Nothing impresses the visitor to Holland more than the vast dikes or dams which restrain the sea from overwhelming the country.  They have to be constantly watched and renewed, and to those unused to the idea of dwelling in the presence of such constant peril, the phlegm of the Hollanders is remarkable.  M. Havard, who has made a careful study of the country and its people, and who writes of them in a lively style, has left excellent descriptions of these unique works.  “We know,” he says, “what the Zealand soil is—­how uncertain, changing, and mutable; nevertheless, a construction is placed upon it, one hundred and twenty yards long, sixteen yards wide at the entrance, and more than seven and a half yards deep below high water.  Add to this, that the enormous basin (one thousand nine hundred square yards) is enclosed within granite walls of extraordinary thickness, formed of solid blocks of stone of tremendous weight.  To what depth must the daring workmen who undertook the Cyclopean task have gone in search of a stable standpoint, on which to lay the foundation of such a mass!  In what subterranean layer could they have had such confidence, in this country where the earth sinks in, all of a sudden, where islands disappear without leaving a trace—­that they ventured to build upon it so mighty an edifice!  And observe that not only one dam is thus built; in the two islands of Zuid Beveland and Walcheren a dozen have been constructed.  There are two at Wormeldingen.  In the presence of these achievements, of problems faced with such courage and solved with such success, one is almost bewildered.”

Elsewhere, in speaking of Kampveer, one of the towns which suffered an inundation, he says, “Poor little port! once so famous, lively, populous, and noisy, and now so solitary and still!  Traces of its former military and mercantile character are yet to be seen.  On the left stands a majestic building with thick walls and few apertures, terminating on the sea in a crenelated round tower; and these elegant houses, with their arched and trefoiled windows, and their decorated gables, on the right, once formed the ancient Scotschhuis.  Every detail of the building recalls the great trade in wool done by the city at that period.  Far off, at the entrance of the port, stands a tower, the last remnant of the ramparts, formerly a fortification; it is now a tavern.  In vain do we look for the companion tower; it has disappeared with the earth on which its foundations stood deep and strong for ages.  If, from the summit of the surviving tower, you search for that mysterious town upon the opposite bank, you will look for it in vain where it formerly stood and mirrored its houses and steeples in the limpid waters.  Kampen also has been swallowed up forever, leaving no trace that it ever existed in this world.  The land that stretches out before us is all affected by that subtle, cancerous disease, the val, whose ravages are so terrible.  Two centuries ago