at the
sides under the chin, and strapping creatures they were, striding along in
their striped black and white petticoats. In the streets of Scheveling, I
saw the tallest woman I think I ever met with, a very giantess,
considerably more than six feet high, straddling about the street of the
little village, and scouring and scrubbing the pavement with great
energy. Close at hand was the shore; a strong west wind was driving the
surges of the North Sea against it. A hundred fishing vessels rocking in
the surf, moored and lashed together with ropes, formed a line along the
beach; the men of Scheveling, in knit woollen caps, short blue jackets,
and short trowsers of prodigious width, were walking about on the shore,
but the wind was too high and the sea too wild for them to venture out.
Along this coast, the North Sea has heaped a high range of sand-hills,
which protect the low lands within from its own inundations; but to the
north and south the shore is guarded by embankments, raised by the hand of
man with great cost, and watched and kept in constant repair.

We left the Hague, and taking the railway, in a little more than two hours
were at Amsterdam, a great commercial city in decay, where nearly half of
the inhabitants live on the charity of the rest. The next morning was
Sunday, and taking advantage of an interval of fair weather, for it still
continued to rain every day, I went to the Oudekerk, or Old Church, as the
ancient Cathedral is called, which might have been an impressive building
in its original construction, but is now spoiled by cross-beams, paint,
galleries, partitions, pews, and every sort of architectural enormity. But
there is a noble organ, with a massive and lofty front of white marble
richly sculptured, occupying the west end of the chancel. I listened to a
sermon in Dutch, the delivery of which, owing partly to the disagreeable
voice of the speaker and partly no doubt to my ignorance of the language,
seemed to me a kind of barking. The men all wore their hats during the
service, but half the women were without bonnets. When the sermon and
prayer were over, the rich tones of the organ broke forth and flooded the
place with melody.

Every body visits Broek, near Amsterdam, the pride of Dutch villages, and
to Broek I went accordingly. It stands like the rest, among dykes and
canals, but consists altogether of the habitations of persons in
comfortable circumstances, and is remarkable, as you know, for