upon the small outer deck. Many of the canal boats have white,
yellow, or chocolate-colored sails. This last color is caused by
a tanning preparation which is put on to preserve them.}
constantly ply up and down these roads for the conveyance of
passengers; and water drays, called pakschuyten, are used for
carrying fuel and merchandise. Instead of green country lanes,
green canals stretch from field to barn and from barn to garden;
and the farms, or polders, as they are termed, are merely great
lakes pumped dry. Some of the busiest streets are water, while
many of the country roads are paved with brick. The city boats
with their rounded sterns, gilded prows, and gaily painted sides,
are unlike any others under the sun; and a Dutch wagon, with its
funny little crooked pole, is a perfect mystery of mysteries.

"One thing is clear," cries Master Brightside, "the inhabitants
need never be thirsty." But no, Odd-land is true to itself
still. Notwithstanding the sea pushing to get in, and the lakes
struggling to get out, and the overflowing canals, rivers, and
ditches, in many districts there is no water fit to swallow; our
poor Hollanders must go dry or drink wine and beer or send far
into the inland to Utrecht and other favored localities for that
precious fluid older than Adam yet younger than the morning dew.
Sometimes, indeed, the inhabitants can swallow a shower when they
are provided with any means of catching it; but generally they
are like the albatross-haunted sailors in Coleridge's famous poem
"The Ancient Mariner." They see


Water, Water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink!