dee dudel down
Didee dudel lawnter;
Yankee viver, voover, vown,
Botermelk and Tawnter!

On the other hand, many of the oddities of Holland serve only to prove
the thrift and perseverance of the people. There is not a richer or more
carefully tilled garden spot in the whole world than this leaky, springy
little country. There is not a braver, more heroic race than its quite,
passive-looking inhabitants. Few nations have equalled it in important
discoveries and inventions; none has excelled it in commerce,
navigation, learning, and science--or set as noble examples in the
promotion of education and public charities; and none in proportion to
its extent has expended more money or labor upon public works.

Holland has its shining annals of noble and illustrious men and women;
its grand, historic records of patience, resistance, and victory; its
religious freedom; its enlightened enterprise; its art, music, and
literature. It has truly been called "the battlefield of Europe"; as
truly may we consider it the asylum of the world, for the oppressed
of every nation have there found shelter and encouragement. If we
Americans, who after all are homeopathic preparations of Holland stock,
can laugh at the Dutch, and call them human beavers and hint that their
country may float off any day at high tide, we can also feel proud, and
say they have proved themselves heroes and that their country will not
float off while there is a Dutchman left to grapple it.

There are said to be at least ninety-nine hundred large windmills in
Holland, with sails ranging from eighty to one hundred and twenty feet
long. They are employed in sawing timber, beating hemp, grinding, and
many other kinds of work; but their principal use is for pumping water
from the lowlands into the canals, and for guarding against the inland
freshets that so often deluge the country. Their yearly cost is said to
be nearly ten million dollars. The large ones are of great power.
The huge circular tower, rising sometimes from the midst of factory
buildings, is surmounted with a smaller one tapering into a caplike
roof. This upper tower is encircled at its base with a balcony, high
above which juts the axis turned by its four prodigious ladder-back
sails.

Many of the windmills are primitive affairs, seeming sadly in need of
Yankee "improvements," but some of the new ones are admirable. They are
constructed so that by some ingenious contrivance the