The difference in ages between the Nieuwe Kerk, just around the corner from the palace, and the Oude Kerk, or Old Church of Amsterdam, is that the Oude Kerk was erected in 1300, whereas they didn’t commence work upon the Nieuwe Kerk until a hundred and eight years later. Both were doing their religious duties before America was discovered. Successive conflagrations destroyed different parts of the Nieuwe Kerk and the first service in the building as it stands to-day was not celebrated until 1648. The church contains the tombs of three of Holland’s famous fighting admirals, that of Admiral de Ruyter included, in addition to the hermes bust of another, and the mausoleum of a Dutch lieutenant of marines, van Speyk by name, who, during the revolution of Holland, “maintained on the 5th of February, 1831, before Antwerp, the honor of his native flag at the cost of his life” by blowing up his gunboat in the harbor of Antwerp to prevent it from falling into the possession of the enemy. Since 1814 four kings of Holland have taken the oath of the constitution in the Nieuwe Kerk and here, on September 6, 1898, Wilhelmina was formally inaugurated Queen of the Netherlands--an event recently commemorated by the installation of a handsome stained glass window in the church. Well might the Nieuwe Kerk be said to be the Westminster Abbey of Amsterdam. Connecting the Dam with the central railway station is the wide Damrak, part of which was at one time a canal. In the opposite direction wiggles the narrow Kalverstraat, Amsterdam’s principal shopping street, thronged in the late afternoon and evening with that part of the population of the city that isn’t sipping coffee in the windows of its cafés. [Illustration: The Royal Palace, Amsterdam, facing upon the Dam which is the axis about which the whole city revolves] Once I had the misfortune to be stopping in Amsterdam upon the occasion of the Queen’s birthday, the 31st of August. This not being sufficient unpremeditated self-punishment, I was provincial enough to have chosen as headquarters what appeared from across the street to be a clean, quiet little hotel in the Kalverstraat. The two blended most harmoniously. Between the unmelodious patriots who paraded the Kalverstraat from sunset to sunrise, and the battles royal participated in with the ambidextrous entomological specimens among the bedclothes, I did anything but enjoy a refreshing night’s rest. To which tale there are two morals: avoid Amsterdam on the Queen’s birthday, and little Juliana’s as well, and eschew the hotels in the Kalverstraat (one especially, which shall be nameless) as you would the nest of the subtle hornet.