From thence I proceeded to Gouda, the cathedral of which place is celebrated for its painted glass. Eighty thousand gulden[8] was lately bidden in vain by an Englishman for one of these windows. In execution it is equal to a miniature picture, and the splendour of the colours is indescribable;--the gems and pearls in the garments of the priests emulate real ones. Another, half of which was lately shattered by lightning, was presented to the church by Philip II. There is a portrait of him in it, dressed in a mantle of genuine purple; not the usual reddish colour, but a lustrous violet, between the deepest blue and crimson, more beautiful than anything I ever saw in glass. A third contains a portrait of the Duke of Alva. All the windows are of extraordinary dimensions, and with few exceptions in exquisite preservation. They are all of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries except one, which was not painted till the seventeenth, and which betrays the decline of the art, both by the inferiority of the colours and of the conception and drawing. He who has seen Gouda may spare himself the trouble of a journey to the leaning tower of Pisa, for here the whole town seems to have been built on the same principle. Though the Dutch, who have been on many accounts not inappropriately called the Chinese of Europe, might very fairly be believed capable of preferring so extraordinary a style of architecture, yet it is probable that the really alarming aspect of the buildings here is to be attributed chiefly to the unsteady boggy soil.[9] Almost all the houses stand with their gable ends to the street, every one of which is differently ornamented. In very narrow lanes they almost meet, and form a triangle, under which one walks with some solicitude. As it was Sunday I found the town extremely lively, though with a quiet and decent gaiety. Most of the people stood idle, gazing about. They took off their hats very politely as I passed. Before you reach Rotterdam you ride through a long series of country-houses with flower-gardens, separated from the road on either side by a narrow canal. The entrance to each of the houses is over a mighty drawbridge, which contrasts oddly enough with the insignificance of the water, over which a good leap would carry you. Just as 'baroque' are the tower-like windmills outside the town: they are gilded, and ornamented with the wildest carvings, besides which, the walls of many of them are so finely covered with thick rushes that at a distance they look like fur; others resemble the skin of a crocodile; some are like Chinese pagodas; but, in spite of all this extravagance, the whole group produces a very striking effect. Interspersed among them are seen the rising masts of the vessels in the harbour, and the great glass roof under which the ships of war are built, announcing a maritime and commercial city.