From Deventer to Apeldoorn is simply a matter of a quarter of an hour in a railway carriage which now darts past so many fields of grain, now past so many fine old woods and terraced summer homes that the effect upon the tourist is kaleidoscopic—like being shot through a Christmas wreath.

Apeldoorn is a beautiful little city, very much unlike what might be expected of Holland, since its canals are few and its windmills at a premium. Its streets remind one more of those of an English village. Its outskirts and environs are freely sprinkled with attractive country homes and villas belonging to that class of Hollanders that passes its time, for one purpose or another, hovering in the neighborhood of royalty, for near by at Het Loo the Queen is wont to summer. The town’s two parks, named appropriately Oranje and Wilhelmina, present effects in landscape gardening incomparable with those of almost any other parks in Holland, and the broad avenues that lead out to Her Majesty’s palace are barely surpassed in beauty even by the Old Way from The Hague to Scheveningen. Like the spokes of a wheel their shaded roadways stretch straight as a die, with the palace of Het Loo as their common hub.

Pensions and private villas are as thick in and about Apeldoorn as seventeen-year locusts. Each has its velvety lawn; each its variegated flower garden. Apparently the town boasts of everything to make the lives of its summer residents one blissful dream of being some day bidden to dinner or tea at the dazzling white palace at the end of the avenue. I imagine the sanitary arrangements of some of the summer homes of these pseudo patrons of royalty must be primitive in the extreme. This may or may not be a criterion by which to judge the others, but, as I drove by the estate of one of Apeldoorn’s nabobs, a maidservant appeared upon the second-story balcony and emptied the contents of a pocket folding rubber bath tub full upon the lawn in front—anything but a discreet exhibition, to say the least about it.

Het Loo, or The Grove, was the favorite palace of Wilhelmina’s father, William III, and of his grandfather, William I, the first King of the Netherlands. A steam tram operates upon rather uncertain schedule between the railway station at Apeldoorn and Het Loo, but a much more pleasant method of consuming the time, if only between trains, is to drive by carriage out the long avenue, returning through the parks of Apeldoorn.

The peasants of the surrounding country are of purely agricultural proclivities, and their land seems more like real farm land than the lower level portions of the Netherlands. Apeldoorn itself lies in the district known as the Veluwe, a territory between the Yssel and the Zuyder Zee, in places as much as three hundred feet above the level of the ocean and, with few exceptions, the highest in Holland. Parts of it, however, are so sandy and sterile that the ground is available after complete fertilization mainly for the cultivation of tobacco.

Zutphen, a few miles below Apeldoorn, was the first city in the east to offer any speakable resistance against the Spaniards during the war of independence, and there still stands the gateway, called the Nieuwstadtspoort, through which Don Frederic of Toledo, the son of the notorious Duke of Alva, forced an entrance into the town on the 16th day of November, 1572. Mons and Mechlin having been captured and promptly sacked, Alva had repaired to Nymwegen, leaving Don Frederic to conquer the provinces in the north and east—preferably by force, for they were a bloodthirsty lot, those Spaniards. A seeming lack of patriotism on the parts of the cities which had already submitted, too enthusiastically perhaps, to the Spaniards, gave these international marauders little excuse to resort to their usual heinous methods of effecting subjugation.

When Zutphen, therefore, offered a feeble and half-hearted resistance against the troops of Frederic of Toledo, and the fact was reported to his father, the commander in chief and arch brigand of the whole depredating crew, he promptly sent orders to his son to enter the city and kill every man and burn every house to the ground. According to Motley, “the Duke’s command was almost literally obeyed. Don Frederic entered Zutphen, and without a moment’s warning put the whole garrison to the sword. The citizens next fell a defenseless prey; some being stabbed in the streets, some hanged on the trees which decorated the city, some stripped stark naked and turned out into the fields to freeze to death in the wintry night. As the work of death became too fatiguing for the butchers, five hundred innocent burghers were tied two and two, back to back, and drowned like dogs in the river Yssel. A few stragglers who had contrived to elude pursuit at first, were afterwards taken from their hiding-places and hung upon the gallows by their feet, some of which victims suffered four days and nights of agony before death came to their relief.”

To-day Zutphen is a quiet old city, very un-Dutch, if the expression may be permitted, with many narrow, crooked streets and a few canals of varying degrees of picturesqueness on its outskirts. Lumber is the principal industry of the place, and a great deal of poplar wood which goes to supply the wooden shoes for many parts of Holland is shipped from Zutphen.

Arnhem on the Rhine is the most thriving town as well as the capital of Gelderland. It is essentially an ancient place, dating back to a remote period in the history of the Netherlands; even some there be who give Arnhem the credit of being the original Arenacum of the Romans. It lies upon the southern slopes of the Veluwe district, and from its railway station the visitor will actually have to go down hill into the town—a topographical condition so foreign to any of the other Dutch cities already visited that Arnhem’s allegiance to Holland is questioned at first sight.

