The Town Hall, as well as the Egyptian Museum, is on the Breede Straat, the longest and finest street in Leyden. It has no canal running through it, and the houses, painted in every variety of color, have a picturesque effect as they stand with their gable ends to the street; some are very tall, with half of their height in their step-like roofs; others crouch before the public edifices and churches. Being clean, spacious, well-shaded and adorned with many elegant mansions, it compares favorably with the finer portions of Amsterdam. It is kept scrupulously neat; many of the gutters are covered with boards that open like trap-doors; and it is supplied with pumps surmounted with shining brass ornaments kept scoured and bright at the public cost. The city is intersected by numerous water-roads formed by the river Rhine, there grown sluggish, fatigued by its long travel; but more than one hundred and fifty stone bridges reunite the dissevered streets. The same world-renowned river, degraded from the beautiful, free-flowing Rhine, serves as a moat around the rampart that surrounds Leyden, and is crossed by draw-bridges at the imposing gateways that give access to the city. Fine broad promenades, shaded by noble trees, border the canals, and add to the retired appearance of the houses behind, heightening the effect of scholastic seclusion that seems to pervade the place. Ben as he scanned the buildings on the Rapenburg canal, was somewhat disappointed in the appearance of the great University of Leyden. But when he recalled its history--how, attended with all the pomp of a grand civic display, it had been founded by the Prince of Orange as a tribute to the citizens for the bravery displayed during the siege; when he remembered the great men in religion, learning and science who had once studied there, and thought of the hundreds of students now sharing the benefits of its classes and its valuable scientific museums--he was quite willing to forego architectural beauty, though, he could not help feeling that no amount of it could have been misplaced on such an institution. Peter and Jacob regarded the building with even a deeper, more practical interest, for they were to enter it as students, in the course of a few months. "Poor Don Quixote would have run a hopeless tilt in this part of the world," said Ben, after Lambert had been pointing out some of the oddities and beauties of the suburbs--"it is all windmills. You remember his terrific contest with one, I suppose." "No," said Lambert, bluntly.