D J &4G Class Book. My. CopyrigfaS?__ COPYRIGHT DEPOSrT. HOLLAND AS SEEN BY AN AMERICAN Holland as Seen by an American. BY James H. Gore, Ph.D. Professor of Mathematics and Geodesy in Columbian University, Washington, D. C. Published by the Holland-America Line, New York. ' THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Two Copies Raceived MAY 12 1903 Copyngnt fcntry CUSS &- XXc. No. COPY B. ' Copyright, 1903, by the HOLLAND-AMERICA LINE, I AMSTERDAM CENTRAL STATION. " T AM told, sir, that you are going to travel, and that you begin by Holland," wrote Lord Chesterfield, in the first of his charm- ing "Letters to His Son." He evidently approved of his son's intention to enter the Continent of Europe through this natural gateway, and suc- ceeding generations have placed their stamp of approval upon this beginning for the " Grand Tour" by gladly following it. For purely practical" reasons, Holland is the ideal starting point for a thorough visit of Europe ; it is almost the very centre of gravity of the Con- tinent, its railroads reach out in all directions to starting carry the tourist into adjacent or far-away lands, P oint and the natural desire to see again its many charms can be gratified by the necessary return for em- barcation on the home-bound steamer. In thinking of such a trip, ghosts of the long ago come unbidden before the mind of the trav- eler. Flitting by he sees young Oliver Goldsmith, knowing nothing of Dutch, but bent on teaching the Dutch English, returning from his fruitless efforts penniless, with a flute as his capital and but little more as his baggage. Then comes Gib- bon, as yet a youth, back from his tour, the "Fall and Decline" unthought of, hurrying, as he says with regret, through Holland — that "monument of freedom and industry." Close behind is Sir Joshua Reynolds, atsonishing the Netherlanders with his ear-trumpet, and writing home delighted to Burke: "The face of the country is unlike any- thing else; the length and straightness of the arti- ficial roads, often with double rows of trees which finish in a point; the perseverance of their indus- try and labor to form these dykes and preserve them in such perfect repair, is an idea that must Ghosts of the long ago occur to every mind and is truly sublime." After him is Smollett, in the guise of his hero, Peregrine Pickle, who distinguishes himself at Rotterdam by getting upset and nearly drowned with his Dutch friends, who are discovered, when landed, still smoking their pipes. Then later shades pass before the traveler. The frail figure of Tom Hood, hurrying to Cob- lentz in search of health, turning his suffering into drolleries and punning on his own pains. John Quincy Adams follows: the youth who at thirteen was a student at the University of Ley- den and at fourteen was secretary of the legation at St. Petersburg; and just behind him is Wash- ington Irving, his quick eye and polished pen noting his " Tales of a Traveler," and at the same time gathering the inspiration for his " Knicker- bocker's History." Then, foremost in the trav- eler's memory and esteem, the creator of Colonel Newcome. Thackeray's genial nature is warmed by the delightful newness of Holland, and his heart's feelings find expression when he says: "I feel a Dutchman is a man and a brother." For a time Holland seems to have been for- gotten, and the tourist did not realize that as much retirement and as many novelties are found on the shores of the Zuyder Zee as on the Sea of Galilee. When the Netherlanders were spoken of, there came the vision of the Batavia of Csesar, that admixture of land and water, quaking mor- asses on every side, with the oozy soil only here and there thrown high enough to give a foothold to the ROTTERDAM: DELFT GATE, f) scsfrtt and hardy popula tion. Out of this waste of water and almost floating soil — ROTTERDAM. THE OLD MILL. "A land that rides at anchor, Ml* / and is moor'd, In which they do not live, but go aboard," a noble people has created the fertile and pro- a noble ductive home of a compact and prosperous com- people monwealth; has defended it in long and ferocious contests with the mightiest powers of Europe, and stands to-day the proudest example that our race has to show of conquest by patient and un- flinching toil and devotion, over the combined opposition of nature and man. There is an injunction against building on the sand, but in Holland every house has to be built on the sand, and a whole coast-line is held together by ropes of sand cemented in place by the roots of unpretentious reed grass. By