MAY 127 



cally (do not disregard the inscription within the 

 Custom - House Tobaksrygnin forbydes that is, 

 'Smoking is forbidden'); the officers seem positively 

 shocked at the nature of the duties imposed upon 

 them as they request the traveller to unlock one of his 

 many pieces. Then you are conducted with many 

 smiles and bows (for this is of all countries the home 

 of courtesy) to a truly luxurious railway car, and are 

 made to feel as you take your seat therein that you are 

 conferring unmerited honour upon the State which 

 owns and works the line. 



Have a care ! there is a shade of perfidy in this atten- 

 tion. If you are induced to seat yourself in the fore- 

 part of this amphibious train, you will have to leave it 

 at Vordingburg, some twenty miles further on, where 

 the hind part is run upon the steam ferry, to cross the 

 channel separating Laaland from Zeeland. However, 

 on this warm Sunday afternoon in May there is not 

 much hardship involved in the transfer, and waiting on 

 the far side is another carriage, every whit as comfort- 

 able as the one you are leaving. And so forward, 

 through a country neatly fenced with hedgerow timber, 

 reminding one of England; through beech forests in 

 exquisite new greenery, wherein groups of happy people 

 and children arrayed in Sunday best are strolling ; past 

 trim gardens surrounding comfortable farmhouses and 

 cottages with timbered walls. The landscape is fascinat- 

 ing as seen in the slanting rays, and the leisurely State 

 railway does not rush through it in the vulgar, com- 

 petitive way we are accustomed to in England. 



