LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA

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148 FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE. points; namely, in the first place it is hairy, and sec­ondly its teeth are growing too close together. I saw its hair, kept in a glass case; it is quite long and has sandy complexion. The people of high rank look very intelligent, and most of them speak at least one or two foreign lan­guages; whilst the lower class of the people are very ignorant, very inferior in appearance, and cannot read even their own language. I never saw any cab­men reading newspapers as I used to see in the other European cities, but I found them always sleeping while they are waiting. The cabs are very heavy and small. The driver's dressing is also peculiar, as you may see in my sketch. The accommodations in the Russian hotel are not good at all, and the waiters are very slow and la,zy. They never get up before nine o'clock in the morning, and when we want to get anything at that time we are obliged to touch our bell half a dozen times before we awake them. The chief business of the city seems me in the hands of the Ger­mans. We came back to Berlin on the 16th ult. Finding all schools unopened there, we thought time may be better spent visiting other parts of Europe. Accord­ingly we started for Holland via Frankfort-on-the­Main. We came down the Rhine by steamer as far as Rotterdam. Without stopping in that busy city we proceeded to The Hague, where we were kindly received by the Minister of Public Instruction, and a fine opportunity was given us to visit all schools in the capital. I was much pleased with the cleanli­ness of the school-rooms and neatness of children. The school system is excellent in Holland. It is open to all classes of the people. But the other schools

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