AN OVERDOSE OF PROSPERITY 23 



very funny is a small red lion (the arms of Leyden) in 

 bas-relief, rampant, within a fence which looks like a 

 punnet basket, ringing a blue bell for a big red lion 

 (in the round) with a sword to come to his assistance. 

 The motto is ' Hcec Libertatis Ergo.' Beneath this device 

 is the brick and stone archway of entrance ; the red 

 bricks are worn to the loveliest tones of purply-pink 

 with green lichen upon them. All about and around 

 are delightful ' bits ' turrets and quaint Dutch roofs set 

 in foliage. 



The inside of the hotel is pleasant with Dutch tiles 

 and old carvings in bosses and pendants, showing that 

 it was formerly a house of some consequence. The things 

 most modern about the place are the portraits of mine 

 host, before he lost his good looks, and his family. Life 

 here is essentially Dutch. Breakfast is laid with very 

 thin white porcelain. After the clumsy French crockery, 

 it feels like playing at dolls to be toying with these tiny 

 cups. The butter is squeezed into a pot ; one helps one- 

 self by scraping from the top. Rolls, rusks, raw hung- 

 beef, cheese, and gingerbread are supplied at discretion : 

 you can order what else you please. The numerous milk- 

 jugs are stood each in a basin, the coffee-pot on a lamp. 

 The napkins are of tissue-paper, as is usual in Holland. 



A short street leads hence past St. Pancras Church 

 to the bridge with covered colonnades, which is used as 

 a corn exchange, and the Breedestraat with the town hall, 

 half a street in length, built in the style of the sixteenth 

 century, with long inscriptions written above the flights 



