cupations of
rude agriculture sufficed for the wants of a race less poor and
less patient, but more unsteady and ambitious, than the fishermen
of the low lands. Thus it is that history presents us with a
tribe of warriors and conquerors on the southern frontier of
the country; while the scattered inhabitants of the remaining
parts seemed to have fixed there without a contest, and to have
traced out for themselves, by necessity and habit, an existence
which any other people must have considered insupportable.

This difference in the nature of the soil and in the fate of the
inhabitants appears more striking when we consider the present
situation of the country. The high grounds, formerly so preferable,
are now the least valuable part of the kingdom, even as regards
their agriculture; while the ancient marshes have been changed
by human industry into rich and fertile tracts, the best parts
of which are precisely those conquered from the grasp of the
ocean. In order to form an idea of the solitude and desolation
which once reigned where we now see the most richly cultivated
fields, the most thriving villages, and the wealthiest towns
of the continent, the imagination must go back to times which
have not left one monument of antiquity and scarcely a vestige
of fact.

The history of the Netherlands is, then, essentially that of
a patient and industrious population struggling against every
obstacle which nature could oppose to its well-being; and, in
this contest, man triumphed most completely over the elements
in those places where they offered the greatest resistance. This
extraordinary result was due to the hardy stamp of character
imprinted by suffering and danger on those who had the ocean for
their foe; to the nature of their country, which presented no
lure for conquest; and, finally, to the toleration, the justice,
and the liberty nourished among men left to themselves, and who
found resources in their social state which rendered change neither
an object of their wants nor wishes.

About half a century before the Christian era, the obscurity
which enveloped the north of Europe began to disperse; and the
expedition of Julius Caesar gave to the civilized world the first
notions of the Netherlands, Germany, and England. Caesar, after
having subjugated the chief part of Gaul, turned his arms against
the warlike tribes of the Ardennes, who refused to accept his
alliance or implore his protection. They were called Bel