and narrow, grass-grown
road between us and the river. Down below, the rocks and the island shut
out the world; across, the hills rose to the sky, their slopes covered
with yellow grain, or dotted with red-roofed farm-houses, while tiny
villages had curled up and gone to sleep at their feet. It was
impossible to write. The breeze that rippled the yellow water blew away
our paper and our thoughts; and when the steamer, puffing, and evidently
breathless from stemming the current, touched at the little pier, we
left everything and ran out to see the passengers disembark. A band
played at the railroad station just above our hotel, and the park
attached to it swarmed with excursionists during the afternoon. At dusk,
when they had all gone, we wandered up the magnificent road which
follows the course of the river; built originally by the Romans, and
said to extend for a long distance--five hundred miles or more--into
Germany, returning with our hands full of wild flowers. When we went on
board the steamer, Monday morning, we were closely followed by our Dutch
friend and his Malays. They strolled off by themselves, as they seemed
always to do; he joined our group under the awning spread over the deck.
An English tourist seized upon him immediately, and when he had
disclosed his nationality, proceeded with a glance towards us, to quiz
him upon Dutch ways.

"Now, really," said the tourist, tilting back against the rail in his
camp chair, "how dreadful it must be to live in a country where there
are no mountains! nothing but a stretch of flat land, you know. I fancy
it would be unendurable."

"Yes?" was the Dutchman's sole response.

"You still keep up your peculiar customs, I observe from Murray," the
Englishman went on, loftily. "Your women carry the same old foot-stoves
to church, I fancy. They hang up, you know, in every house."

"Ah!" and the Dutchman only smiled that same incomprehensible smile that
had so puzzled us.

"And you smoke constantly," continued the inquisitor, growing dogmatic;
"a pipe is seldom out of your mouths. Really, you are a nation of
perpetual smokers."

"Yes," assented the Dutchman; "but then--" and here his eyes, and indeed
his whole round, rosy face twinkled with irresistible humor, "_you know
we have no mountains_."

A shout went up from the listeners, and our English acquaintance became
at once intensely interested in the scenery.

[Illustration: "At the word of command they struck the m