Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/74

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62
TOUR THROUGH

had crowded Overschie with strangers, and most of the cabarets or ale-houses were filled with guests. We were repulsed from two houses, notwithstanding all our endeavours to excite the avarice or the humanity of the landlords: and it added to our chagrin, that the boors, who sat smoking their pipes over a comfortable turf fire, seemed to enjoy with great satisfaction our distress. At length we were received into a miserable cabin; and fortunately procured an apartment for ourselves. But there was no fire-place in it, and the rain descended, and the wind entered through various chinks. Coffee and gin were the only refreshments which the house afforded, and neither of these very excellent in their kind. A damp bed completed the sum of our misfortunes, and after a sleepless night, we set off early in the morning in a voiture for the Hague.

Every-where from Overschie to Delft, and from thence to the Hague, the destruction of the preceding evening met the eye. Trees, the growth of an age, were torn up by the roots, houses thrown down, and