ONE who looks for the first time at a large map of Holland must be amazed to think that a country so made can exist. At first sight, it is impossible to say whether land or water predominates, and whether Holland belongs to the continent or to the sea. Its jagged and narrow coast-line, its deep bays and wide rivers, which seem to have lost the outer semblance of rivers and to be carrying fresh seas to the sea; and that sea itself, as if transformed to a river, penetrating far into the land, and

IF a teacher of geography had stopped me at some street-corner, before I had decided to visit Holland, and abruptly asked me, "Where is Zealand?" I should have had nothing to say; and I believe I am not mistaken in the supposition that a great number of my fellow-citizens, if asked the same question, would find it difficult to answer. Zealand is somewhat mysterious even to the Dutch themselves; very few of them have seen it, and of those few the greater part have only passed through it by boat;

ONE cannot learn much about Rotterdam by entering it at night. The cab passed directly over a bridge that gave out a hollow sound, and while I believed myself to be—and, in fact, was—in the city, to my surprise I saw on either side a row of ships which were soon lost in the darkness. When we had crossed the bridge we drove along streets brightly lighted and full of people, and reached another bridge, to find ourselves between other rows of ships. So we went on for some time, from bridge to stree

ON my way from Rotterdam to Delft I saw for the first time the plains of Holland. The country is perfectly flat—a succession of green and flower-decked meadows, broken by long rows of willows and clumps of alders and poplars. Here and there appear the tops of steeples, the turning arms of windmills, straggling herds of large black and white cattle, and an occasional shepherd; then, for miles, only solitude. There is nothing to attract the eye, there is neither hill nor valley. From time to time