musket, was brought by Verhoef, bleeding and bare-headed, before the furious multitude.  One Van Soenen immediately thrust a pike into his face, while another of the miscreants shot him in the neck, exclaiming as he fell, ’There goes down the Perpetual Edict’.  Raising himself on his knees, the sufferer lifted up his hands and eyes to heaven in deep and earnest prayer.  At that moment, one Verhagen struck him with his musket.  Hundreds followed his example, and the cruel massacre was completed.

“Barbarities too dreadful for utterance or contemplation, all that phrenzied passion or brutal ferocity could suggest, were perpetrated on the bodies of these noble and virtuous citizens; nor was it till night put an end to the butchery, that their friends were permitted to convey their mangled remains to a secret and obscure tomb.”

In the Nieuwe Kerk at The Hague the tomb of the De Witts may be seen and honoured.

The Gevangenpoort is well worth a visit.  One passes tortuously from cell to cell—­most of them associated with some famous breaker of the laws of God or man, principally of man.  Here you may see a stone hollowed by the drops of water that plashed from the prisoner’s head, on which they were timed to fall at intervals of a few seconds—­a form of torture imported, I believe, from China, and after some hours ending inevitably in madness and death.  Beside such a refinement the rack is a mere trifle and the Gevangenpoort’s branding irons and thumb screws become only toys.  A block, retaining the cuts made by the axe after it had crashed through the offending neck, is also shown; and the names of prisoners written in their blood on the walls may be traced.  The building is a monument in stone of what man can do to man in the name of justice.

I referred just now to the Nieuwe Kerk, the resting-place of the De Witts.  There lies also their contemporary, Spinoza, whose home at Rynsburg we shall pass on our way to Katwyk from Leyden.  His house at The Hague still stands—­near his statue.  The Groote Kerk is older; but neither church is particularly interesting.  From the Groote Kerk’s tower one may, however, see a vast deal of country around The Hague—­a landscape containing much greenery—­and in the west the architectural monsters of Scheveningen only too visible.  We shall reach Scheveningen in the next chapter, but while at The Hague it is amusing to visit the fish market in order to have sight of the good women of that town clustered about the stalls in their peculiar costume.  They are Scheveningen’s best.  The adjoining stadhuis is a very interesting example of Dutch architecture.

The Hague has excellent shops, and one street—­the Lange Pooten—­more crowded in the evening, particularly on Sunday evening, than any I know.  Every Dutch town has certain crowded streets in the evening, because to walk up and down after dinner is the national form of recreation.  There are in the large cities a few theatres and music halls, and in the smaller, concerts in the summer; but for the most part the streets and the cafes are the great attraction.  Each town has one street above all others which is frequented in this way.  At The Hague it is the Lange Pooten, running into Spui Straat; at Amsterdam it is Kalverstraat.