Persons are born, live, and die, and even have their gardens on
canal-boats. Farmhouses, with roofs like great slouched hats
pulled over their eyes, stand on wooden legs with a tucked-up
sort of air, as if to say, "We intend to keep dry if we can."
Even the horses wear a wide stool on each hoof as if to lift them
out of the mire. In short, the landscape everywhere suggests a
paradise for ducks. It is a glorious country in summer for
barefoot girls and boys. Such wading! Such mimic ship sailing!
Such rowing, fishing, and swimming! Only think of a chain of
puddles where one can launch chip boats all day long and never
make a return trip! But enough. A full recital would set all
young America rushing in a body toward the Zuider Zee.
Dutch cities seem at first sight to be a bewildering jungle of
houses, bridges, churches, and ships, sprouting into masts,
steeples, and trees. In some cities vessels are hitched like
horses to their owners' doorposts and receive their freight from
the upper windows. Mothers scream to Lodewyk and Kassy not to
swing on the garden gate for fear they may be drowned! Water
roads are more frequent there than common roads and railways;
water fences in the form of lazy green ditches enclose
pleasure-ground, farm, and garden.
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