means of wind- mills, the air is made to pay toll, and by its power the seeping water is pumped from where it is not wanted into channels where it is permitted to run. The trees grow and the rivers flow, just as they are wanted. Air, earth and water are under control, and the result is — Holland. It is a region of paradoxes, in itself an anomaly, Land of and physical geography can scarcely admit its paradoxes existence. Its history is a subversion of the laws of nature, and all of its successes have been won by a perpetual struggle with the elements. The ocean has said to the Hollanders, "You shall have no land here." The Hollanders said to the ocean, "We will have a country here;" and they had one in spite of water, winds and waves. Holland, more than any region under the sun, illustrates the power of industry and perseverance. Combat with nature Struggle for freedom One never combats nature with abstractions. In Holland man is inevitably kept face to face with realities by the watchful care which his very existence demands and the material obstacles which must be conquered at every step. Patriot- ism never becomes dormant because the land shows in its scars its own history, and love for home glows at the reckoning of the cost of its retention. We saw this little nation, almost imperceptible on the map of the world during the sixteenth century, build dykes and contest with the sea for supremacy. In their struggle against Spain they preferred to treat with the sea than with the Duke of Alva; and when no longer able to cope with a superior force, they cut the dykes and flooded provinces, preferring to drown themselves with the land of their creation than to live upon soil outraged by the feet of foreign foes. Here was the center of the great struggle for freedom, both religious and political, won with difficulty for Europe, and at the cost of horrible sufferings to the inhabitants of these industrious well-doing cities. Here arose ingrained leaders, if ever any existed, who gave up prosperity so dear to them for the sake of what to some seem only mere abstract questions; here women and children helped in fighting the good fight, both exhorting their mankind not to yield, and themselves fight- ing on the ramparts. Here William the Silent, Barneveldt, De Witt, Prince Maurice, and William III revolved their great schemes of European policy and moved the strings that moved the world. ROTTKHDAM MILLS ON THE BOB8EM, 8 In most countries wealth begets idleness. In Holland never. A little crevice in the dyke, un- noticed for a few hours might permit the devasta- tion of a district, and even with the most watchful care, the possessions of one day are no guarantee of the wealth of the next. When one community is rejoicing over its Dutch traits escape from inundation, the people near by may be counting up their losses in life and property; thus one sympathizes with the other; the possi- bility of a coming misfortune — which is a part of every Dutchman's to-morrow — makes everyone generous, and the hundreds of charitable institu- tions in Holland prove that this generosity assumes tangible form. "Have no fear for Amsterdam," said Louis XIV, "I firmly believe Providence will save her because of her benevolence to the poor." In this fragmentary country, broken into parts by lakes, and cut into pieces by rivers and canals, interest centred around localized systems of hydraulics. Thus one community was a unit in those vital matters of sustenance and self-preser- vation, and its people naturally felt a greater allegiance to the local government than to a cen- tralized power. Then, the libert}^ of the village led to the liberty of the individual. Under such conditions an empire could never have come into existence; with such an origin the United Netherlands are indissoluble. m i -J .L- w SAWMILLS. 12 HOME OF THE PILGRIMS. The mariner's compass is the invention of a Hoi- Dutch lander. Jansen, a spectacle maker of Middelburg, inven ors invented the telescope. The thermometer was introduced into Northern Europe by a Dutch physician; the first newspaper printed in Europe was in Dutch; and Leeuwenhoek was the founder of microscopy. It was while a soldier at Breda that Descartes became interested in mathematics, the science to which he afterward made so many valuable contributions. Huyghens brought glory not only to his native country, but to all of Europe. Boer- have became so famous that a letter addressed by a Chinese mandarin to "Boerhave, physician of Europe," promptly reached him. With Holland will remain forever in the