thing connected with
oysters. There was another, KOFFER EN ZADEL MAKERIJ. At first Rollo
could not make any thing of this; but on looking at the window he saw a
painting of a horse's head, with a handsome bridle upon it, and a saddle
on one side. So he concluded it must mean a trunk and saddle makery. He
was the more convinced of the correctness of this from the fact that the
word for trunk or box, in French, is _coffre_.

Rollo amused himself a long time in interpreting in this way the signs
that he saw in the streets, and he succeeded so well in it that he told
Mr. George that he believed he could learn the Dutch language very
easily, if he were going to stay for any considerable time in Holland.

Another thing that amused Rollo very much, was to see the wooden shoes
that were worn by the common people in the streets. These shoes appeared
to Rollo to be very large and clumsy; but even the little children wore
them, and the noise that they made, clattering about the pavements with
them, was very amusing.

In a great many places where the streets intersected each other, there
were bridges leading across the canals. These bridges were of a very
curious construction. They were all draw bridges, and as boats and
vessels were continually passing and repassing along the canals, it
became frequently necessary to raise them, in order to let the vessels
go through. The machinery for raising these bridges and letting them
down again, was very curious; and Rollo and Mr. George were both glad,
when, in coming to the bridge, they found it was up, as it gave them an
opportunity to watch the manoeuvre of passing the vessel through.

Every boat and vessel that went through had a toll to pay, and the
manner of collecting this toll was not the least singular part of the
whole procedure. While the bridge was up, and when the boat had passed
nearly through, the helmsman, or helmswoman, as the case might be,--for
one half the boats and vessels seemed to be steered by women,--would
get the money ready; and then the tollman, who stood on the abutment of
the bridge, would swing out to the boat one of the wooden shoes above
described, which was suspended by a long line from the end of a pole,
like a fishing pole. The tollman would swing out this shoe over the boat
that was passing through, as a boy would swing his hook and sinker out
over the water if he were going to catch fish. The helmsman in the boat
would take hold of it when it came w