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 th