and a hard time they had of it.
First of all they had to build strong dykes or embankments round the
place in which they were going to encamp, so as to keep out the sea
and the waters of the rivers, which wandered where they would,
without proper channels; and after that they built rude huts and
hovels for themselves. Sometimes they would be able to hold their own
for a long time, but it often happened that there would be storms and
high tides, and then their settlements would be swept away. Then they
moved off somewhere else, living in the meantime as best they could
on fish and game and sea-birds' eggs.

At length many of these tribes joined together to see if they could
not find some place where they would be more protected, and where
they might unite in building great dykes which should be able to
resist the seas and the wandering rivers. So they first entrenched
themselves; then they spread out farther afield and enclosed larger
tracts of land; then they built dykes big enough to protect whole
provinces, and at last they made a great sea-wall or embankment round
the whole land.

But why was all this labour necessary? you will ask. Well, it was
because the country lies so low that the waters could sweep over it;
and even to-day, although there are beautiful towns and cities in
Holland, with hundreds and thousands of people, and thousands upon
thousands of cattle, the land is lower than the sea; the cities are
built upon piles driven into the sand; the river-beds are higher than
the tops of the houses, and at any moment, if the dykes were to
burst, or the rivers to overflow, the whole country with all its
inhabitants might be swept away. It has been well said that "Holland
is a conquest made by man over the sea. It is an artificial country.
The Hollanders made it. It exists because the Hollanders preserve it.
It will vanish whenever the Hollanders shall abandon it."

The dykes or embankments have been made in this way: first of all
secure and massive foundations had to be laid, the ground being
compressed to make it very solid. Then walls, or dykes, were reared
of earth, sand, and mud, so tightly compressed as to be quite
impervious to water. The whole was bound with twigs of willows
interwoven with wonderful care, and the spaces filled with clay so as
to make them almost as hard as stone.

[Illustration: A LANDSCAPE IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE HAGUE,
HOLLAND.]

Then the dykes were planted with trees, which t