Upon my return to my hotel at one o’clock, the dinner hour, I found a very agreeable party, composed of foreigners from different countries, and an excellent _table d’hote_: over the chimney-piece was a good equestrian portrait of the famous Duke of Cumberland, who lodged at this house occasionally during the campaigns of 1747. After dinner, in company with a very amiable gentleman-like Englishman, whom I met at the _table d’hote_, I set off in one of the carriages, many of which are always ready to convey passengers, for about the value of six-pence English, for Scheveling, a village which every traveller should visit, on account of the beauty of the avenue leading to it, which is nearly two miles, perfectly straight, and thickly planted with beech, limes, and oaks; at the end of which superb vista the church of Scheveling appears. On the sandy ground on each side of this avenue are several birch thickets, and it abounds with the aiera canescens, hippophae rhamnoides, a singular dwarf variety of ligustrum vulgare (Privet), the true arundo epigejos of Linnæus (that is, calamagrostis), and a number of heath plants, mixed with others usually found in marshes. Scarcely is there so small a spot, where Flora presents such opposite variety, and which the fluctuating moisture of the soil can alone account for. Among the rarer species are convallaria multiflora, and polygonatum, with gentiana cruciata, which is not a native of England. The Dutch value this beautiful avenue as much as they do their Wood, and great care is taken to preserve it from violation. At the entrance, in a most romantic spot, is the turnpike-gate, where all passengers, except the fishermen of Scheveling, pay a fraction of a farthing for permission to enter; and here are stuck up orders, threatening with punishment those who may attempt to injure in the smallest degree this consecrated forest. At short intervals, cautionary inscriptions are placed in conspicuous situations, to warn mischievous “apple munching urchins” from cutting the smallest twig. Constantine Huygens, brother of the celebrated mathematician and mechanist of that name, had the honor of designing this avenue, in which there are many stately trees, upwards of a century and a half old: a terrible storm which took place a few years since, laid about fifty of these noble objects low, to the great grief and consternation of the country. Here, and perhaps here only, throughout Holland, the traveller may be gratified by the sounds of a running brook. The foot paths on each side were crowded with pedestrians of both sexes, in their holiday clothes; and the slanting rays of a brilliant sun flashing through openings in the branches of the limes, beech trees, and oaks, upon a crowd of merry faces, jolting in the most whimsical carts and waggons, to their favourite spot of carousal, had a very pleasing and picturesque effect.