Before you begin to read this selection, look up the word reclaim.

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There are some learned people who tell us that a great many years ago the island which we call England, Scotland, and Wales was one with the continent of Europe. They say that the sea gradually made its way through a stretch of low-lying land, till at last Great Britain was completely cut off from the continent. We all know that the Eastern counties of England which face the little country of Holland are just as flat and marshy as the opposite shores. The farmers and laborers in these countries are continually endeavoring to make good pasture-land of the unhealthy marshes and fens, as they are called, and each year sees acres of land reclaimed and turned to good use; but also each year a little land is stolen from these counties by the greedy sea. The patient Dutch people on the other shore are carrying on the same kind of work. They make wonderful dykes and drive the sea always a little further and further back; and though much of their country is actually beneath the level of the sea, they jealously guard the treasure they have captured, with so much perseverance and energy that the tyrant sea is kept in subjection. Of course, as the land lies lower than the water, the natural result would be that the water would flood the land unless it were kept out by an embankment; and this wonderful little nation, so brave and daring as to defy the sea, have surrounded their land with dykes, which are huge banks towering above the lowlands of the country, and preventing the sea from obtaining entrance. Of course, these dykes could be made only gradually as the sea was turned from one spot to another by dams and locks, and these facts will give you a far better proof than any other I could find of the wonderful character and the great courage and perseverance of a nation which has reclaimed its fatherland from the sea.

You will not be surprised to be told that such a land is very damp and misty. All the surface is cut up by innumerable canals. If you could see the whole country from a height, it would look like an enormous puzzle. It consists of hundreds of green patches cut up by the waterways, and decorated with red-roofed villages and towns. Through all of these canals flows the same water; all of them are connected with one another. Here and there the canals are wide, and bear much traffic on their placid surfaces. Through miles of green fields wander little baby canals, draining the pasture-lands, and bravely carrying barges which drift slowly in single file from one busy centre to another.

There are plenty of railways, but the trains are generally slow, and in many places the land perceptibly gives way as the heavy train presses it, so most of the conveyance is done on the canals.

It is still part of the everyday life of Holland to reclaim the stretches of mud and marsh from the sea. When this has been done, the land is first enclosed with a dyke to prevent any water flowing into it. On the edge of this dyke wind-mills are erected, each of which works a pump. You remember how every picture of a Dutch landscape shows a country dotted with windmills with wide-spreading arms and sails. As the mills draw up the water, it is discharged into a canal, which takes it to the sea. Only fifty years ago, an immense piece of submerged land called the Haarlem Lake was drained and rendered fit for cultivation, and one of the favorite projects of certain Dutch ministers is the draining of the Zuyder Zee, an enormous stretch of water of which you have certainly heard, and which once must have been dry land.

When I traveled in Holland, one of the greatest discomforts which I experienced was the want of good drinking water. The Dutch people are used to it, and drink a good deal of tea and coffee; but both are taken so strong and so bitter, that, even if made with the purest water, they would be undrinkable for you and me. Once, when I was staying in a tiny village called Volendam, I had taken a little crying child home to his mother, whom I knew. She wanted to wash his face which I could hardly see through dirt and tears, and from where do you think she drew her water? She lifted a loose board in the floor of her room, and there, immediately underneath, was a canal which passed under her house. The house was built on piles over the water, and the whole family used this dirty water for everything—to wash in and to cook with and to drink. Besides much dirt, there were two or three tiny fish in the bucket that she took up when I was there, and when I asked her if she filtered the water at all for drinking, she shook her head, not understanding the reason for anything of the kind. So I told her how much better it would be for her and her family if she boiled the water before drinking it; but she replied that she thought this would take away all the taste. Just imagine wanting your water to taste of dirt and fishes!