The Meuse and the Rhine form numerous mouths, and their deltas are low and marshy.  A most magnificent bridge crosses these, which is several (three?) miles in length.  Fourteen immense iron arches are required to span one of the mouths of the Rhine.  Much of the land is lower than the ocean, and a great conflict is waged between the Hollanders and the Sea, for the possession of the land.  It is a strange sight to see vessels sail along the embankments higher than the chimney tops of the houses along the shore!  Watchmen are stationed along these embankments and when the ocean breaks a leak, they will ring the alarm bells and every body will arm himself with a spade or shovel and run to the sea-shore to battle with the water.  Thus have these people defended their property against the encroachments of the sea for many centuries.

A great part of Holland is as level as the ocean, and there are neither fences nor hedges to be seen.  But ditches surround every little field and lot, and innumerable wind-mills pump the water that gathers into these ditches, up into canals, which intersect the country like a net-work, and conduct the water to the sea.  Extensive meadows and rich pasture land support large, herds of fine cattle and sheep, which constitute the wealth of Flemish industry.

These Hollanders have some very curious styles of dress, and, like the Swiss, still wear their ancient costumes, even after the rest of Europe have adopted the fashions of Paris.  In the larger towns and cities, however, the tide of revolution has set in and the young belles and beaux have commenced to “sail in Paris styles.”  A few years more, and the traditional costumes of the Flanders will have disappeared altogether.

The men are very partial to “burnsides” and wear their hair pretty long, combed wet and stroked down so as to look smooth and glossy.  The old women, in place of ear-rings, wear ornaments in the form of immense spirals suspended from the ends of half of a brass hoop that passes around their heads below their white caps.  These hang down over the cheeks and are almost as long as their faces.  Some of the young ladies coming in from the rural districts, carry a head rigging—­I do not know what else to call it, for it is neither bonnet, hat, nor cap, nor any combination of these; but it is an apparatus for the head that baffles description, and which, for want of a better name, we must call a tremendous thing, both in magnitude and in design!  I have seen women with straw hats that must have been well nigh a yard in diameter!  In The Hague, I saw little girls, however, (from 6 to 12 or 15 years of age) that were dressed as tidily and looked as fair and as sweet as any of our American school-girls.

Public Highways.

In Holland, these are highways in fact as well as in name.  They run in perfectly strait lines through the country, are about a yard higher than the meadows at their sides, and are lined by thick rows of willow-trees.  They are turnpiked of course, as are all the roads in civilized Europe.  From these roads the traveler has always the same field of vision—­a circle around him that is about 8 to 5 miles in diameter.  Towering spires may be seen in all directions.  I visited Dordrecht, Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Arnheim and intermediate places.