sailors in Coleridge's famous poem of "The Ancient Mariner:" they see
Nor any drop to drink!"
Great flapping windmills all over the country make it look as if flocks of huge sea-birds were just settling upon it. Everywhere one sees the funniest trees, bobbed into fantastical shapes, with their trunks painted a dazzling white, yellow, or red. Horses are often yoked three abreast. Men, women, and children go clattering about in wooden shoes with loose heels; peasant-girls who cannot get beaux for love, hire them for money, to escort them to the kermis;[1] and husbands and wives lovingly harness themselves side by side on the bank of the canal, and drag their pakschuyts to market.
Another peculiar feature of Holland is the "dune," or sandhill. These are numerous along certain portions of the coast. Before they were sown with coarse reed-grass and other plants, to hold them down, they used to send great storms of sand over the inland. So, to add to the oddities, farmers sometimes dig down under the surface to find their soil; and on windy days dry showers (of sand) often fall upon fields that have grown wet under a week of sunshine!
In short, almost the only familiar thing we Yankees can meet with in Holland is a harvest-song, which is quite popular there, though no linguist could translate it. Even then, we must shut our eyes, and listen only to the tune, which I leave you to guess.
"Yanker didee dudel down
Didee dudel lawnter;
Yankee viver, voover, vown,
Botermelk und Tawnter!"
- ↑ Fair