field of typography, the incontestable glory of the Elzevirs, and the honor of having printed the works of almost all the great writers of the age of Louis XIV; of having diffused throughout Europe the French philosophy of the eighteenth century; and of having gath- ered up, defended, and propagated human thought when proscribed by despotism and denied by fear. The lovers of art must go to Holland, for the Dutch art Dutch painters are supreme, and there is reason to believe that a painting by Hobbema or by Rembrandt will find admirers when "Correggio and stun" will be disregarded. The gorgeous acres of canvases covered by Rubens, the mag- nificent Rembrandts, the little jewels of color by 13 Terburg, Wouermans, Gerard Dow, Ostade, Mieris, and Both; the wondrous portraits where Van der Heist, Frank Hals, and Yandyck represented their men and women; the landscapes at which Ruys- dael, Hobbema, Cuyp, P. Potter, and Berghem labored so industriously, all fill us with wonder KOTTERDAM: STATUE OF ERASMUS. Picturesque houses at the quantity as well as the quality of their beautiful work. There is not a gallery in Europe, public or private, of any renown, which does not contain many specimens of each of the good Dutch masters. Nothing can be more picturesque than the infinite variety of queer gables and pediments, the scrolls and windows in the canal streets. For hundreds of years whole streets of tall houses in the old cities have nodded their heads so near together that their jutting griffins and gorgons have almost lapped each other's grim jaws; but there they grin just as fierce to view and just as harmless to touch as centuries ago. Holland. indeed, is like a cabinet picture by one of its native artists — so wonderfully exact, highly finished, and thoroughly worked up in every thing. The clean, well-sembled Dutch houses them- selves are not better kept and tended, for that matter, than is all out-of-doors in Holland. One would think the rain that fell from Heaven was soap and water, and that once a week the farms u race were swept and dusted for Sunday. Even the little bushes seem to have grown afraid to stir when a breeze came to play with them, lest they should rumple their leaves, and be called untidy. The Dutch, though a sturdy race, have ever A sturdy found their greatest comfort within doors, driven thither by their treacherous climate, and the outcome has been, not only the adornment and beautifying of the interior and the objects of domestic use, but the foundation of a distinctive school of art which has immortalized this ten- dency. It is no wonder that school finds its greatest mas painters of interiors, for no able or artistic houses ever Likewise, in this fact, may the impulse that expressed the rich porcelains, the carved cabinets and the massive paneled doors. In the long, still, winter twilight many a plow handle has been lovingly decorated with a ram's horn the Dutch ters in the more paint- existed, be found itself in heavy MIDDELBURO: CITY HALl* 15 The Rhineland spiral to serve the double purpose of grip and ornament. The churndasher ending in a rude, though charmingly cut, Holland lion, done over the dull glow of a turf fire, is much more beautiful than a steam churn, no matter how much red paint or impossible cows a hasty manufacturer has stenciled upon it. The longings, if not inspiration, of an artist come over one as he roams over the region around about Leyden, where a thousand years ago the sea dammed the mouth of the Old Rhine with sand and the whole tract between Leyden and Katwyk was changed ^^*m into a feverish swamp. The ^^k site of this swamp, still lo- J cally called the Rhineland, is now a smiling land of gardens and sound mead- ow. Through it, what remains of the Old Rhine runs between banks set for miles with blazing beds of hyacinths and scarlet tulips, till it \ M- IKIIDWI enters the desert region of the sand dunes. Here the Dutch have cut through the hills and once more given to the river its ancient exit to the sea, barred by double sluices of granite and steel. The tulip beds creep on by the river-side into the dunes, the scarlet patches divided by mounds of sedge- ISLAXD OF MARKEX HOUSE INTERIOR. covered sand, on which the Rhineland fishermen's nets are laid to dry, and the Rhineland fisher- children sail their models of the flat-bottomed fishing boats Over these sunny flats, chequered with broad cloud shadows, the son of a Ley den miller has strolled, note book in hand, and his quick brown eye and ready pencil have noted all the landscape's changing moods. It has