I saw no old Dutch garden in Holland which seemed to me so attractive as that at Levens in Westmorland.

It is important at Haarlem to take a drive over the dunes—­the billowy, grassy sand hills which stretch between the city and the sea.  If it is in April one can begin the drive by passing among every variety of tulip and hyacinth, through air made sweet and heavy by these flowers.  Just outside Haarlem the road passes the tiniest deer park that ever I saw—­with a great house, great trees, a lawn and a handful of deer all packed as close as they can be.  Now and then one sees a stork’s nest high on a pole before a house.

On leaving the green and luxuriant flat country a climbing pave road winds in and out among the pines on the edge of the dunes; past little villas, belonging chiefly to Amsterdam business men, each surrounded by a naked garden with the merest suggestion of a boundary.  For the Dutch do not like walls or hedges.  This level open land having no natural secrecy, it seems as if its inhabitants had decided there should be no artificial secrecy either.  When they sit in their gardens they like to be seen.  An Englishman’s first care when he plans a country estate is not to be overlooked; a Dutchman would cut down every tree that intervened between his garden chair and the high road.

Fun has often been made of the names which the Dutch merchants give to their country houses, but they seem to me often to be chosen with more thought than those of similar villas in our country.  Here are a few specimens:  Buiten Gedachten (Beyond Expectation), Ons Genoegen (Our Contentment), Lust en Rust (Pleasure and Rest), Niet Zoo Quaalyk (Not so Bad), Myn Genegenhied is Voldaan (My Desire is Satisfied), Mijn Lust en Leven (My Pleasure and Life), Vriendschap en Gezelschap (Friendship and Sociability), Vreugde bij Vrede (Joy with Peace), Groot Genoeg (Large Enough), Buiten Zorg (Without Care).  These names at any rate convey sentiments which we may take to express their owners’ true feelings in their owners’ own language; and as such I prefer them to the “Chatsworths” and “Belle-vues,” “Cedars” and “Towers,” with which the suburbs of London teem.  In a small inland street in Brighton the other day I noticed a “Wave Crest”.

The dunes extend for miles:  an empty wilderness of sand with the grey North Sea beyond.  From the high points one sees inland not only Haarlem, just below, but the domes and spires of Amsterdam beyond.

One may return to Haarlem by way of Bloemendaal, a green valley with shady walks and a good hotel; or extend the drive to Haarlem’s watering-place Zaandvoort, which otherwise can be gained by steam-tram, and where, says the author of Through Noord-Holland, “the billowing is strong and strengthening”.  The same author tells us also that “the ponnies and asses have a separated standing-place, whilst severe stipulations warrant the bathers for trouble of the animals and their driver”.