But with all its past grandeur, the old city is best known to us Americans through the chimes from its belfry tower, and we were some of Longfellow's pilgrims. We drove into the great paved Place under the shadow of the belfry tower when its shadows were growing long, and watched the stragglers across the square--women in queer black-hooded cloaks; chubby little blue-eyed maidens with school-books in hand; a party of tourists; and last, but by no means least, the ubiquitous American girl, with an immense bow on the back of her dress, and her eye fixed steadily upon the milliner's shop just visible around the corner. Almost three hundred feet the dingy brick tower rose above us, with low wings on either side, where were once the halls of some guilds, in the days when the tower was a lookout to warn of coming foes,--when the square was planned for defence. In a little court-yard, gained by passing under its arch, we watched and listened, until at last the sweet tinkle of the silver-toned bells broke the hush of waiting--so far away, so heavenly, we held our breath, lest we should lose the sound that fell "Like the psalms from some old cloister when the nuns sing in the choir, And the great bell tolled among them like the chanting of a friar." We came back to Antwerp that night, tired, but triumphant, feeling as though we had read a page from an old book, or sung a strain from an old song. CHAPTER XI. A TRIP THROUGH HOLLAND. Up the Meuse to Rotterdam.--Dutch sights and ways.--The pretty milk-carriers.--The tea-gardens.--Preparations for the Sabbath.--An English chapel.--"The Lord's barn."--From Rotterdam to the Hague.--The queen's "House in the Wood."--Pictures in private drawing-rooms.--The bazaar.--An evening in a Dutch tea-garden.--Amsterdam to a stranger.--The "sights."--The Jews' quarter.--The family whose home was upon the canals.--Out of the city.--The pilgrims.