ROTTERDAM. 135 



During summer the Boomptie forms a favourite prome- 

 nade of the inhabitants ; the trees affording shade, while 

 the river very generally ensures a circulation of cool air. 

 For the benefit of our countrymen who, in visiting Rotter- 

 dam, may wish for the besl accommodation which the place 

 can afford, we may mention, that this is to be found in a 

 hotel called The Bath *, situated on this grand quay. The 

 principal merchants, it may be added, have their residences 

 here ; including several of our own countrymen who have 

 settled in Rotterdam ; and in a country like Holland, the 

 situation may be considered as beautiful : the houses front 

 the south, and the windows look out upon the Maese, here 

 a majestic river, with vessels of every size and description 

 frequently passing up and down ; the view of which is per- 

 haps enhanced by being partially intercepted by the row of 

 trees just described. 



Before leaving Rotterdam, we may notice, that the 



may be added the common ash (Fraxinus excelsior), and the Norway maple 

 (Acer platanoides), which fringes the Norwegian hills down to the margin of 

 the sea. 



* Here we learned that a very select party of our countrymen, con- 

 sisting, among others, of the late Lord Chief-Baron Dundas, then on his 

 way to the south of France, Sir William Rae, Baronet, (now Lord Advo- 

 cate of Scotland), Principal Haldane of St Andrew's, and Mr Stevenson, 

 civil-engineer, had recently spent some days at Rotterdam, but that they 

 had left that city about a week previous to our reaching it. A high- 

 ly interesting account of the excursion of this party, or of some members of 

 it, through North and South Holland to Antwerp, has since appeared in va- 

 rious numbers of the Scots Magazine (published by Messrs Constable & Co.) 

 for the years 1819 and 1820, under the title of Journal of a Visit to Holland, 

 &c The sketches of character in these letters are lively and just, and the pic- 

 tures of scenery remarkably correct. The description of the great sluices at 

 Catwyk is, we believe, the only account in the English language of these na- 

 tional works ; and as it is evidently from the pen of one versed in such un- 

 dertakings, we conclude that the whole of these letters may be ascribed to the 

 distinguished civil-engineer mentioned as forming one of the party. 



