The Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1845, 1842-04-28

the farmers are now and then seen fishing up from
the bottom for | never saw the fields they
put it on and suppose ii was intended for their cab
bage gardens.
Shortly after passing the Hague, saw IN the d.
recon of the ssa-coast line of rolling hllls which
rising they did out of dead level, seemed OF con-
siderable height / surprised to behold such
range of little mountains in the midst Of such Hat
country, but my guide book Informed that they
were one of the singuarties of this anomalous coun-
try. They called the dunes and are nothing more
than sandbanks raised by the wind from the sea-
shorea magni6ed representation OF those which ex-
list our little islands. For considerable distance
along the coast these dunes form natural barrier
against the nroads of the sea, and save the people
the trouble and expense of dykes. The misfortune
is that they are not immoveable; they have in some
instances changed place, and produced sort of in
undation, burying the land beneath heap of sand,
and rendering it unfit for cultivation. To put stop
to this evil the dunes sowed with particular
sort of grass which takes root in the sand and pre-
vents it from being blown about. By repeated crops
of this kind has been found possible to cover these
sandhs with soil sufficiently fertile to produce po
| tatoes and other vegetables.
There is not fierce Of any sort to be seen in al
Holland, very rarely; their place being supplied
| by the canals, which, with the windms, are made
to subserve surprising variety of purposes. The
greatest cluster Of windmills that have seen
is that of Saardam. / first esped them few mile:
from Amsterdam, while looking the river
upon the vast and naked plain which stretches ou
towards the sea. was at first puzzled to discover
l IL e g. ~
and inclined to take them for great fleet OF yes
| sels But nearer view showed me their long arms
turning rapidly through the air. as if they had been
host of Don Quixottes giants, wagng indiscrminats
war upon each other. | was told that there nc
less than five hundred windmills in that little town
| The Dutch employ wind like other nations do steam
| the wlndmills of Saardam grind corn, make paper
press oil, saw timber, make snuff drain land Sc SC
Saardam is the place where Peter the Great worked
as ship-carpenter and the rude little house in which
he lived still receives the visits of muttudes of thu
curious.
Amsterdam, too, is surrounded by circle of wind
mills, which, like the steeples and domes come II
for their share of the view. AS crossed the cana
which surrounds the city, my olfactories were sautet
by such concentration of miasmatic odors, as yol
can only have faint conception of by approaching
one Of muddy ponds laid bare to the sun whel
the thermometer is at 80 deg. Having expressed b.
visible signs my dislike for this sort of introduction
into the great commercial emporium, was ons,let
by the promise of one of my felow-trayellers that
should encounter the nuisance no where else in Am
sterdam-an assurance that was not altogether just
fed by the result: the canals of Amsterdam abound
| in odors as intense as they are various.
l.. S. j., Jr.
ITO be continued.)