ON GETTING THERE 9 



the hearth swept and the children coming down 

 to tea. The whole town is intersected by canals, 

 the which, always busy and doing away with a good 

 deal of road traffic, may help to produce the quiet, 

 bright, yet active feeling. The houses, many of 

 them, are right on to the street, with windows low, 

 so that one can hardly help seeing in and having a 

 momentary and intimate glimpse of the lives of 

 the inhabitants. This may help to give the com- 

 fortable homely feeling it is hard to say, really 

 impossible to say, what produces and wherein lies 

 the spirit and atmosphere of a town. 



At Haarlem station it is customary for those 

 who have come in the bulb flowering time of 

 April and May to hire a carriage and go the route 

 prescribed by the driver ; thus, without leaving 

 their seats, seeing the gardens, and carrying away 

 the impression of a patchwork quilt of flowers. 

 An arrangement of foursquare bits of colour, 

 separated from each other by as yet scantily-leafed 

 hedges, and, here and there, intersected by pieces 

 of ground resting from bulb culture, and either 

 bare or green with vegetables, which, from sheer 

 exhaustion, if not contrariness, the eye is inclined 

 to prefer to the gorgeous flower patches. But 

 that is not the way to see the bulb gardens. It is 



