ngs that Hans and Gretel saw every day.

Holland

Holland is one of the queerest countries under the sun. It should
be called Odd-land or Contrary-land, for in nearly everything it is
different from the other parts of the world. In the first place, a large
portion of the country is lower than the level of the sea. Great dikes,
or bulwarks, have been erected at a heavy cost of money and labor
to keep the ocean where it belongs. On certain parts of the coast it
sometimes leans with all its weight against the land, and it is as much
as the poor country can do to stand the pressure. Sometimes the dikes
give way or spring a leak, and the most disastrous results ensue.
They are high and wide, and the tops of some of them are covered with
buildings and trees. They have even fine public roads on them, from
which horses may look down upon wayside cottages. Often the keels of
floating ships are higher than the roofs of the dwellings. The stork
clattering to her young on the house peak may feel that her nest is
lifted far out of danger, but the croaking frog in neighboring bulrushes
is nearer the stars than she. Water bugs dart backward and forward above
the heads of the chimney swallows, and willow trees seem drooping with
shame, because they cannot reach as high as the reeds nearby.

Ditches, canals, ponds, rivers, and lakes are everywhere to be seen.
High, but not dry, they shine in the sunlight, catching nearly all
the bustle and the business, quite scorning the tame fields stretching
damply beside them. One is tempted to ask, "Which is Holland--the shores
or the water?" The very verdure that should be confined to the land
has made a mistake and settled upon the fish ponds. In fact, the entire
country is a kind of saturated sponge or, as the English poet, Butler,
called it,

A land that rides at anchor, and is moor'd,
In which they do not live, but go aboard.

Persons are born, live, and die, and even have their gardens on
canal-boats. Farmhouses, with roofs like great slouched hats pulled over
their eyes, stand on wooden legs with a tucked-up sort of air, as if
to say, "We intend to keep dry if we can." Even the horses wear a wide
stool on each hoof as if to lift them out of the mire. In short, the
landscape everywhere suggests a paradise for ducks. It is a glorious
country in summer for barefoot girls and boys. Such wading! Such mimic
ship sailing! Such rowing, fishing, and swimming! Only think o