with its walls covered with ivy, and a number of niches holding little statues, busts, and urns.  I look in at a third door:  here is another patio, with its walls worked in mosaics, a palm in the centre, and a mass of flowers all around.  I stop at a fourth door:  after the patio there is another vestibule, after this a second patio, in which one sees other statues, columns, and fountains.  All these rooms and gardens are so neat and clean that one could pass his hand over the walls and on the ground without leaving a trace; and they are fresh, odorous, and lighted by an uncertain light, which increases their beauty and mysterious appearance.

On I go at random from street to street.  As I walk, my curiosity increases and I quicken my pace.  It seems impossible that a whole city can be like this; I am afraid of stumbling across some house or coming into some street that will remind me of other cities, and disturb my beautiful dream.  But no, the dream lasts; for everything is small, lovely, and mysterious.  At every hundred steps I reach a deserted square, in which I stop and hold my breath; from time to time there appears a cross-road, and not a living soul is to be seen; everything is white, the windows closed, and silence reigns on all sides.  At each door there is a new spectacle; there are arches, columns, flowers, jets of water, and palms; a marvelous variety of design, tints, light, and perfume; here the odor of roses, there of oranges, farther on of pinks; and with this perfume a whiff of fresh air, and with the air a subdued sound of women’s voices, the rustling of leaves, and the singing of birds.  It is a sweet and varied harmony, that without disturbing the silence of the streets, soothes the ear like the echo of distant music.  Ah! it is not a dream!  Madrid, Italy, Europe, are indeed far away!  Here one lives another life, and breathes the air of a different world,—­for I am in the East.

THE LAND OF PLUCK

From ‘Holland and Its People’

Whoever looks for the first time at a large map of Holland wonders that a country so constituted can continue to exist.  At the first glance it is difficult to see whether land or water predominates, or whether Holland belongs most to the continent or to the sea.  Those broken and compressed coasts; those deep bays; those great rivers that, losing the aspect of rivers, seem bringing new seas to the sea; that sea which, changing itself into rivers, penetrates the land and breaks it into archipelagoes; the lakes, the vast morasses, the canals crossing and recrossing each other, all combine to give the idea of a country that may at any moment disintegrate and disappear.  Seals and beavers would seem to be its rightful inhabitants; but since there are men bold enough to live in it, they surely cannot ever sleep in peace.

[Illustration:  A DUTCH GIRL.  Photogravure from Painting by [illegible name]]