Cook's Tourist's Handbook for Holland, Belgium, and the Rhine Book

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Rotterdam, i.e., a dam (in Hoogstrat,) at the confluence of the Rotte with the Maas. The Great Church (Groote Kerk), dedicated to St. Lawrence. Magnificent organ. Ascend tower. Boyman's Museum.?A fine collection of paintings, principally Dutch. Open 10 to 4. Botanical Gardens. Park. Zoological Gardens ; near the station for the Hague. Town House and Exchange. A drive round the suburbs will be found very interesting, and it will be seen how enormously Rotterdam is increasing in size and population. Statue of Erasmus, by Henry de Keiser, in the market place. The House in which Erasmus was born. Breede Kerk Straat, near the Great Church. In Holland generally the following subjects are to be kept in mind, and particular observation made of them :? Dunes, or sand-hills, extend all along the Dutch coast. On a boisterous day a sand-storm here is as bad almost as in the desert. The dunes are sown with a grass which will grow on sand, and are nourished by the sea, and the roots keep the sand from flying entirely away. The dunes are the only hills in Holland, and these the winds have raised. Dykes.?As the sea is higher than the land, insomuch that in some places and times it is from 25 to 30 feet below high- water mark, the sea is kept out by these wondrous bulwarks which are raised all round the coast, and night and day are watched, especially in time of high tide; for the people in Holland, like the dwellers on the slopes of Vesuvius, are always within an ace of destruction. Canals, which form a system of communication all through the country, and drain off superfluous water. Windmills by the thousand, used as pumps for draining the land, and for a dozen purposes we never use them for in England. Trees standing like militia-men, Dutchmen understandin...Read More