I quitted Leyden with great reluctance, and entered on board the treckschuyt for Haarlem, which sets off every two hours for that town, distant from Leyden fifteen miles. The canal all the way is broad and clear, and frequently adorned with the yellow fringed water-lily. Nothing could be more beautiful than our passage. As we approached Haarlem, the villas and gardens which nearly all the way adorned the banks of the canal, increased in number, beauty, and magnitude: many of them belong to the most opulent merchants of Amsterdam. Haarlem is not so beautiful as Leyden, but abounds with spacious streets, canals, avenues, and handsome houses: it is about four miles from the sea, and fifteen from Amsterdam: on one side of the canal is the Haarlem meer, or lake, the spring water of which is so celebrated all over Europe for producing the most brilliant whiteness upon the linens bleached here, and the superior property of which cannot be reached by any chymical process. Haarlem was once fortified, but its ramparts now form an agreeable promenade. The bleacheries of this city are too well known to be further mentioned; in all his wandering, the traveller will never enjoy the luxury of snow-white linen in such perfection as at Haarlem: before the war, Scotch and Irish linens used to be sent here to be bleached. There was a considerable manufacture of silks and camblets, but it has experienced a great decline, and the principal trade is bleaching threads and cambric; the inhabitants are calculated at thirty-two thousand. The cathedral, which is said to be the largest in the kingdom, though I am inclined to think that of Utrecht greater, was built in 1472, and the steeple, which is very handsome, was added in 1515. To inspect the internal part of the building, I was obliged to apply to one of the principal clergymen belonging to it, who resides in an adjoining house, and attended by a lady-like looking woman, perhaps his wife, or house-keeper, I was admitted into this venerable pile, where the first object that struck me was the celebrated organ supported upon pillars of porphyry: this instrument is said to be the finest and largest in the world; it occupies the whole west end of the nave. For a ducat paid to the organist, and two florins to the bellows blower, the former will gratify the traveller by playing for an hour; unfortunately for me he was absent in the country, and I did not hear the celebrated vox humana, or pipe, which most admirably imitates the human voice. Of the magnitude of this enormous musical pile, the reader may form some conception when he is informed that it contains eight thousand pipes, some of which are thirty-eight feet in length, and sixteen inches in diameter, and has sixty-four stops, four separations, two shakes, two couplings, and twelve bellows; like an elephant, that with his proboscis can either pluck a violet or raise a tree by its roots, the notes of