aited for the commissioner to come to them.

"While I am getting the carriage ready," said the commissioner, when he
came, "perhaps you will like to take a walk on the bridge, where there
is a very fine view. But first, perhaps, you will look at the carriage,
and choose the one that you will like."

So saying, James led the way into a sort of stable, where there were a
great many very nice and pretty carriages, arranged very snugly
together. Mr. George was surprised to see so many. He asked James how it
happened.

"O, there is a great deal of travelling on the roads about here," said
James. "The country is very rich and populous, and the people of
Amsterdam come out a great deal."

Some of the carriages were very elegant. One of these an hostler took
out, and told Mr. George that he could have it if he chose. There was
another which was much less elegant, but it was more open.

"Let us take the open one," said Rollo. "We can see so much better."

So they decided upon the open one; and then, while the hostlers were
harnessing the horses, Mr. George and Rollo went forward to the bridge.

The bridge led over a branch canal, which here comes into the main
canal. The road to it lay along the dike, and formed the street of a
little village. It was paved with bricks placed edgewise, and was as
neat as a parlor floor. The houses were all on one side. They were very
small; but they were so neat and pretty, and the forms of them were so
strange and queer, that they looked like play houses, or like a scene in
fairy land, rather than like the real habitations of men.

There were pretty gardens by them, which extended down the slope of the
dike. The slopes of the dikes are always very gradual, and very nice
gardens can be made on them.

Mr. George and Rollo stood on the bridge, and looked up and down the
canals on either side. They saw boats, with people in them, getting
ready to set out on their voyages.

"I wonder where that canal leads to?" said Rollo.

"O, it goes off into the interior of the country, some where," said Mr.
George. "The country is as full of canals as Massachusetts is of roads."

"I should like, very much," said Rollo, "to get on board that boat with
that man, and go with him wherever he is going."

"So should I, if I knew Dutch," said Mr. George, "so that I could talk
with him as we sailed along."

"How pretty it is all about here," said Rollo. "What a queer
village,--built on a bank! And what a