CHAPTER XIX.
Middelburg The friendly Zeelanders--A Spanish heritage--Deceptive Dutch towns--The Abbey Hotel--The Abbey of St.Nicholas--Middelburg's art--Sentimental songs--The great Tacius--The siege of Middelburg--A round-faced city--When disfigurement is beauty--Green paint--Long John--Music in the night--Foolish Betsy--The Stadhuis--An Admiral and stuffed birds--The law of the paving-stones--Veere--The prey of the sea--A mammoth church--Maximilian's cup.
With Middelburg I have associated, for charm, Hoorn; but Middelburg stands first.

It is serener, happier, more human; while the nature of the Zeelander is to the stranger so much more ingratiating than that of the North Hollander.

The Zeelander--and particularly the Walcheren islander--has the eccentricity to view the stranger as a natural object rather than a phenomenon.

Flushing being avowedly cosmopolitan does not count, but at Middelburg, the capital of Zeeland, you may, although the only foreigner there, walk about in the oddest clothes and receive no embarrassing attentions.
It is not that the good people of Walcheren are quicker to see where their worldly advantage lies.

They are not schemers or financiers.