Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/215

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THE BATAVIAN REPUBLIC
203

been in the possession of her family a century and a half. I particularise the ornaments of this person's dress because we sat near her, but there were other ladies in the pit of the theatre to all appearance equally superbly and expensively habited.

The carriage which took us to and from the theatre was a coach fastened on a sledge, and drawn by a single horse. The driver walks by the side of the coach, with a whip and reins in his hand, and guides the machine whenever it turns an abrupt corner. These vehicles are common in Amsterdam, and to be hired at half the price that is required for a carriage which runs on wheels. The magistrates of Amsterdam are careful to license few wheeled coaches, on account of the insubstantiality of the foundations of the city, which they think would be shaken and injured, were many such carriages permitted to be driven about the streets. The motion of a sledge coach is slow and jolting, if the pavement be not good, which often happens, and few strangers find them an agreeable mode of conveyance. If the drivers are not