84.-Holland.

1. HOLLAND is one of the queerest countries under the sun. It should be called Odd-land, or Contrary-land, for, in nearly everything, it is different from other parts of the world.

2. In the first place, a large portion of the country is lower than the level of the sea. Great dikes or bulwarks have been erected at a heavy cost of money and labor, to keep the ocean where it belongs. On certain parts of the coast, it sometimes leans with all its weight against the land, and it is as much as the poor country can do to stand the pressure.

3. Sometimes the dikes give way, or spring aleak, and the most disastrous results ensue. They are high and wide, and the tops of some of them are covered with buildings and trees. They have even fine public roads upon them, from which horses may look down upon wayside cottages.

4. Often the keels of floating ships are higher than the roofs of the dwellings. The stork, clattering to her young on the house-peak, may feel that her nest is lifted far out of danger, but the croaking frog in neighboring bulrushes is nearer the stars than she. Water-bugs dart backward and forward above the heads of the chimney swallows; and willow-trees seem drooping with shame, because they cannot reach as high as the reeds near by.

5. Ditches, canals, ponds, rivers, and lakes are everywhere to be seen. High, but not dry, they shine in the sunlight, catching nearly all the bustle and the business, quite scorning the tame fields, stretching damply beside them. One is tempted to ask, "Which is Holland-the shore or the water ?"

6. The very verdure that should be confined to the land has made a mistake and settled upon the fish-ponds. In fact, the entire country is a kind of saturated sponge, or, as the English poet, Butler, called it,

"A land that rides at anchor, and is moored;
In which they do not live, but go aboard."

7. Persons are born, they live, and die, and even have their gardens, on canal-boats. Farm-houses, with roofs like great slouched hats pulled over their eyes, stand on wooden legs, with a tucked-up sort of air, as if to say, "We intend to keep dry if we can.' Even the horses wear a wide stool on each hoof to lift them out of the mire. In short, the landscape everywhere suggests a paradise for ducks.

8. It is a glorious country in summer for barefooted girls and boys. Such wadings! Such mimic ship-sailing! Such rowing, fishing, and swimming! Only think of a chain of puddles where one can launch chip boats all day long, and never make a return trip! But enough. A full recital would

set all young America rushing in a body toward the Zuider Zee.

9. Dutch cities seem, at first sight, to be a bewildering jungle of houses, bridges, churches, and ships, sprouting into masts, steeples, and trees. In some cities, vessels are hitched, like horses, to their owners' door-posts, and receive their freight from the upper windows.

10. Mothers scream to the children not to swing on the garden gate for fear they may be drowned. Water-roads are more frequent there than common roads and railways; water-fences, in the form of lazy green ditches, inclose pleasure-ground, farm, and garden.

11. Sometimes fine green hedges are seen; but wooden fences, such as we have in America, are rarely met with in Holland. As for stone fences, a Dutchman would lift his hands with astonishment at the very idea. One sees no stone there, except those great masses of rock that have been brought from other lands to strengthen and protect the coast.

12. All the small stones or pebbles, if there ever were any, seem to be imprisoned in pavements, or quite melted away. Boys, with strong, quick arms, may grow from pinafores to full beards without ever finding one to start the water-rings or set the rabbits flying.

13. The water-roads are nothing less than canals intersecting the country in every direction. These