Holland has still another kind of romance which is its own. It might be called Indian romance, since it describes the habits and life of the people of the colonies. Of late years several novels have been published in this style, which have been received in the country with great applause and have been translated into several languages. Among these is the "Beau Monde of Batavia," by Professor Ten Brink, a learned, and brilliant writer, of whom I should like to be able to speak at length to attest in some degree my gratitude and admiration. But _apropos_ of Indian romances, it is pleasant to notice how in Holland at every step one hears and sees something that reminds one of the colonies, as if a ray of the Indian sun penetrated the Dutch winter and colored the life. The ships which bring a breath of wind from those distant lands to the home ports, the birds, the flowers, the countless objects, like sounds mingled with faint music, call up in the mind images of another nature and another race. In the cities of Holland, among the thousands of white faces, one often meets men whose visages are bronzed by the sun, who have been born or have lived for many years in the colonies--merchants who speak with unusual vivacity of dark women, bananas, palm forests, and of lakes shaded by vines and orchids; young men who are bold enough to risk their lives amid the savages of the islands of Borneo and Sumatra; men of science and men of letters; officers who speak of the tribes which worship fish, of ambassadors who carry the heads of the vanquished dangling from their girdles, of bull and tiger fights, of the frenzy of opium-eaters, of the multitudes baptized with pomp, of a thousand strange and wonderful incidents which produce a singular effect when related by the phlegmatic people of this peaceful country. Poetry, after it lost Da Costa, a disciple of Bilderdijk, a religious poet and enthusiast, and Genestet, a satirical poet who died very young, had few champions in the last generation, and these are now silent or sing with enfeebled voice. The stage is in a worse condition. The untrained, ranting Dutch actors usually appear only in French or German dramas, comedies which are badly translated, and the best society does not go to see them. Writers of great talent, like Hofdijk, Schimmel, and Van Lennep, wrote comedies which were admirable in many ways, but they never became popular enough to hold the stage. Tragedy is in no better condition than comedy and the drama.