CHAPTER VI
THE BATAVIANS AND THEIR GOOD MEADOW

ND now let us see how Holland, from its
earliest history, has proved itself to be truly
a Land of Pluck:

\ Y In the old, old time, when many who now
are called the heroes of antiquity were cutting their
baby-teeth, men began to quarrel for the possession of the
country which is now known as Holland; and in one form
or another, the contest has been going on nearly ever since.
Why any should have coveted it, is a mystery to me. It
was then only a low tract. of spongy marsh, a network of

  

queer rivers that seemed never to know where they be-
longed, but insisted every spring upon paying unwelcome
visits to the inland—hiding here, running into each other
there, and falling asleep in pleasant places. It was a great
land-and-water kaleidoscope, girt about with a rim of
gloomy forest; or a sort of dissected puzzle, with half of
the pieces in soak; and its owners were a scanty, savage,

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