Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/298

the lower classes who speak Flemish, speak French also. The great towns of Belgium like Brussels and Antwerp are beautiful imitations of Paris, the Belgian Cafés and Restaurants are like French Cafés and Restaurants, the beautiful and gorgeous cathedrals and churches of Belgium are like the magnificent French Churches, and preach the same Roman Catholic religion to the same Celtic people. In Holland the traveller is struck with a vast difference in all these respects. He suddenly comes amidst a vigorous self asserting long-headed Tuton race, speaking a Tuton tongue, living in the bustle of trade and activity. They don't make much show in the way of fine churches, and have not much pageantry in their religion, but they have by sheer industry,—by dykes and drainage,—won a great part of their country from the sea, they have intersected their fields by a system of canals which one would think was possible only in small gardens, and in their large towns they have as many canals as there are streets! These towns do not pretend to the beauty of Paris or of Brussels, but are merely systems of canals,—successions of quays, wharves and jetties, with hundreds of vessels and ships eternally unloading their cargoes from the far Indies! Towns with regular streets and uniform houses with canals and wharves and numerous heavy laden ships,—a country protected by dykes, intersected by a regular net-work of canals, and dotted over with thousands of wind-mills,—a population hard-working, pushing, self-asserting and selfish if you like—that is Holland! That is the tough Tuton race who have erenow contested with England