altered but little since young Van Ryn, immortal as Rembrandt, studied Van Ryn hereabouts, and the traveler can see from the Rembrandt railway carriage the spot by the Leyden ramparts where he lived close beside his father's mill. The life here left an impression upon the receptive artist and showed itself in his work until crowded out by a girl's face: first a young face archly smiling; then as Queen of the Fairies; later in rich dresses and jewels; and later still, as a matron by her husband's side. It is Saskia von Ulen- burgh, the painter's wife. It has been said that Rembrandt's style is emblematical of his life, which alternates from the full flood-light of hap- piness to deep shadow and gloom. The year of 1692 is marked with the strongest light and shadow; "the artist's greatest triumph, the man's greatest loss." He painted the " Night Watch " — 17 Coloring and light Rigorous climate Amsterdam's pride and greatest treasure — and his fame was brightest; the shadow fell, and he fol- lowed his girl wife to the tomb. If you wish to know the source of their artist's skill in coloring and light, go and study Dutch scenery, especially in North Holland, and you will soon discover how the landscape painters learned to deal with the sky and to reproduce its many dints in their works. They simply copied with consummate skill what they saw before them. Become familiar with the history of the sixteenth century, the fresh, vigorous, free life of the United Provinces as they threw off the yoke of Spain, and you will understand how, almost at a bound, Dutch portraits and landscape paintings reached the zenith. The rigorous climate allowed but a brief time for the admiration of nature, and for this reason the Dutch artists gave to her an admiration all the more intense. When spring at last broke through the icy bands of winter, she was hailed with a lively joy, and, knowing that her sojourn would be short, her many moods and phases, whims and fancies were duly noted. The rare smiles of summer made burning impressions, and the bright days of autumn, reminders of past glories and harbingers of the dreariness ahead, took possession of the painter's memory. Then, when the landscape artist began to paint, the flat, monotonous country took on a marvelous variety, all of the mutations of the sky clamored for ex- pression, and the water with its reflections, its PARK IN THE SAM 18 grace and freshness illuminated everything. Hav- ing no mountains, a dyke became a background; deprived of forests, a simple group of trees took on all the mystery of a forest; and white sails and beautiful cows animated the whole. In Holland/tire light, by reason of the peculiar The light conditions of its manifes the manner of painting, striving to transfuse an impregnated with vapor, nebulous veil of rents Light and shadow supremacy, and the seeking to represent gle, transferred it to soul ; then, in creating, elements became con tations, influenced A pale light, atmosphere becomes a and shreds. struggle for artist, the strug- h i s o w n the t w o t e n t i o u s leyden: zeil gate. under his hand. "He accumulated darkness that he might split and seam it with all manner of lumi- nous effects and sudden gleams of light ; sunbeams darted through the rifts; sunset reflections and the yellow rays of lamplight were blended with delicate manipulations into mysterious shadows, and their dim depths were peopled with half-seen forms." In yet another field are the Dutch painters The sea great — the sea. The sea, their enemy, their power and their glory, forever threatening their coun- try, and entering in a hundred ways into their lives and fortunes; that turbulent North Sea, full of sinister colors, with a light of infinite melan- choly upon it, beating forever upon a desolate 19 Realism and detail Political example coast, which it obstinately demands, must subju- gate the imagination of the artist. Realism, natural to the calmness and slowness of the Dutch character, was to give to their art still another distinctive feature — finish. Patience, so palpably a national trait, can be plainly seen in their pictures. Everything is represented with the minuteness of a photograph; every vein in the wood of a piece of furniture; every fibre in a leaf, the threads of cloth, the stitches in a patch, every hair upon an animal's coat, every wrinkle in a man's face — all finished with microscopic precision, as if done with a fairy pencil, or at the expense of the painter's eyes and reason. If the lovers of art should visit Holland to be- come possessed of