or, The Silver Skates 233

XXVIII
THROUGH THE HAGUE

HE picture-gallery in the Maurits Huis,! one of the
finest in the world, seemed only to have flashed by
the boys during a two hours’ visit, so much was there to
admire and examine. As for the royal cabinet of curiosities,
in the same building, they felt that they had but glanced at it,
though they were there nearly half a day. It seemed to them
that Japan had poured all her treasures within its walls. For
a long period Holland, always foremost in commerce, was the
only nation allowed to have any intercourse with Japan. One
can well forego a journey to that country, if one can but visit
the museum at the Hague.

Room after room is filled with collections from the Hermit
Empire, — costumes peculiar to various ranks and pursuits,
articles of ornament, household utensils, weapons, armor and
surgical instruments. There is also an ingenious Japanese
model of the Island of Desina, the Dutch factory in Japan.
It appears almost as the island itself would if seen through a
reversed opera-glass, and makes one feel like a Gulliver com-
ing unexpectedly upon a Japanese Lilliput. There you see
hundreds of people in native costumes, standing, kneeling,
stooping, reaching, —all at work, or pretending to be, — and
their dwellings, even their very furniture, spread out before
you, plain as day. In another room a huge tortoise-shell baby-

1 A building erected by Prince Maurice of Nassau.