One reaches the sea by a path across the fields to an inner dyke with a high road upon it, and then by another footpath, or paths, beside green ditches, to the ultimate dyke which holds Neptune in check.  As I walked I was continually conscious of heavy splashes just ahead of me, which for a while I put down to water-rats.  But chancing to stand still I was presently aware of the proximity of a huge green frog, the largest I have ever seen, who sat, solid as a paper weight, close beside me, with one eye glittering upon me and the other upon the security of the water, into which he jumped at a movement of my hand.  Walking then more warily I saw that the banks on either side were populous with these monsters; and sometimes it needed only a flourish of the handkerchief to send a dozen simultaneously into the ditch.  I am glad we have not such frogs at home.  A little frog is an adorable creature, but a frog half-way to realising his bovine ambition is a monster.

The sea dyke is many feet high.  Its lowest visible stratum is of black stones, beneath the sea-level; then a stratum of large red bricks; then turf.  The willow branches are invisible, within.  The land hereabout is undoubtedly some distance below sea-level, but it is impossible either here or anywhere in Holland to believe in the old and venerable story of the dyke plugged by an heroic thumb to the exclusion of the ocean and the safety of the nation.

As I lay on the bank in the sun, listening to a thousand larks, with all Friesland on one hand and the pearl grey sea on the other, a passer-by stopped and asked me a question which I failed to understand.  My reply conveyed my nationality to him.  “Ah,” he said, “Eenglish.  Do it well with you?” I said that it did excellently well.  He walked on until he met half a dozen other men, some hundred yards away, when I saw him pointing to me and telling them of the long conversation he had been enjoying with me in my own difficult tongue.  It was quite clear from their interest that the others were conscious of the honour of having a real linguist among them.

Another day I went to Harlingen.  I had intended to reach the town by steam-tram, but the time table was deceptive and the engine stopped permanently at a station two or three miles away.  Fortunately, however, a curtained brake was passing, and into this I sprang, joining two women and a dominie, and together we ambled very deliberately into the quiet seaport.  Harlingen is a double harbour—­inland and maritime.  Barges from all parts of Friesland lie there, transferring their goods a few yards to the ocean-going ships bound for England and the world, although Friesland does not now export her produce as once she did.  Thirty years ago much of our butter and beef and poultry sailed from Harlingen.

The town lies in the savour of the sea.  Masts rise above the houses, ship-chandlers’ shops send forth the agreeable scent of tar and cordage, sailors and stevedores lounge against posts as only those that follow the sea can do.  I had some beef and bread, in the Dutch midday manner, in the upper room of an inn overlooking the harbour, while two shipping-clerks played a dreary game of billiards.  Beyond the dyke lay the empty grey sea, with Texel or Vlieland a faint dark line on the horizon.  Nothing in the town suggested the twentieth century, or indeed any century.  Time was not.