Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/303

Rh To the west of Binnenhof is Buitenhof which is now occupied by some Government offices; while between the Binnenhof and the Buitenhof, and a little to the north, stands the celebrated old state prison of Holland, called Gevangen Poort,—the scene of the tortures connected with the Spanish inquisition. It makes one's flesh creep to go through these dark chambers with the old instruments of torture carefully arranged therein. Finger-screws, thumb-screws and arm-screws, benches on which unfortunate prisoners were laid while their legs and arms were broken by an iron bar stroke by stroke, spiked girdles which held them fast while they were put under the lash, chains, and swords, and axes and the knife of the guillotine of more recent times are all arranged in one dark chamber. Another chamber in which prisoners were starved to death is shewn to visitors, and by an exquisite refinement of cruelty the window of this chamber is made face to face with the kitchen of the prison, so that the prisoners might see and smell the food through the iron grating of their chamber while they were being starved to death. Upstairs I saw the chamber in which the well known torture of the water-drops was inflicted on prisoners. The prisoner was fastened to a seat and water drop by drop fell on his head. The sensation was not unpleasant at first, but soon the drops caused an exquisite torture under which the prisoner groaned and yelled until he died after three or four days. A hole in the stone below, caused by the dripping of the