It is wiser I think to stay at Middelburg and visit Flushing from
there than to stay at Flushing. One may go by train or tram. In
hot weather the steam-tram is the better way, for then one can go
direct to the baths and bathe in the stillest arm of the sea that
I know. Here I bathed on the hottest day of last year, 1904, among
merry albeit considerable water nymphs and vivacious men. These I
found afterwards should have dwelt in the water for ever, for they
emerged, dried and dressed, from the machines, something less than
ordinary Batavians. I perhaps carried disillusionment also.
For safe bathing the Flushing baths could not well be excelled, but
I never knew shore so sandy. To rid one's self of sand is almost an
impossibility. With each step it over-tops one's boots.
Returning to Middelburg from Flushing one evening, in the steam-tram,
we found ourselves in a compartment filled with happy country
people, most of them making for the kermis, then in full swing in
the Middelburg market place. A pedlar of shrimps stood by the door
retailing little pennyworths, and nothing would do but the countryman
opposite me must buy some for his sweetheart. When he had bought them
he was for emptying them in her lap, but I tendered the wrapper of my
book just in time: an act of civility which brought out all his native
friendliness.
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