those inspirations which found expression in the world's masterpieces, still more incumbent is such a pilgrimage upon all w T ho are in sympathy with free thought and religious and political liberty. We, in common with the people of modern Europe, are indebted to Holland for lessons in the true purposes of civil government. It gave to America the example of a country struggling for liberty, and showed our people that even by the horrors of war the highest principles can be vindicated. It taught Europe everything else. It instructed the farmers of the world in systematic agriculture. It gave to navigation its greatest impulse, made voyages of discovery popular, and founded rational commerce. IAANDAM LANDSCAPE. 20 FISHING ON THE CANAL. Its learned scholars enriched the world's thought, its physi- cians and physicists extended the bound- aries of knowledge, and from its banks and counting-houses came the soundest principles of finance and economics. In short, there was a time when this little plot of v s land held within its boundaries precepts and examples for the civilized world. In Holland, international law, or the rights of Inter-^ nations, was for the first time placed on a recog- law nized foundation. When not engaged in strug- gling for their own rights, they were enabling others to live in the full enjoyment of theirs. Thus the Jews, despised because of their thrift, robbed because they were wealthy, and persecuted be- cause they held fast to the rites and traditions of their fathers, found an asylum among the Dutch. The Jansenists when expelled from France found in Utrecht homes and the unneeded, unexpressed permission to speak their views openly. 21 »-_^ W*-» ^A v lift- • delft: east gate. Historical cities Revival of learning Locke wrote his " Essay on the Human Under- standing," while a fugitive, driven from Oxford and declared a " plotter against the life of King James and the peace of the nation." When Shaftesbury was obliged to leave England, he made Holland his home, as did many others, who escaped, by so doing, a home within the dis- mal Tower. Nearly every city in Holland finds its name on at least one page of the world's history : thus Dort entertained the famous synod which adjusted the religious differences between the Calvinists, the Lutherans, and the Arminians. At Ryswyk, was signed in 1697, the treaty that made peace between England, France, Germany, Holland and Spain; and sixteen years later Utrecht witnessed a similar ceremony enacted by the representatives of Eng- land, Holland, Germany and Savoy. This coun- try, small as it is, has been sought in allegiance by every great European power except Russia, and in every instance the allies have learned lessons that have been beneficial — honesty, if nothing more. Leyden, in recognition of her heroism in withstanding the Spanish siege for one hundred and thirty-one days, was given the choice between exemption from certain taxes, or a uni- versity. She wisely chose the latter, and thousands have been blessed by her wise choosing. The history of the revival of learning and the unfolding of science 1 , i- written in a large measure in the annals of the university at Leyden. Preach- ers and professors, banished from their own coun- tries on account of their religious faiths, received grants to sustain them in their distress and to help them to continue their work. It was here that Boerhave instituted the modern system of clinical instruction in medicine. His theory of the balance of humors in the system, translated into more exact scientific phrase in the light of modern re- search, has a clear and definite meaning. Engi- neering, so important to the Dutch, received its greatest impulse in the founding here, in 1590, the first school of engineering. It is pleasant to linger about the Town Hall J^en^ here, and to fraternize with the gaily painted stone lions who have for three hundred years done duty as watchful guardians. They looked down on Oliver Goldsmith; on the youthful Philip Stanhope, receiving and sometimes reading Lord Chesterfield's letters; on the studious Boswell, .netting Johnson's kindly advice and counsel; mi Evelyn, deep in botany, and Adams, deep in linguistics; all of whom attended with more or less attention the lectures of Leyden's great pro- fessors. These are only a few of Holland's claims for a part of the tourist's time, but if they have been GBON1NGKN : MARKET PLACE. 