[Illustration: The Kurhaus at Scheveningen, Holland’s most expensive, most fashionable and most diverting seaside resort] But sea bathing is a different proposition in Europe from what it is in America. At Scheveningen it is a matter of the most serious import, and the necessities for its success--I almost said “enjoyment”--are many. To go about it in the proper manner, you first approach the ticket window on the Boulevard in front of the Kurhaus and apply to the cashier for a permit, varying in price according to the class of bath selected. Providing you have brought your own bathing suit, this will be the only payment necessary, for the permit graciously entitles you to the use of two towels, obviously for drying purposes. In case you have come unprepared with regard to bathing apparel, you will have to pay for a suit, although, judging from those I have seen personally, the wearer should be the one to be rewarded. To avail yourself of the use of a “bath-sheet”--whatever that may be--necessitates additional expenditure, and there are various other alleged indispensable articles that the cashier may try to inflict upon the unwary at face value. The next step is to repair to the beach and await the calling out of the number shown on your ticket, whereupon you are assigned to a striped kind of house on wheels, of the same kith and kin as an English “caravan” wagon. In this you must wait until the attendant sees fit to hitch his horse to it and haul you, wagon and all, into the surf. During the voyage you will have finished changing your costume and the minute your wagon is backed into the water you are ready to commence your amphibious performance. A high sign to the attendant will be the signal that you have survived the operation of bathing, and, presto! his horse will haul you out upon dry land again. Doubtless on account of the expenses incurred in taking the proper precautions for bathing there are more waders at Scheveningen, especially among the thrifty Dutch, than there are bathers. Human snipe, ducks, and storks, according to their respective builds, with trousers rolled to their knees or petticoats pinned up to a similar altitude, daily patrol the edge of the ocean for a mile or more. Surf riding is another favorite method of spending a half hour’s time at Scheveningen, the game being to suffer oneself to be bobbed up and down at the mercy of the breakers in a tethered fishing boat, only to be ultimately carried ashore again on the backs of the crew. An obelisk at the southern end of the Boulevard commemorates the landing of Prince William Frederic of Orange, but the victorious naval achievement of Admiral de Ruyter in defeating the combined French and English fleets off the coast of Scheveningen in 1673, remains unhonored. VII LEYDEN AND HAARLEM