CHAPTER III.
Dordrecht and Utrecht By water to Dordrecht--Her four rivers--The milkmaid and the coat of arms--The Staple of Dort--Overhanging houses--Albert Cuyp--Nicolas Maes--Ferdinand Bol--Ary Scheffer--G.H.

Breitner--A Dort carver--The Synod of Dort--"The exquisite rancour of theologians"-- _La Tulipe Noire_--Bernard Mandeville--The exclusive Englishman--The Castle of Loevenstein--The escape of Grotius--Gorcum's taste outraged--By rail to Utrecht--A free church--The great storm of 1674--Utrecht Cathedral--Jan van Scorel--Paul Moreelse--A too hospitable museum.
Dordrecht must be approached by water, because then one sees her as she was seen so often, and painted so often, by her great son Albert Cuyp, and by countless artists since.
I steamed from Rotterdam to Dordrecht on a grey windy morning, on a passenger boat bound ultimately for Nymwegen.

We carried a very mixed cargo.

In a cage at the bows was a Friesland mare, while the whole of the deck at the stern was piled high with motor spirit.

Between came myriad barrels of beer and other merchandise.
The course to Dordrecht (which it is simpler to call Dort) is up the Maas for some miles; past shipbuilding yards, at Sylverdyk (where is a great heronry) and Kinderdyk; past fishermen dropping their nets for salmon, which they may take only on certain days, to give their German brethren, higher up the river, a chance; past meadows golden with marsh marigolds; past every kind of craft, most attractive of all being the tjalcks with their brown or black sails and green-lined hulls, not unlike those from Rochester which swim so steadily in the reaches of the Thames about Greenwich.