EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS
you have a coach that carries you wherever you have a mind."[1]
As a capital city Brussels, which even then aspired in a small way to rival Paris, had the most luxurious inns in the Austrian Low Countries, but one could be very comfortable at Ghent, at Bruges, at Liège, at Ypres, and in many other places. Young pronounces the Concierge at Dunkirk "a good inn, as indeed I have found in all Flanders."[2]
Owing to the frequent intercourse between England and Holland there were in more than one Dutch city English houses for the entertainment of strangers. Of such houses in Amsterdam there were usually two or three.[3] At The Hague there was "a good house" whither English travelers "who speak no language but their own may resort,"[4] and similar accommodation was to be had at Leyden and especially at Rotterdam. Special advantages of these English houses were that not only were they as cheap as the Dutch inns, but they provided "victuals dressed after the English way" and were less likely to impose upon unwary tourists. The names and character of the houses could be learned from the captain of the vessel one crossed on or from the merchant to whom one was recommended.[5]
Inns that were thoroughly Dutch were as a rule impregnated with the smell of tobacco, and on the tea-tables had spitting-pots placed "often much too like the cream pot in shape."[6] But to the general neatness of the Dutch inns all travelers bear witness. The floors were daily scoured and sanded, and the silver and pewter and copper platters shone like mirrors. Clean linen and soft beds might be safely counted on at the inns and public houses throughout the country.
Yet there were some drawbacks. "Their bedsteads, or rather cabins in the sides of the wall, are placed so high, that a man may break his neck, if he happens to fall out of them. Besides, a traveller must be content to lie with half a dozen people, or more, in the same room, and be disturbed all night long by somebody or other, if the churl
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