In about an hour more the steamer began to draw near to Rotterdam. The approach to the town was indicated by the multitude of boats and vessels that were passing to and fro, and by the numbers of steamers and wind mills that lined respectively the margins of the water and of the land. The wind mills were prodigious in size. They towered high into the air like so many lighthouses; the tops of the sails, as Mr. George estimated, reached, as the vanes revolved, up to not less than one hundred and fifty or two hundred feet into the air. It was necessary to build them high, in order that the sails might not be becalmed by the houses.
[Illustration: DORT.]
At length the steamer stopped at a pier. Two policemen stood at the plank, as the passengers landed, and demanded their passports. Mr. George gave up his passport, as he was directed, and then he and Rollo got into a carriage and were driven to the hotel.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V. WALKS ABOUT ROTTERDAM.
The hotel where Mr. George and Rollo were set down was a very magnificent edifice standing on the quay opposite to a line of steamers. On entering it, both our travellers were struck with the spaciousness of the hall and of the staircase, and with the sumptuous appearance in general of the whole interior. They called for a chamber. The attendants, as they soon found, all understood English, so that there was no occasion at present to resort to the language of signs, as Mr. George had supposed might be necessary. In answer to Mr. George's request to be shown to a room, the servant showed him and Rollo a very large and lofty apartment, with immense windows in front looking down upon the pier. On the back side of the room were two single beds.
"This will do very well for us," said Mr. George.
"Will you dine at the table d'hote?"[3] asked the waiter.
[Footnote 3: Pronounced tahble dote.]
The table d'hote is the public table.
"At what time is the table d'hote?" asked Mr. George.
"At half past four," said the waiter.
"No," said Mr. George, "we shall want to be out at that time. We will take something now as soon as we can have it. Can you give us a beefsteak?"
"Yes, sir," said the waiter.
"Very well. Give us a beefsteak and some coffee, and some bread and butter."
"Yes, sir," said the waiter. "Will you have two beefsteaks, or one beefsteak?"
"Two," said Rollo, in an under tone to Mr. George.
"Yes," said Mr. George, "and coffee for two, also."
So the waiter left the travellers in their room, and went down stairs. In about ten minutes Mr. George and Rollo went down too. At the foot of the grand staircase they turned into the dining room, where they saw several tables set, and at one of them, near a window, were the preparations for their meal.
The window looked out upon the quay, and Rollo could see the men at work getting out hogsheads and bales of goods from a steamer that was moored there. Besides looking across to the quay, Rollo could also look up and down the street without putting his head out of the window. The way in which he was enabled to do this, was by means of looking glasses placed outside. These looking glasses were attached to an iron frame, and they were placed in an inclined position, so as to reflect the whole length of the street in through the window. Thus a person sitting at his ease within the room, could look up and down the street, as well as across it, at his pleasure.
Rollo afterwards observed such looking glasses attached to the windows of almost all the houses in town.
The dinner was soon brought in, and Mr. George and Rollo ate it with excellent appetites. Just as they had finished their meal, a neatly-dressed young man came to the table and asked them if they wished for some one to show them about the town.
"Because," said he, "I am a valet de place, and I can take you at once to all the places of interest, and save you a great deal of time."
"How much do you ask to do it?" asked Mr. George.
"Five francs a day," said the man.
"That's right," said Mr. George. "That's the usual price. But we shall not want you, at least for this afternoon. We may want you to-morrow. We shall stay in town a day or two."
The young man said that he should be very happy to serve them if they should require his services, and then bowed and went away.
After having finished their meal, Mr. George and Rollo set out to take a ramble about the town by themselves.
"We will go in search of adventures," said Rollo.
"Yes," said Mr. George, "and if we lose our way, we shall be likely to have some adventures, for we cannot speak Dutch to inquire for it."
"Never mind," said Rollo, "I'm not afraid. We will be careful which way we go."
So they went out and took quite a long ramble through the town. The first aspect of the streets struck them with astonishment. The space was now more than half filled with docks and basins, and with canals in which ships and boats of every kind were moving to and fro. In fact almost every street consisted one half of canal, and one half of road way, so that in going through it you could have your choice of going in a boat or in a carriage. The water part of the streets was crowded densely with vessels, some of them of the largest size, for the water was so deep in the canals that the largest ships could go all about the town.
It was curious to observe the process of loading and unloading these vessels, opposite to the houses where the merchants who owned them lived. These houses were very large and handsome. The upper stories were used for the rooms of the merchant and his family, and the lower ones were for the storage of the goods. Thus a merchant could sit at his parlor window with his family about him, could look down upon his ship in the middle of the street before his house, and see the workmen unlading it and stowing the goods safely on his own premises, in the rooms below.
In some of the streets the canal was in the centre, and there was a road way along by the houses on each side. In others there was a road way only on one side, and the walls of the houses and stores rose up directly from the water's edge on the other. It was curious, in this case, to see the men in the upper stories of these stores, hoisting goods up from the vessels below by means of cranes and tackles projecting from the windows.
There was one arrangement in the streets which Rollo at first condemned, as decidedly objectionable in his mind, and that was, that the sidewalks were smooth and level with the pavement of the street, differing only from the street by being paved with bricks, while the road way was paved with stone.
"I think that that is a very foolish plan," said Rollo.
"I should not have expected so crude a remark as that from so old and experienced a traveller as you," said Mr. George.
"Why, uncle George," said Rollo. "It is plainly a great deal better to have the sidewalk raised a little, for that keeps the wheels of the carts and carriages from coming upon them. Besides, there ought to be a gutter."
"People that have never been away from home before," said Mr. George, "are very apt, when they first land in any strange country, and observe any strange or unusual way of doing things, or of making things, to condemn it at once, and say how much better the thing is in their country. But I thought that you had travelled enough to know better than that."
"How so?" asked Rollo.
"Why, you see that after people have travelled more, they get their ideas somewhat enlarged, and they learn that one way of doing things may be best in one country, and another in another, on account of some difference in the circumstances or the wants of the two countries. So, when they see any thing done in a new or unusual manner, they don't condemn it, or laugh at it, until they have had time to find out whether there may not be some good reason for it."
"But I don't see," said Rollo, "what possible good reason there can be for having the sidewalks made so that every cart that comes along can run over you."