Still, Rotterdam is essentially Dutch, in fact if not in first appearances. She has her Groote Kerk, the Church of St. Lawrence, begun in 1412; she has her Town Hall, without which, it seems, no town in Holland could survive; she has her picture gallery, although a mediocre one, in the Boymans Museum; she has her old market and her new church; and she has her fish market, where women of the most uncertain antiquity sit and gossip and knit and sell sole between stitches. Here and there, too, she has her old windmill, thatch covered, browbeaten by the weather, massive and ponderous-looking, that, in the very midst of twentieth century hurry and scurry, waves its stiff arms as if depicting in pantomime a scene of other days. And then, in striking contrast, right at the very edge of the old harbor, stands the tallest building in the Netherlands. It must be as sky-scraping as eight or ten stories, and high up under its eaves it displays the advertisement of an American breakfast food. Its builders probably thought that a photographer would be the only mortal who could be induced to rent the top story, so they made the building’s sloping roof into one glorious skylight, under which rural Holland might sit and have its picture taken for the family album. [Illustration: In spite of its up-to-date spirit, Rotterdam is essentially Dutch, with the canals much in evidence] It was while waiting for a car at the beginning of The Oosterkade and just across the old harbor from this Metropolitan Tower of Rotterdam that the more nearly general of all Dutch customs was brought home to me. The car had approached its terminus and I was about to mount, when the conductor, more forcibly than politely, requested that I discontinue the attempt and take up my position where I belonged, with the rest of the crowd, in the vicinity of a certain lamp-post a few steps beyond--the Dutch being most precise and systematic. I ambled thither and was standing in the more or less protecting umbrage of the lamp-post, with sarcastic but not envious mien, watching the traction company partake of a large slab of black bread and cheese (until the disappearance of which the car refused to continue) when I was accosted by a small street urchin of about the tender age of seven, who was armed with an immense cigar. I happened to be smoking at the time, and this was what brought the boy in my direction. He wanted a light and wasted no words in asking for it. Being somewhat shocked that a youth of such tender years should be so faithful a slave to the vile, pernicious weed, I submitted to his plea under mental protest. But he seemed not in the least embarrassed, for he saluted and marched off, apparently enjoying the thing as if it had been his fifth since breakfast.