has become blind and deaf. Blind to the
hapless mooner, who may chance, at that
instant, to be deep in his Complete Guide to
the City and surrounding parts; deaf to the
shriek of anguish and unchecked malediction,
that follows on the receipt of water down the
back, and utter wreck of travelling apparel.

Looking upward, I find that every house
has a housetop decoration of its own,
pyramid-shaped, being scooped away as it were
on both sides, and finished off handsomely
with scroll-work, griffins, and such decoration.
Oftentimes a stone ribbon, or garter,
meanders across, exhibiting the date of
erection, in most instances Anno Domini sixteen
hundred and eighty-nine, or thereabouts, and
every tenement is furnished in this region
with a door opening into a magazine, or store,
and fitted with projecting block and pulley
for hoisting up heavy burdens. Every dwelling
has, therefore, a sort of warehouse
complexion. By aid of this pulley every object
of bulk makes entry. By it, the piano is
swung aloft, and got in cleverly at the drawing-
room window; by it, unmanageable trunks
and such gear are lifted with infinite ease to
regions beneath the shadow of the
chimney-pots.

This chimney-pot dispensation is, in itself,
a marvellous feature. Never, during the
whole period of my sojourn, was I weary of
admiring the prodigious fertility of shape
displayed in those important instruments of
ventilation. Chimney-pots they were not,
strictly speaking; but, mainly square wooden
tubes, like the pedal-pipes of an organ,
stretching in every direction and at all
angles with a wildness of purpose truly
mystifying. There were chimneys of the camp-
stool order, of the star-fish pattern, and very
many copied unmistakeably from the arms of
the Isle of Man dependency, as may be
gathered from its copper tokens. Now, they
struggled like the sails of a windmill; now,
grew out from a boss like the feelers of Polypi.
They were a great mystery, those chimneys.
Wherefore those tortuous shapes, that
spasmodic tossing of arms, which to one
casting his eyes down the perspective of the
street, seem to belong to legions of doomed
souls, struggling painfully in their pool of
fire, as depicted in those frightful Last
Judgment pieces of the old masters? Perhaps
to Hollanders the wind is as impracticable
as their old enemy, the ocean; and has
to be courted and kept in humour with all
manner of twists and fancies, which do duty
as aërial dykes and sluices.

Going down this Kalvat Straat, I find that
every house is a house of trade: which is only
to be expected. Many cafés are there, all
after—a long way after, that is—the French
model—spurious lacquered attempts, which
leave only painful impressions. Truly
dispiriting was it to note their little seats and
little tables squeezed in between the lowest
window and the street—a span no wider
than the door-step—where folk would come
later, and make affectation of sitting and
sipping coffee after the French fashion,—
exactly as they do in Paris, you will be told;
comme on fait à Paris explains the hulking
Dutch elegant, with a sham shrug. I used
to compassionate these poor martyrs to bon
ton, as they sat wedged together, with knees
bent to one side angularly, from straightness
of their position. I see that one of these
places of entertainment, much in favour, is
entitled Het Poolische Coffijhuis, and is
conveniently situated next door to a kantoor or
warehouse, where tabak, snuif, and sigaren
are dispensed. These snuif and tabak
kantoors abound plenteously, as is only to be
expected, and may be always known, even to
such as run and cannot read, by a fine effigy
of a stark man, very much after the antique,
with a club and epigraph, "De Wilde Man."
And wherefore not De Wilde Man? With
us, gentlemen of North Britain, in the scant
but picturesque garb of their country, are
chosen, in effigy, for like duty. And the
noble salvage man may have about as much,
if not more, significance. Hard by, stands a
drug kantoor, with a peculiar sign for itself
—a huge Moor's head, whose mouth is ever
wide open, and whose whole expression is
a horrid leer. Gapers are these heads
appropriately styled, abounding in the city to
a nauseous extent. Where'er I roam,
whatever streets I see, I am pretty sure to meet
one of these monsters ogling me from his
high elevation; a marvel truly of this city.
Second only to that other chimney-pot
marvel, is the strange and horrible variety in
the features—an eternal grinning through
horse-collar for premiums. I am credibly
informed that there are geniuses in this walk
of art—fellows of infinite skill and talent in
devising frightful twists and revolting leers
—mute inglorious Matsys, as it were, and
capable of yet higher things. One
surprising head, attached to an establishment
over the way, and labelled De Gekroonde
Gaper, which may perhaps signify gaper
of gapers, or gaper par excellence, I take
a secret pleasure of likening to the great
Domenichino Death of Saint Jerome, to
the printed copies of which it has an
extraordinary resemblance; and whenever I
shall be privileged with view of that excellent
masterpiece, I have no doubt that I
shall be observed to turn away in most
irreverent laughter, bethinking me of
Gekroonde Gaper.

There are not many abroad at this hour;
so there is very easy walking in the streets.
I am pursuing steadily the windings of Dutch
Holywell Street, when I am constrained to
step aside and let a strange unintelligible
construction—put together in defiance of all
known Long Acre principles—go by. I step
aside, and stare stupidly after vehicle, horse,
and driver; for the driver, he walks along at the
side, not from any notion of being merciful to