d excepting the Dutch passengers.

"Ah, captain," began a little old Belgian, one of those pillars of the
coffee-house who are always thrusting their politics in the faces of
their fellows, "there is a good and a bad side to every country, and
we Belgians and Dutchmen ought to have been persuaded of this truth,
and then we should have been indulgent toward each other and have
lived in harmony. When one thinks that we are now a nation of nine
millions of inhabitants,--we with our industries and you with your
commerce, with two such capitals as Amsterdam and Brussels, and two
commercial towns like Antwerp and Rotterdam, we should count for
something in this world, eh, captain?"

The captain did not answer. Another Dutchman said:

"Yes, with a religious war twelve months in the year."

The little old Belgian, somewhat put out, now addressed his remarks to
me in a low tone: "It is a fact, sir. It was stupid, especially on our
part. You will see Holland. Amsterdam is certainly not Brussels; it is
as flat and wearisome a country as can well be; but as to prosperity
it is far beyond us. Assure yourself that they spend a florin, which
is two and a half francs, where we spend a franc. You will see it in
your hotel bills. They are twice as rich as we are. It was all the
fault of William the First, who wished to make a Dutch Belgium and has
pushed us to extremes. You know how it happened"--and so on.

In Hollandsdiep we began to see big barges, small-fishing-boats, and
some large ships that had come from Hellevoetsluis, an important
maritime port on the right bank of the Haringvliet, a branch of the
Meuse, near its mouth, where nearly every vessel from India stops. The
rain ceased. The sky, gradually, unwillingly, became serene, and on a
sudden the waters and the banks were clothed once more in fresh
glowing colors: it was summer again.

In a little while the vessel reached the village of Moerdyk, where one
of the largest bridges in the world is to be seen.

It is an iron structure a mile and a half long, over which passes the
railway to Dordrecht and Rotterdam. From a distance it looks like
fourteen enormous edifices put in line across the river: each one of
the fourteen high arches supporting the tracks is in truth a huge
edifice. In passing over it, as I did a few months later on my return
to Holland, I saw nothing but sky and water, so wide is the river at
this point, and I felt almost afraid the bridge might suddenly c