Rollo in Holland

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ROLLO IN HOLLAND,

BY

JACOB ABBOTT.


BOSTON: BROWN, TAGGARD & CHASE,

SUCCESSORS TO W. J. REYNOLDS & CO., 25 & 29 CORNHILL.

1857.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
JACOB ABBOTT,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.

STEREOTYPED AT THE
BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. Damrell & Moore, Printers, Boston.




[Illustration: ROLLO IN HOLLAND.]




CONTENTS.

CHAPTER                                                             PAGE

  I.--PREPARATIONS,                                                   11
  II.--A BAD TRAVELLING COMPANION,                                    26
  III.--THE MAIL STEAMER,                                             44
  IV.--ENTERING HOLLAND,                                              67
  V.--WALKS ABOUT ROTTERDAM,                                          86
  VI.--DOING THE HAGUE,                                              109
  VII.--CORRESPONDENCE,                                              138
  VIII.--THE COMMISSIONER,                                           160
  IX.--THE GREAT CANAL,                                              169
  X.--THE DAIRY VILLAGE,                                             186
  XI.--CONCLUSION,                                                   200

ENGRAVINGS.

  ROLLO IN HOLLAND.--(Frontispiece.)                                PAGE
  VIEW IN HOLLAND,                                                    10
  THE HANSOM CAB,                                                     33
  LANDING FROM THE MAIL BOAT,                                         57
  DORT,                                                               83
  THE FERRY BOAT,                                                    101
  THE DINNER,                                                        124
  THE BOAT FAMILY,                                                   154
  THE TREKSCHUYT,                                                    181
  THE DAIRY VILLAGE,                                                 193
  CABIN OF PETER THE GREAT,                                          204


  ROLLO'S TOUR IN EUROPE.

  ORDER OF THE VOLUMES.

  ROLLO ON THE ATLANTIC.
  ROLLO IN PARIS.
  ROLLO IN SWITZERLAND.
  ROLLO IN LONDON.
  ROLLO ON THE RHINE.
  ROLLO IN SCOTLAND.
  ROLLO IN GENEVA.
  ROLLO IN HOLLAND.
  ROLLO IN NAPLES.
  ROLLO IN ROME.

[Illustration: VIEW IN HOLLAND.]




ROLLO IN HOLLAND.




CHAPTER I.

PREPARATIONS.


Holland is one of the most remarkable countries on the globe. The
peculiarities which make it remarkable arise from the fact that it is
almost perfectly level throughout, and it lies so low. A very large
portion of it, in fact, lies below the level of the sea, the waters
being kept out, as every body knows, by immense dikes that have stood
for ages.

These dikes are so immense, and they are so concealed by the houses, and
trees, and mills, and even villages that cover and disguise them, that
when the traveller first sees them he can hardly believe that they are
dikes. Some of them are several hundred feet wide, and have a good broad
public road upon the top, with a canal perhaps by the side of it, and
avenues of trees, and road-side inns, and immense wind mills on the
other hand. When riding or walking along upon such a dike on one side,
down a long slope, they have a glimpse of water between the trees. On
the other, at an equal distance you see a green expanse of country, with
gardens, orchards, fields of corn and grain, and scattered farm houses
extending far and wide. At first you do not perceive that this beautiful
country that you see spreading in every direction on one side of the
road is below the level of the water that you see on the other side; but
on a careful comparison you find that it is so. When the tide is high
the difference is very great, and were it not for the dikes the people
would be inundated.[1]

[Footnote 1: See Frontispiece.]

Indeed, the dikes alone would not prevent the country from being
inundated; for it is not possible to make them perfectly tight, and even
if it were so, the soil beneath them is more or less pervious to water,
and thus the water of the sea and of the rivers would slowly press its
way through the lower strata, and oozing up into the land beyond, would
soon make it all a swamp.

Then, besides the interpercolation from the soil, there is the rain. In
upland countries, the surplus water that falls in rain flows off in
brooks and rivers to the sea; but in land that is below the level of
the sea, there can be no natural flow of either brooks or rivers. The
rain water, therefore, that falls on this low land woul