23 ort: city hall on a canal street. Lord Bacon's warning put forth with anything like the attractiveness they deserve, the reader will by this time be ready to resolve to visit this charming land at the earliest possible date. I have spent three entire summers in Holland, and shall not neglect a single oppor- tunity to go there again, and if I can induce you to come aboard the good ship Rotterdam, and journey across the sea to spend weeks rather than clays, or clays instead of hours, in the country which the "Dutch have taken/' I shall be able to count one more who is under obligations to me. To travel in Holland, it is unnecessary to heed the warning of Lord Bacon, that one who went to a country before he made himself acquainted with the language, went to school and not to travel. Any man with ordinary intelligence will be able to find his way anywhere, and be under no appre- hension of being cheated because of his ignorance. There is no place in Europe where the American will feel so much at home as in Holland. It is, therefore, the country first to be visited and the last which one should leave. The Dutch mind is quite like the American in its methods of thought There is the same intensity of feeling on all relig- ious questions, the same revolting at oppressive 24 restrictions, and the same keen, practical genius. There is no field of human enterprise in which Cause of their success has not been, at one time or another, success notable. At the bottom of it all, apparently at the bottom of the character on which their success has been founded, we find their traditional jealousy of every acre of water which covers good land. If a lake is to be drained, they sit quietly down and count the cost, the time, and the interest that time will add to the cost, and then devise the most effective means; this done, the undertaking pro- ceeds with the regularity and persistence of the work of ants. As a people they hold stubbornly to their an- cient customs; preserving almost intact, and despite the neighborhood of three great nations, their own individuality, and remaining, of all the northern races, that one which, though ever ad- vancing in the path of civilization, has kept its antique stamp most clearly. In approaching Holland, one sees a long, narrow Approach to ribbon of a picture with its little dots and spots and splashes of color here and there, more method- ical than accidental, and somewhat like the pat- tern on a roll of wall paper. By looking through a glass, these dots of various shapes and sizes resolve themselves into windmills, cows, sheep, churches and steeples, and little red-tiled houses with green or blue shutters and chimney crowned LEEUWARDEN MARKET PLAC«. 25 UTRECHT: MAKKET PLACE. with storks' nests. We swing gently around into the artificial mouth of the Maas, past the "Hook," and in a short time we are within the Hollow- land. The first question is one of surprise. "Is this the boasted river that circles through a part of France, forces its way across Belgium, and gives to Rotterdam its importance as a port?" It is and yet it is not. The rivers While listening to the explanation that follows, you will learn something of Dutch skill and deter- mination. The tendency of the rivers of Holland, because of the slight fall they have, is to drop sediment, especially at their mouths. The sea has resisted this encroachment, causing the rivers to spread out into numerous branches so that no channel retains, unaided, the depth demanded by the larger vessels. The Maas lacked a safe channel, so the Dutch en gineers cut an artificial way from Rotter R5 dam, and by con- trolling the flow DOG CART. 2G of water through it and by incessant dredging, the requisite depth is maintained. The filling up of the channel in spite of this constant struggle necessitates the raising of the banks, and thus you glide along on water that is higher than the land about. "Do these banks ever break?" "Yes, sometimes." "What happens to the people?" "They are usually prepared for such an emer- People gency and make good their escape. Otherwise p r epj^ ed they are drowned." "And yet people do sleep in this country?" said Diderot. Just within the "Hook" the custom officials come on board and go through the pleasant farce of examining your baggage, which has been placed on deck. The inspection is soon over, and the li-k alkmaar: main thoroughfare. cabalistic marks on each parcel is your formal welcome to Holland. Newspapers are brought on, and you recall how more than a week has passed since you saw a daily. For once you do not want the morning paper, for it is "all Dutch to you." The banks slope gradually, and are protected at the very edge by willow w r attles. In