Although Arnhem is old, it lacks many of those gifts of age that one sees in other old cities throughout the country. Its appearance is German, but its people, realizing the monetary benefits that rival Dutch municipalities are deriving annually from the hordes of tourists that descend upon them, try to advertise it as typically Dutch, and issue frantic appeals to the traveler to be sure to pay it a visit on these grounds. With its 60,000 inhabitants it is the sixth city in point of population in Holland. Although it enjoys every advantage of transportation its commerce is pitiable; as a residence city, however, it is particularly favored. Because of the attractions of its environs, Arnhem is a favorite spot for the retired Dutch merchant, who, having amassed a fortune in the colonial trade after a long residence in the remote Straits Settlements, seeks some quiet place at home endowed with the beauties of nature, in which to spend the remainder of his days in comfort.

The oldest part of Arnhem is the southern end of the city, bordering on the Rhine and clustering about the Groote Markt as a center. The Groote Kerk, an ecclesiastical building of large parts and deep excavations, containing numerous monuments in memory of various historical celebrities, bounds the market square on the west, and on the south one may pierce the surrounding buildings to the Eusibius Square and the Rhine bank through the ancient Sabil-Poort, a Gothic gateway recalling the days when Arnhem was fortified with the customary town wall.

At the side of the Groote Kerk Arnhem holds a weekly market which is scarcely more distinctive than that of Groningen but so popular with the peasants that it overflows into the neighboring streets, and places trolley service through the vicinity in a state of disruption. Having driven into town the evening before, the country people unhitch their horses and leave their wagons standing in the square so as to lose no time in getting ready for business in the morning. Much faith they must have in the honesty and orderliness of the citizens of Arnhem, for their loads of vegetables and whatever they have for sale remain in the open, when the weather is propitious, without even a covering.

A few blocks to the east of the market square lies the Eusibiusbinnensingel, a beautiful park-like place, but a mouthful to pronounce, with a lake in the center surrounded by great shade trees and geometrical flower plots. If you follow this to the northward, you will come, after a short walk, to the Velperplein, the pulse of Arnhem’s trolley traffic, the principal feature of which is a large building that goes under the poetical name of the Musis Sacrum, containing a restaurant and various halls for exhibitions. Here at the tables of the open air cafÉ the German tourists are wont to forgather for refreshment purposes, guarding the while their little ten-by-two-inch satchels, scarcely large enough to hold half a dozen cigars, as if they contained the entire wardrobe and family jewels of their owners.

In the Velperplein one may board an electric car for any part of the city and many of its suburbs. And it is best to patronize the trolley service of Arnhem whenever possible, because taxicabs, horse drawn or motor propelled, are not to be found in operation. The buccaneering cabbies of Arnhem, next of kin to the piratical baggage porters of Fiume, charge a goodly price to take you out upon a drive in the environs, and double the amount to bring you back, on the ground that your ignorance of their language, not considering their ignorance of yours, was the cause of a misinterpretation of directions. And the worst of this tourist bleeding system is that the hotel head porters connive with the cabbies.

On top of a real hill half a mile to the north of the railway station is Sonsbeek, a favorite rendezvous of the pleasure-seeking Arnhemers, thickly wooded, containing a small lake or two, and, of course, the inevitable cafÉ, while the ascent of a tower called the Belvedere is offered as a temptation only to those who expect to obtain a magnificent and inspiring view where only a mediocre one exists.

The Velperweg, the Amsterdamschestraatweg—but if this kind of thing goes on it might tangle my type into a knotted, inextricable mass; for purely mechanical reasons, therefore, I shall revert to an English version. The Velper Road, the Amsterdam Road, the Zyp Road, the Utrecht Road, and the Apeldoorn Road are the five principal arteries that tap the environs that have made Arnhem famous with the Dutchman. Each one penetrates imposing woods, the like of which the Hollander never saw before, but ruthlessly tramped almost threadbare by his frequent pilgrimages through them in search of a “panorama,” no matter how insignificant. At the different points where the foliage permits of a view of sometimes several miles across the wheat fields, fruit venders have set up their stands, the ground is littered with papers and the empty boxes discarded by many picnickers, and the importunate picture postcard man is seen in his element.

The Velp Road, which leads at length to Zutphen, is, perhaps, the gem of all the five. Wide and well kept, it is lined on either side as far as the village of Velp, a distance of three miles from Arnhem, with handsome residences and tastefully laid out lawns and gardens which are girt with small canals in lieu of fences, so that each may be admired from the roadway.

