The bait with which Assen, the capital of the province of Drenthe, should lure the tourist to stop off, if only between trains, is the church of an ancient nunnery suppressed during the Reformation. This relic, with a fragment of the old cloisters still attached to it, has been transformed into Assen’s Town Hall, and forms a part of the adjoining provincial offices erected on the site of the nunnery. The great tumuli, or so-called “giants’ caves,” within half an hour’s drive from Assen, and marked with huge boulders borne down by the glaciers from Scandinavia, are of interest more to the profound archeologist than to the ordinary sight-seer. Meppel, farther down, is a peat town of no artistic or historical importance, although it is the junction of the peat and the butter routes through the hinterland. From it the traveler may journey up through the butter district direct to Leeuwarden, or he may break through the peat country on another line to Groningen. Zwolle, the first stop below Meppel, is an attractive town, but with fewer types even than Groningen. Here the familiar windmills and wooden shoes begin to diminish perceptibly in numbers. With its 32,000 inhabitants, Zwolle is but a shade smaller than Leeuwarden. It is the capital of the province of Over-Yssel and was the birthplace of Gerard Terburg, one of Holland’s celebrated seventeenth century wielders of the brush and crayon. But like too many other towns in the Netherlands, Zwolle has been so short-sighted and so remiss in her duty that she has failed to preserve for public appreciation a single example of the work of her most famous son. The most striking architectural feature of the town is her old Sassen-Poort, or Saxon gateway, the five Gothic spires of which tend to relieve any monotony of city skyline. It stands but a short distance from the station, framed behind a green mat of trees that lends a pleasant contrast to its diamond window shutters of delicate blue and spotless white. The modern stone bridge across the canal just in front, although forming rather an inappropriate approach to the old tower, is one of the most artistic in all Holland. Upon a certain warm, sunlit morning I crossed this bridge and turned down along the canal, following one of the many labyrinthian pathways under the spreading trees. Soon I came upon what anyone on not too familiar terms with the customs of the country might have supposed to be a public café. It was neither fenced nor hedged in, and the path I was following led straight as a die to its low, broad veranda, carpeted and freely sprinkled with comfortable wicker chairs. Little round tables were scattered here and there, and I concluded that the place lacked nothing for the enjoyment of a glass of liquid refreshment. Accordingly, I followed the course of least resistance, and presently found myself reclining deeply and luxuriously in one of the wicker armchairs on the veranda.