cost us the most trouble to procure," added Paul. "It seems to me a
great pity that people should struggle here to keep their heads above
water, when we have so much spare land in America. We could take them
all in without feeling it."

"Dutchmen would not feel at home on high ground."

"We could plant them down in Louisiana, and even treat them to an
occasional inundation."

"Certainly we should be very happy to accommodate them with a country.
We have a great many Dutchmen already, and they make thrifty,
industrious, and useful people," continued the doctor. "But I think, if
Holland were blotted out of existence, the world would miss it very
much."

"This is a great lumber port," said Mr. Fluxion. "Those great rafts
which float down the Rhine from Switzerland are mostly brought to this
place. I hope the boys will have a chance to see one of those rafts, for
they are stupendous affairs. One of them sometimes contains a hundred
and fifty thousand dollars' worth of lumber, and has a crew of four or
five hundred men."

"I think I heard Mr. Lowington say that we were to go down the Rhine,"
replied Paul.

"That is the Kloveniers Doelen," said Mr. Fluxion, as he led his
companions into a back street and pointed out an old Gothic building.
"It was here that the Protestant divines discussed the doctrines of the
reformed religion, whose 'miraculous labors made hell tremble,' to quote
the words of its presiding officer. The assembly is called in history
the Synod of Dort. The building, as you may see by reading the sign, is
now a low public house and dance-hall."

"Reading the sign!" exclaimed Paul, laughing; "a fellow would knock all
the teeth out of his head in attempting to speak some of these words."

"But many of them are very like English words. A dike is a _dijk_."

"Steamboats are _stoombooten_," said Paul; "and a street is a straat.
What are canals?"

"_Grachten_; the drawbridge is _ophaalbruggen_."

"Whew!" whistled Paul.

"But you can observe something like open-bridge in the sound. You see
that the _spiegels_ are very common here."

"I see they are; but I haven't the least idea what they are."

"The little mirrors placed outside the windows."

"I saw plenty of them in Antwerp."

"They are not as common there as in Holland, where they are to be seen
attached to almost every house. By this contrivance a Dutch dame can see
every person that passes in the street, without raising the blinds. But
I th