The chase is a favourite amusement with the nobles and gentlemen, and is a sport in which they are lustily joined by the peasantry.  The immense forests with which the country abounds gives shelter to wild boars, wolves, and many other ferocious animals.  On grand occasions there is held what is called a battue, when a number of deer are driven into an enclourse, and shot at by the sportsmen.  The habits of the peasants are extremely simple, but the people are industrious and ingenious.  The villages and cottages are neat and comfortable.  The peasants make many pretty toys and ornaments, and bring provisions to market from a great distance, in light roomy wheel-barrows, made for the purpose.  The German people are in general fair, with blue eyes, flaxen hair, and full figures; but they do not wear any very peculiar dress.

In models of ships, in rosewood furniture, in silver embroidery, and silver cups,—­besides linens, calicoes, and glass beautifully painted for windows; many contributions have been sent in by the Dutch.  There are also soft thick blankets with scarlet borders, which make one warm merely to look at them.

The Dutch people are industrious, and cleanly.  The women are the most active and nicest house-wives in the world; they scour and brighten, and rub not only the furniture and inside of their houses, but the outside as well; the houses in Holland, by-the-bye, look like painted baby-houses, and are roofed with glossy delft tiles, and the rooms are lined with smooth square tiles of delft, and the floors paved with marble.  The people are never idle in Holland, but are always working at a great variety of manufactures, among which are leather, woollen, and linen articles,—­also, paper, wax, starch, pottery, and tiles.  Large quantities of gin are likewise made, and this liquor is in England called “Hollands” for that reason.  Carts are not much used by the Dutch; their goods are carried on sledges, very light waggons, and boats.  The reason of this is, that they are afraid lest the wheels of vehicles should injure the foundations of their cities, which are generally built on piles of huge trees, driven like stakes into the bog beneath.  The common people are very humane to their cattle; they rub down the cows and oxen, and keep them as clean and sleek as our English horses.  Canals run through the principal streets, and in winter they are frozen over for two or three months, when the whole country is like a fair; booths are erected upon the ice, with fires in them.  The country people skate to market, with milk and vegetables; and every kind of sport is seen on the frozen canals.  Sledges fly from one street to another, gaily decorated, and numberless skaters glide about with astonishing swiftness and dexterity.  No people skate so well as the Dutch.

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