22 , Hans Brinker

neglected, the country would be uninhabitable. Already
dreadful consequences, as I have said, have followed the
bursting of these dikes. Hundreds of villages and towns
have, from time to time, been buried beneath the rush of
waters; and nearly a million of persons have been destroyed.
One of the most fearful inundations ever known occurred in
the autumn of the year 1570. Twenty-eight terrible floods
had before that time overwhelmed portions of Holland; but
this was the most terrible of all. The unhappy country had
long been suffering under Spanish tyranny; now, it seemed,
came the crowning point of its troubles. When we read
Motley’s “ Rise of the Dutch Republic,” we learn to revere the
brave people who have endured, suffered and dared so much.
Mr. Motley, in his thrilling account of the great inundation,
tells us how a long-continued and violent gale had been
sweeping the Atlantic waters into the North Sea, piling them
against the coasts of the Dutch provinces; how the dikes,
tasked beyond their strength, burst in all directions ; how even
the hand-boss, a bulwark formed of oaken piles, braced with
iron, moored with heavy anchors, and secured by gravel and
granite, was snapped to pieces like packthread; how fishing-
boats and bulky vessels, floating up into the country, became
entangled among the trees, or beat in the roofs and walls of
dwellings; and how, at last, all Friesland was converted into
an angry sea. ‘ Multitudes of men, women, children, of
horses, oxen, sheep, and every domestic animal, were struggling
in the waves in every direction. Every boat and every article
which could serve as a boat was eagerly seized upon. Every
house was inundated: even the graveyards gave up their dead.
The living infant in his cradle and the long-buried corpse in
his coffin floated side by side. The ancient flood seemed