ge
in their land, and have lived there at all times. They are, in short,
of all the northern nations, that one which has retained its ancient
typical character as it advanced on the road toward civilization. One
recalling the conformation of this country, with its three and a half
millions of inhabitants, can easily understand that although fused
into a solid political union, and although recognizable amongst the
other northern nations by certain traits peculiar to the inhabitants
of all its provinces, it must nevertheless present a great variety.
Such, indeed, is the case. Between Zealand and Holland proper, between
Holland and Friesland, between Friesland and Gelderland, between
Groningen and Brabant, although they are closely bound together by
local and historical ties, there is a difference as great as that
existing between the most distant provinces of Italy and France. They
differ in language, in costume and in character, in race and in
religion. The communal _regime_ has impressed on this nation an
indelible stamp, because nowhere else has it so conformed to the
nature of things. The interests of the country are divided into
various groups, of whose organization the hydraulic system is an
example. Hence association and mutual help against the common enemy,
the sea, but freedom of action in local institutions. The monarchical
_regime_ has not extinguished the ancient municipal spirit, which
frustrated the efforts of all those great states that tried to absorb
Holland. The great rivers and deep gulfs serve both as commercial
roads which constitute a national bond between the various
provinces, and as barriers which defend their ancient traditions and
provincial customs. In this land, which is apparently so uniform, one
may say that everything save the aspect of nature changes at every
step--changes suddenly, too, as does nature itself, to the eye of one
who crosses the frontier of this state for the first time.

[Illustration: Dutch Fishing Boats.]

But, however wonderful the physical history of Holland may be, its
political history is even more marvellous. This little country,
invaded first by different tribes of the Germanic race, subdued by the
Romans and by the Franks, devastated by the Danes and by the Normans,
and wasted for centuries by terrible civil wars,--this little nation
of fishermen and merchants preserved its civil freedom and liberty of
conscience by a war of eighty years' duration against the for