eight hundred guilders.

With a dense cloud of smoke hanging above it stood the town of Schiedam,
which contains nearly two hundred distilleries for the manufacture of
gin. Holland gin and Schiedam schnapps are regarded by those who indulge
in these beverages as the best in the world. The place was surrounded by
windmills, which are a principal feature of the scenery in all parts of
Holland proper.

After breakfast the signal was hoisted for the Josephines to attend the
lecture on board the ship, and a boat was sent ashore, in charge of the
steward, to procure the mail. The students were perched in the rigging,
observing the strange scenes which presented themselves on every hand.
The river was full of market boats loaded with vegetables, the principal
of which was a coarse plant, with large, straggling leaves, used as
cabbage or greens. There were large and small steamers plying in every
direction, and the scene was quite lively.

The Josephine's ship's company came on board, and all hands were piped
to lecture. Professor Mapps was at his post, with the map of the
Netherlands hanging on the foremast. His description of the dikes and
ditches of Holland was very full; but such portions of it as have been
given by Mr. Stoute will be omitted.

"Young gentlemen," he began, "I have already called your attention to
the physical geography of the Netherlands. The Rhine, which in Germany
is the _Rhein_, and in Holland the _Rhyn_, has its mouths in Holland.
Its length is nine hundred and sixty miles, and it is of vast importance
to Europe in a commercial point of view, being navigable for large
vessels to Cologne, and nearly to its source for smaller ones, though
occasionally interrupted by falls and rapids above Basle. Vessels of one
hundred tons go up to Strasbourg.

"The Rhine enters Holland, and immediately divides into two branches,
the southern being the Waal, and the northern retaining the original
name. The Waal is the larger of the two, and flows west until it unites
with the Maas, or Meuse, in Belgium, on one of whose estuaries our ship
now floats. About ten miles below the Waal branch, the original Rhine
divides again, the northern branch being called the Yssel, which flows
north into the Zuyder Zee. Thirty miles below the Yssel, it divides for
a third time, the southern branch being called the Leek, of which the
arm that flows by Rotterdam is the more direct continuation, though all
these branches are connected