Halfway along is Bronbeek, the royal asylum for invalid soldiers who have served in the colonial wars. It was bought by King William III in 1854 from its private owners, and presented by him to the State five years later on condition that it be devoted to its present purpose. Little cascades trickle here and there through its grounds, while the pair of cannon mounted on its front lawn bespeaks its use as no blaring signboard could possibly do. Not far from the corner entrance to its park stands a statue of William II as Crown Prince, portrayed as carrying his arm in a sling after having received a wound in the battle of Waterloo. The interior of the building contains collections of portraits of East Indian heroes, and of weapons, flags, and other trophies of war taken in the colonies.

Rosendaal, one of the largest estates in Gelderland, can be reached after a pleasant walk of a mile in a northerly direction from Velp. Mentioned for the first time as early as 1314, its grounds are still kept in a state of baronial magnificence, but of its old castle only a comparatively small part of a great round tower remains.

Another walk, but toward the east on the road to the village and wood of Beekhuizen, brings you to the castle of Biljoen, erected by Charles, Duke of Guelders, in 1530, upon the foundations of an eleventh century stronghold.

Nymwegen may be considered the twin city of Arnhem; when one is mentioned the other is instinctively thought of. They lie close to each other, are of about the same population, offer the same general aspects, and have played parts of equal importance in the general history of the country; but of the two, Nymwegen is possibly the more diverting. It is two cities in one—the older part being purely Dutch, with its old Dutch buildings and a few Dutch types which are mocked by the declivity of some of its streets; the more modern and larger part being distinctively German, with its platzes, the general distribution and embellishment of its thoroughfares, and the density of its greenery. The center of this German portion of Nymwegen is the Keiser-Karelplein, a beautiful square from which the different streets radiate; but what should be the pleasing quiet of the neighborhood is constantly and mercilessly broken by the shrieks of the engine of a noisy tram train that rattles around among the trees as if hunting in vain for a convenient exit.

Yet another example of the very esthetic habit that the Dutch have of demolishing old fortifications and planting the sites as public pleasure grounds may be seen in the Kronenburg Park, the contour of whose slopes adds admirably to the general landscape effect. Down at the bottom is a duck-dotted lake bordered with the benches that constitute the trysting places of many a young Nymwegen couple, so unconscious of any but their own affairs that they suffer old ladies to sit upon the same bench and knit and spy with generous eyes upon the lovers’ advances. At the farther edge of the lake they have mercifully preserved one of the sixteen towers that once strengthened the town walls.

The Waal, one of the many branches of the Rhine, is a busier river at Nymwegen than the real Rhine is at Arnhem. Tows of long, narrow boats, typical of the Rhine above Cologne, ply up and down under the great iron railway bridge and lend to the city more of a German air than ever.

Overlooking the river some distance above the railway bridge are the shady pleasure grounds of the Valkhof, one of the seven hills upon which the city of Nymwegen was originally built and where Charlemagne erected an imperial palace, later destroyed by the French in 1796. An interesting and picturesque ruin is a small fragment of the old palace church, built by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, while near by may be seen the oldest remnant of ecclesiastical architecture in the Netherlands—the sixteen-sided Gothic castle chapel, rebuilt a number of times after being consecrated originally by Pope Leo III in 799.

Across what must have been the castle moat and connected with the Valkhof grounds by an iron bridge, a tower of the seventeenth century affords the people of Nymwegen an attractive view of which they are justly proud, embracing as it does the fertile farming districts as far as Cleve, to the southeast, as far as Arnhem, to the north, and, upon a clear day, as many as four rivers: the Rhine, the Maas, the Waal, and the Yssel.

The old Church of St. Stephen and the brick gateway that leads to it from the market square, the weigh-house with its red and black shutters, the Town Hall, and a number of other old buildings in the vicinity of the Groote Markt are all essentially Dutch, but for which the visitor might easily imagine himself in a German city.

With those of Arnhem, however, Nymwegen’s environs can scarcely hope to compete. The steam tram that rattles around the Keiser-Karelplein eventually escapes the city limits and climbs the long hill to the Hotel Berg en Dal, from the vicinity of which one may look out upon a much vaunted “panorama” that might at least be worth while under certain conditions. But what with the blatant strummings of an automatic piano that considers itself of valuable assistance to the complete enjoyment of the view, and the petty vibrations of a more or less popular photographer intent upon making likenesses of visitors in the unusual and startling act of looking from the top of a hill in Holland, the view is rendered more of a bore than a diversion.

The Dutch province of Limburg, a narrow tongue of land successfully battled for by the Dutch against the Belgians in the war of 1830–31, lying away to the south of Gelderland and wedged in between Belgium on the west and Germany on the east, is so un-Netherlandish, both as to peoples and topography, that it can scarcely be considered as a part of the Holland that the tourist expects. Its inhabitants even speak a low German dialect instead of Dutch. Furthermore, it is not on any route that a tour through Holland might include, for Maastricht, its historical old capital, is on the direct railway line between Brussels and Cologne and may be more easily visited from either of those points than from any city in Holland proper.