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THE NETHERLANDS.

Rotterdam. I reached this fine old city from Antwerp. The Belgian frontier is crossed at Esschen, seventeen miles from Antwerp, and the traveller enters upon a new country-one which may be said to have been won by man from the ocean, and which eminently represents the triumph of human industry. Along parts of the coasts of the North Sea, the land is protected from the ocean by ranges of sandhills, but in Zealand and North Holland the land, which was won from the sea at vast labour, is only held by great outlay; a defensive war is maintained against the ocean, and the encroachments of the sea are warded off at an immense cost. The province of Friesland, which has no sandhills, is protected against the sea by vast dykes and palisades, the expense of maintaining which costs upwards of half a million a year. Goldsmith thus depicts this interesting country:

Methinks her patient sons before me stand

Where the broad ocean leans against the land;
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride.
Onward, methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm connected bulwark seems to grow,
Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar,
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore:
While the pent ocean rising o'er the pile,
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile;

The slow canal, the yellow-blossom'd vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,
A new creation ascend from his reign.

The Traveller.

The traveller from Brussels, on reaching Moerdyk, is transferred from the railway to the steamer, passes down the Maas, reaches Dordrecht, and thence, by the Scheldt, arrives at Rotterdam. The neighbourhood of Dordrecht was once the scene of a terrible disaster. The Maas, swollen by sudden rains, came down like a tremendous sea, and covered the whole of the lowlands. Many thousand lives were lost in this inundation, and the bed of the river was changed; to avoid a similar catastrophe the broad deep canal, which is traversed by ships and steamers, was dug at an enormous expense. The Dutch seem to disregard cost, where the object to be achieved appears commensurate. They made a ship-canal from Amsterdam to the North Sea, a distance of fifty miles; and, finding it insufficient for the increasing trade of that rising city, are now engaged in the formation of another which will cost more than double that which has been constructed. Dordrecht is still a place of considerable trade, containing a population of upwards of 20,000 inhabitants; but, alas for the mutability of human affairs! the house where the spiritual fathers of the Protestant Church met to discuss the doctrines of Arminius (and where the President, after a discussion of six months, announced that Hell was shaken to the centre, though he did not say how he found it out) is now used for other spiritual uses, having been converted into a public

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185

house: you may now obtain good Schiedam in the hall of conference. The last rays of the setting sun, which sank in unclouded glory, shed their light on the square tower of the old church, as we glided past this once-famous town; daylight faded away and, in the softness of an autumnal evening, we crept along towards Rotterdam. The water, which was broken with our prow and disturbed by our paddles, was glassy smooth. The barges which floated on its bosom appeared almost motionless, they steal spectre-like along; the only sign of motion was shown by the arms of the windmills, of which nearly a hundred might be counted at the same time: the scene was one of those pictures of still life which the Dutch painters love to depict, and which until seen appear too quiet to be real. Rotterdam is reached at last. It is a quaint old town, intersected with many canals: houses and ships, ships and houses, are so mingled that one might fancy the houses were afloat and the ships stationary. The cathedral is a miracle of bricks, another proof of the muchenduring toil of the Dutch. Holland-the Low Countries of the English, the Pays-Bas of the French-is a wonderful country. The refuge of those who would not submit to the yoke of Imperial Rome, she maintained her freedom when the plateau of Europe was overrun by the Goths and reduced to subjection. Self-asserting and self-sustained, she refused to adopt either the language or the attire of other nations; you see this unchangeableness, this self-assertion, in the dress of her matrons; you hear it in the language of those around you. It follows all their customs. Where but in Holland will you see such quaint tea-services? or be brought the kettle

to make tea on a dish of live coals? All honour to the Dutch, a race not numbering at the present day more than 3,500,000! I have in my route passed through the provinces of Zealand, South Holland, and North Holland; everywhere the land seems to be only a few inches above the water: the soil is a light sand, yet it is covered with rich herbage, and affords pasture to myriads of cows. Holland is the paradise of the bovine race. They are reared for the dairy, not for the butcher; they luxuriate in the well-kept pastures, and repay the care by teeming cans of the richest milk. But her farmers, satisfied with their own race of cattle, have adhered to their black and white cows, refusing the blandishments of the breeders of shorthorns, and have thus preserved the productiveness of their dairies, while Ireland has madly sacrificed it, by giving up her own breed of cattle for a less lacteal class of stock. The export of butter and cheese increased enormously.* Since 1833 the export of both has nearly doubled. This increase in the value of her agricultural produce has shown itself in the growing wealth of all classes. It is manifest in the aspect of the homes and in the look of the people. It is rather surprising to note the increase in the produce of grain, notwithstanding the greatly extended export of butter and cheese; but it proves the truth of an assertion I have previously made, that a decrease in the culture of grain necessarily produced a diminution in the *The export of butter and cheese from the Netherlands

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quantity of live stock, and consequently of animal produce.

The returns of cereal produce are as follow:

What can England show in comparison? According to the published returns, the sales of grain in the English markets in these years were as follows:

The countries lie in the same latitudes, and are subject to similar weather. The difference is caused not by the act of God, but by the act of man. The Dutch have tilled their land-the English have neglected to do so. The consequence is, the former have had an increase in their supply of food, while the latter have had a diminution.

Haarlem.-About twelve years ago a great addition