front of these, in the water, grows a narrow belt of luxur- iant rushes. As the following wave of a steamer sweeps the shore, these rushes bend before it and make a solid thatch over which the wave rolls without abrasion, and as it passes they resume their upright position ready for the next attack. PH VINAGE (ANA I. Busy This comes soon, for this busy thoroughfare is water-ways a }j ve ^vvith passenger-boats, tugs, square-rigged vessels, canal boats, and all manner of craft. One is struck by the number and variety of the boats one meets — apparently floating houses, for the women are on board, together with the dogs and the children. Women, or boys, beginning with a basket, or with two baskets and a neck yoke, to dis- tribute vegetables or fish in the villages, economize until they are able to own a dog and cart, or a boat, and con- sider themselves well-to-do for this life. A family rich enough to possess a boat sufficiently roomy for their joint exist- ence, and that of a few tons of cargo, follow the business of freighting wherever change of season calls for change of route, but always continue "at home" in their migratory habita- tion. W h e n tied u p a t some wharf, acquaint- ances are formed and visits made which are returned sometimes in a distant city when the owners' boats may again be bumping against one another. TOWN li ILL. 28 The nautical expert will smile at the flat-bot- Dutch tomed boats which look as though a hatful of oats wind would endanger their safety, and so broad as to warrant the belief that they would not answer the helm. But they are strong and steady and can be sailed to a compass-point. A Dutch bargee is never idle as long as there is anything left to polish. The vessels are clean and shiny, the people clean and neat, the women wear the whitest of caps over their silver ornaments; there are pots of flowers, and even miniature gardens, in the tiny windows and on the decks, and there is a charming air of comfort and independent con- tentment about the vessel. As we sail along, we see on the banks, threading River in and out, the ever-moving kaleidoscope of form scener y and color. Resting in clumps of trees are the villas of the wealthy Rotterdamers, each with its name painted on gable or over the gateway. Every now and then, in the distance, the sail of a ship glides by, and, being in a canal invisible from that distance, it seems to be skimming over the grass of the meadows, appearing and disap- pearing behind the trees. "Every inch of the " well-larded earth" is under the most loving and elaborate cultivation. Small wonder that the farm houses look pictures of home contentment; that the porches and arbors are overrun with vine and flowers; that the great brass door knockers and the gilded weather-cocks fill the sunshine with tinges of glinting gold. But here we are at Delftshaven, the port from which the Plymouth pilgrims set sail, and now vou must take 1 / i pilot you in out guide-book scheveningen: dutch boats. 29 HOLLAND-AMERICA LINE TWIN-SCREW STEAMER ENTERING THE MA AS. HOW TO REACH THE ART-CENTERS OF HOLLAND. THE most direct and most convenient route from New York to Holland is via the Holland- America Line. The steamers of this line leave every Wednesday from their docks, foot of Fifth Street, Hoboken, N. J., and touching at Boulogne-sur-Mer for the landing of passengers to France and England, proceed direct to Rotterdam where passengers will arrive from ten to twelve hours later. The present fleet for the regular mail and pas- senger service between New York and Rotterdam consists of the following new twin-screw steamers : NOORDAM, RYNDAM, POTSDAM, STATENDAM, ROTTERDAM. These twin-screw steamers are of enormous ton- nage ; they are all provided with bilge keels and arc luxuriously appointed ; they afford all possible comfort for passengers, and embody in their i struction the latest improvements which tend to make a sea voyage a pleasure trip. 30 Illustrated hand-book and all other information about passage is promptly forwarded upon applica- tion to the general passenger offices of the Holland- America Line : New York City, 39 Broadway, Chicago, 111., 69 Dearborn Street, Boston, Mass., 115 State St., cor Broad St., St. Louis, Mo., cor. Locust and 9th Streets, San Francisco, Cal., 30 Montgomery Street, Minneapolis, Minn., 121 South Third Street, New Orleans, La., 219 St. Charles Street, Toronto, Canada, 40 Toronto Street, Montreal, Canada, 178 St. James Street, or to local agents. HOLLAND-AMERICA LINE TWIN SCREW STEAMER ARRIVING AT NEW YORK. 31 LBJ, LB J' .'05