CHAPTER II

go BIRD’S-EYE VIEWS

 
  
  

O the birds, skimming high over the
country, it must be a fanciful sight—this
i Holland. There are the fertile farms or
AY polders, studded with cattle and bright red

cottages ; shortwaisted men, women, and children,

moving about in wide jackets and big wooden shoes;
trees-everywhere clipped into fantastical shapes, with their
trunks colored white, yellow, or brick red; country man-
sions too, and farm-houses gaudy with roofs of brightly
tinted tiles.. These tiles are made of a kindof glazed earthen-
ware,and make one feel as if all the pie-dishes in the country
were lapped in rows on top of the buildings. Then the
great slanting dikes, with their waters held up as if to catch
the blue of the sky ; the ditches, canals, and rivers trailing
their shining lengths in every direction ; shining lines of
railway, too, that now connect most of the principal points
of the Netherlands; then, the thousands of bridges, little
and big ; “the sluice- gates, canal-locks, and windmills; the
silver and golden weathercocks perched on one foot, and

twitching right and left to show their contempt for the
ul