17.
[21] Bl.Com.b.ii.c.

1.
_BOOK II._ TREATING OF THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF THE PROVINCE OF NIEUW NEDERLANDTS.
CHAPTER I.
My great-grandfather by the mother's side, Hermanus Van Clattercop, when employed to build the large stone church at Rotterdam, which stands about three hundred yards to your left after you turn off from the Boomkeys, and which is so conveniently constructed that all the zealous Christians of Rotterdam prefer sleeping through a sermon there to any other church in the city--my great-grandfather, I say, when employed to build that famous church, did in the first place send to Delft for a box of long pipes; then having purchased a new spitting-box and a hundredweight of the best Virginia, he sat himself down, and did nothing for the space of three months but smoke most laboriously.

Then did he spend full three months more in trudging on foot, and voyaging in the trekschuit, from Rotterdam to Amsterdam--to Delft--to Haerlem--to Leyden--to the Hague, knocking his head and breaking his pipe against every church in his road.

Then did he advance gradually nearer and nearer to Rotterdam, until he came in full sight of the identical spot whereon the church was to be built.

Then did he spend three months longer in walking round it and round it; contemplating it, first from one point of view and then from another--now he would be paddled by it on the canal--now would he peep at it through a telescope, from the other side of the Meuse--and now would he take a bird's-eye glance at it, from the top of one of those gigantic windmills which protect the gates of the city.