Immense windmills with revolving arms were to be seen on every side; houses of a thousand extraordinary shapes were dotted along the banks: some were like villas, others like pavilions, kiosks, cottages, chapels, theatres,--their roofs red, their walls black, blue, pink, and gray, their doors and windows encircled with white borders like drifts of snow. Canals little and big were leading in every direction; in front of the houses and along the canals were groups and rows of trees; ships glided among the cottages and boats were moored before the doors; sails shone in the streets--masts, pennons, and the arms of windmills projected in confusion above the trees and roofs. Bridges, stairways, gardens on the water, a thousand corners, little docks, creeks, openings, crossways on the canals, hiding-places for the boats, men, women, and children passing each other on the ways from the river to the bank, from the canals to their houses, from the bridges to the barges,--all these made the scene one of motion and variety. Everywhere was water,--color, new forms, childish figures, little details, all glossy and fresh,--an ingenuous display of prettiness--a mixture of the primitive and the theatrical, of grace and absurdity, which was partly European, partly Chinese, partly belonging to no land,--and over all a delightful air of peace and innocence. So Dordrecht flashed upon me for the first time, the oldest and at the same time the freshest and brightest town of Holland, the queen of Dutch commerce in the Middle Ages--the mother of painters and scholars. Honored in 1572 by the first meeting within its walls of the deputies of the United Provinces, it was also at different times the seat of memorable synods, and was particularly famous for that meeting of the protestant theologians in 1618, the Ecumenical Council of the Reformation, which decided the terrible religious dispute between Arminians and Gomarists, established the form of national worship, and gave rise to that series of disturbances and persecutions which ended with the unfortunate murder of Barneveldt and the sanguinary triumph of Maurice of Orange. Dordrecht, because of its easy communication with the sea, with Belgium, and with the interior of Holland, is still one of the most flourishing commercial towns of the United Provinces. To Dordrecht come the immense supplies of wood which are brought down the Rhine from the Black Forest and Switzerland--the Rhine wines, the lime, the cement and the stone; in its little port there is a continual movement of snowy sails and of smoking steamers, while little flags bring greetings from Arnhem, Bois-le-Duc, Nimeguen, Rotterdam, Antwerp, and from all their mysterious sisters in Zealand.