nths,
and you could have carried away with you as many flowers as you had
time and patience to pick.

Holland and its provinces and towns are famous for many other things,
as well as for tulips and hyacinths, for it is a country quite
different from the others which we visit and study about more often,
and although it is a small country in comparison to others which are so
vast in territory, yet there has been none more celebrated for courage
than brave little Holland, and its fight for independence has made it
famous in the historical annals of the world. Sturdy and plucky are the
Dutch, and quaint and curious are the customs and manners still
prevailing in many of the country districts. Every district has its own
costume peculiar to its inhabitants, and the many colours of these
costumes, the curious caps worn with them, the heavy wooden shoes, or
sabots, which all true Dutch people wear, and the clothes worn by the
men, so different from the conventional dress of men of other nations,
make a picturesque and interesting sight when the Dutch people are
gathered together on the day of a "Pardon" or religious fete day.

Their homes, too, are quaint and strange in appearance to our
conventional eyes, and it has been said that the Dutch people dressed
up like quaint dolls, with their gay little homes and their little
canals, which cut up their bright green fields into many sections, live
in a country which is like a charming, attractive toy, it is so clean,
so tidy and so bright, and it seems a natural thing that the gorgeous
tulip should be their favourite flower. And that brings us back to the
old town of Haarlem in whose roads we were wandering on an April day.

Now one of the greatest differences between Holland and other
countries, is that it lies below the level of the sea, and so has to be
very carefully guarded from the surging flood at its very door, or it
would be either swept bare by the relentless sea, or entirely wiped out
of existence. To prevent this calamity the patient Dutchmen have built
wonderful dykes which guard their little country and keep the tyrant
sea in check. These dykes are huge banks of earth which tower high
above the lowlands and are the only safeguards of the country. Of
course, these dykes could only be made gradually, as the sea was turned
from one spot to another by dams and locks, and no greater proof of
Dutch industry and patience is shown than the way they have protected
their land