THE date of Holbein’s arrival in England can be fixed with some certainty. The letter of introduction he carried from Erasmus to Peter Ægidius in Antwerp, as already pointed out, was dated 29th August 1526, and it must have been written on the eve of the painter’s departure from Basel. Travelling was slow in those days, and Holbein would not be in a position to afford to make the whole journey on horseback. As he carried letters from Erasmus, the latter may have helped him with his travelling expenses, but no doubt the greater part of the journey would be made by boat down the Rhine, and for the rest he would trudge on foot, the materials of his craft on his back. [Sidenote: HOLBEIN’S JOURNEY TO ENGLAND] There is no evidence to show that he made a stay of any length in Antwerp; nor any record of a meeting with Ægidius or Metsys, though such meetings must almost certainly have taken place, for the former would be likely to do everything in his power to oblige Erasmus. Woltmann suggests that he stayed in Antwerp for at least some weeks, in order to earn some money, while Mr. Davies thinks that he made a somewhat lengthy sojourn in the Netherlands before coming to England.[648] “One may take it almost for granted,” he says, “that a man of his sympathies, the fountain of whose art had already flowed down to him by Flemish channels, would not fail to use his opportunity for visiting the great Flemish primitives, the Van Eycks, Memlinc, Van der Weyden, Gerard David in their own homes. Ghent and Bruges lay at no great distance seaward, and whether he took ship at Flushing, or chose the longer land route and the shorter sea passage by Calais—an expensive method for one whose pockets were as empty as Holbein’s—he would, one feels sure, have made the pilgrimage to those two cities.”[649]