The next day Mr. Phillips motored me to Amsterdam. There the members of the local orchestra immediately poured into the willing ears of my men dreadful stories of local jealousy of our coming, that several of the newspapers had been told to criticise us severely, and that all the adherents of the local orchestra had ostentatiously decided to absent themselves from our concert. Very little of this proved to be true. The huge hall in which we played, the Concertgebow, has a stage perched up so high that the people in the parquet literally have to strain their necks to see the performers, and the reverberation of sound is excessive. The hall seats three thousand people, and there were not more than fourteen hundred at our concert. However, they certainly made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in numbers. All previous notions of the phlegm of the Dutch people were completely dissipated. Not being a prima donna, I did not keep count of the many times I was recalled after the “Eroica” Symphony, but, as I had to march down and up a platform of about fifty steps each time, the exercise in connection with it was considerable. The newspapers next morning, in spite of all the dark rumors, were enthusiastic in our praise and generous in their comparison of our orchestra with their own splendid organization. London marked the last lap of our musical race through Europe. We stayed a week and gave five concerts, four at Queens’ Hall on June 14, 15, 16, and 19, and one on June 20 at the huge Royal Albert Hall. The lucky star which had accompanied us during the entire tour shone for us with steadfast light during this last week. The orchestra never played better and the newspapers heartily echoed the reception we received from the public. I had not conducted in London since a concert mentioned elsewhere in these reminiscences, given at Princes’ Hall by Ovide Musin in 1888, when I was but twenty-six years of age. Since then great changes have come over the musical life of England. At that time music was to a great extent in the hands of foreigners, and one has only to see the old pictures by Du Maurier in _Punch_ to realize that the musician in English drawing-rooms was generally a long-haired German or Italian. Hans Richter was the great popular conductor in London and there were many foreigners in the British orchestras.