SECRETARY'S REPORT. 315 



Passing Lcydcn, the scat of the well known univ-crsity, we 

 soon come to the home of the Dutch aristocracy, the beautiful 

 Hague, and skirt along near the king's park and palace 

 grounds. Then comes Delft, with its quaint old pottery, and 

 Schiedam, with its innumerable wind-mills, built for the distil- 

 leries, and we are landed in Rotterdam. The whole extent 

 from Amsterdam to Rotterdam is one vast meadow, with here 

 and there a town on tlie way, and the people quaint, clean, and 

 not altogether uninteresting. 



Rotterdam is also a city of broad canals and innumerable 

 bridges. Every thing about it, except the hotels, is as clean as 

 if it were scrubbed every morning with soap and water. In 

 the market square stands a statue of Erasmus. The house in 

 which he was born is still standing here. This city, the second 

 in the kingdom, is in the province of South Holland, situated 

 very prettily on the river Maas, nearly twenty miles from its 

 mouth. We arrived in this curious old city in the midst of a 

 great fair, and had every opportunity to see the customs and 

 the sports of the Dutch. I am sorry I cannot dwell longer 

 upon them, but we must be off for Belgium. 



We had but little time to stop at Antwerp, a fact that I much 

 regretted, as there is scarcely a place in Europe so rich in 

 splendid churches adorned with more wonderful works of art. 

 Here Rubens, and Vandyke, and other great masters of the Dutch 

 school, left some of their best productions to add to the glory 

 and fame of their native city. The winding and crooked 

 streets, the quaint old houses rising up five or six, often seven, 

 stories, with the most remarkable and grotesque combinations 

 of architecture, tapering at the top to a pinnacle, with their 

 fronts ornamented with rich tracery ; but above all, the grand 

 works of art, the great original of the Descent from the Cross, 

 the grand master-piece of Rubens, are worthy of a careful and 

 minute inspection. The country, for most of the way to 

 Brussels, was carefully cultivated and very productive. 



As we approach Brussels, we see near the road the old palace 

 of Lackcn, where Napoleon planned the campaign of Russia 

 and signed the declaration of war against the Czar. Here, 

 also, he enjoyed the fascinating society of Maria Louisa, the 

 successor of the amiable and unfortunate Josephine. 



