Dutch thatching is very smooth and pretty, like an antelope's skin; and never more so than on the windmills.
Zaandam lies on either side of the river Zaan, here broad and placid and north of the dam more like the Thames at Teddington, say, than any stretch of water in Holland.

A single street runs beside the river for about a mile on both banks, the houses being models of smiling neatness, picked out with cheerful green paint.

At Zaandam green paint is at its greenest.

It is the national pigment; but nowhere else in Holland have they quite so sure a hand with it.

To the critics who lament that there is no good Dutch painting to-day, I would say "Go to Zaandam".