which peep only the tips of their noses and the ends of books. When
the boys have disappeared the streets are deserted for a short time,
for the Dutch do not rise early, especially in the winter. One can
walk some distance without meeting any one or hearing any sound. The
snow seems whiter surrounding those rose-colored houses, which have
all their projections outlined with a pure white line, and the wooden
heads outside of the shops wear white cotton wigs; the chains of the
railings look like ermine; everything presents a strange appearance.
When it freezes and the sun shines, the facades seem covered with
silver sparks, the ice heaped upon the banks of the canals shines with
all the colors of the rainbow, and the trees glitter with thousands of
little pearls, like the plants in the enchanted gardens of the Arabian
Nights. It is then that it is beautiful to walk in the forest at the
Hague at sunset, treading on the hardened snow, which crackles under
one's feet like powdered marble, in the avenues of large, white,
leafless beech trees, which look like one gigantic crystallization,
and cast blue and violet shadows, dotted with myriads of points which
glisten like diamonds in the paths dyed pink by the setting sun. But
nothing compares with the sight of the Dutch country seen from the
top of a steeple at morning after a heavy fall of snow. Beneath the
gray and lowering sky one looks over that vast white plain, from
which, roads, houses, and canals have disappeared, and nothing is seen
but elevations and depressions, which, like the folds of a sheet, give
a vague idea of the forms of hidden houses. The boundless white is
unstained save by the clouds of smoke that rise almost timidly from
the distant dwellings, as if to assure the spectator that beneath the
desert of snow human hearts are still beating.

It is impossible to speak of the winter in Holland without mentioning
what constitutes the originality and the attraction of winter life in
that country--the skating.

Skating in Holland is not only a recreation; it is the ordinary means
of transportation. To cite a well-known example, all know the value of
it to the Dutch in the memorable defence of Haarlem. When there is a
hard frost the canals are transformed into streets, and sabots tipped
with iron take the place of boats. The peasants skate to market, the
workmen to their work, the small tradespeople to their business;
entire families skate from the country to the t