CHAPTER VII.
Leyden Steam-trams--Holland for the people--Quiet Leyden--The Meermansburg--Leyden's museums--The call of the open--Oliver Goldsmith--A view of the Dutch--"Polite Learning"-- "The Traveller"-- James Howell--John Evelyn and the Burgundian Jew--_Colloquia Peripatetica_--St.Peter's and St.Pancras's--The Kermis--Drinking in Holland--Poffertjes and Wafelen--America's master.
We travelled to Leyden from The Hague by the steam-tram, through cheerful domestic surroundings, past little Englishy cottages and gardens.

It was Sunday morning, and the villagers of Voorburg and Voorschoten and the other little places _en route_ were idle and gay.
In England light railways are a rarity; Holland is covered with a net-work of them.

The little trains rush along the roads all over the country, while the roadside willows rock in their eddying wake.

To stand on the steam-tram footboard is one very good way to see Holland.

In England of course we can never have such conveniences, England being a free country in which individual rights come first.