or, The Silver Skates. 13

Kassy not to swing on the garden-gate, for fear they may be
drowned. Water-roads are more frequent there than common ~
roads and railways. Water-fences, in the form of lazy green
ditches, enclose pleasure-ground, polder and garden.

Sometimes fine green hedges are seen; but wooden fences,
such as we have
in America, are
rarely met with in
Holland. As for
stone fences, a
Dutchman would
lift his hands with
astonishment at
the very idea.
There is no stone

 

there, excepting CHILDREN AT PLAY IN HOLLAND.
those great masses

of rock that have been brought from other lands to strengthen
and protect the coast. All the small stones or pebbles, if
there ever were any, seem to be imprisoned in pavements,
or quite melted away. Boys with strong, quick arms may
grow from pinafores to full beards, without ever finding one
to start the water-rings, or set the rabbits flying. The water-
roads are nothing less than canals intersecting the country in
every direction. These are of all sizes, from the great North
Holland Ship Canal, which is the wonder of the world, to those
which a boy can leap. Water-omnibuses, called trekschuiten,}
constantly ply up and déwn these roads for the conveyance
of passengers; and water-drays, called pakschuyten,! are used

1Canal-boats. Some of the first-named are over thirty feet long. They
look like greenhouses lodged on barges, and are drawn by horses walking