the Countess walking about her door after
dinner, there came a Begger-woman with two Children upon her back to
beg alms, the Countess asking whether those children were her own,
she answer'd, she had them both at one birth, and by one Father, who
was her husband. The Countess would not only not give her any alms,
but reviled her bitterly, saying, it was impossible for one man to
get two children at once. The Begger-woman being thus provok'd with
ill words, and without alms, fell to imprecations, that it should