The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1867-10-11


suggest such an outrage. You do, it
is true, see in theirsproper places vast
masses of granite and large blocks of
basalt- but all these come from Nor
way, and were brought here with
great expense; ; and are Ieconomized
az elsewhere people economic per-
phyry and marble. In fact, stones in
Holland are as much an article of
import, of foreign merchandise, of
purchase, as wine is in England.
Countless vessels arrive, or have ar
rived here, laden with nosother cargo.
THE DUTCH CITIEs-A CONTRAST.
Utrecht, Leyden. HARLEM, have an
aspect at once RANT, venerable, and
comfortable, which offers a singular
com bination. The Hague looks like
wealth and luxury embodied prob
ably it would be impossible to find in
any part of the world city which
gives to the eye of stranger so vivid
n impression of esta blished, assured,
habitual afauence-of quiet, refined,
perhaps lazy and sleepy, enjoyment of
life. Amsterdam has often been COM
pared to Venice; but no two cities,
with so many points of resemblance,
were ever so strikingly unlike. Both
rose by commerce, and have been as
princes and monarehs in the com
mercial world; both are built
on piles; both stand on what
nature intended to be sea or
marsh; lin both the streets are
Waterways; both. alas, stink horribly
in Augu ai But Venice is of the past,
Amsterdam of the present; Venice is
clad in gloomy black Amsterdam
glittering IN gayest colors the marble
palaces of Venice are impressive with
the solemn = vesture of decay" the
docks and warehouses Of Amsterdam
are enhvenipg from the spirit of res t.
less enterprise which they embody;
lastly, the one city is all hustle and
activity, the other all brooding ST.
| lence; the one has the splendor of
life, the other the grandeur OF death.
A NATION OF PHILOSOPHERS.
But, perhaps, what makes travelling
in Holland So singularly agreeable is
the pervading air of comfort and con-
tent which is traceable everywhere.
All classes seem .well-to-do. There
is poverty, but it is neither squalid
nor despairing, nor envious and indi-
gent. There is indulgence. but it is
well cared for to degree unrivaled
elsewhere. Every one seems indus
trious, yet as if industry were an in
terest and a pleasure, and as if in its
hardest forms it still left leisure for
enjoyment. No man seems run off
his legs, " as too often with u.s. The
peasant mostly farms his own land,
and the boatman usually owns his
own craft. He, starts humbly, but
gets on in life, appears confident that
he will get on, and is not impatient to
get on zoo fast, nor ambitious to get
on too far. He generally manages to
indulge in objects of taste, if
not of luxury His taste is
sometimes very peculiar, and what
we should call vulgar and quaint; but,
such as it is, he can crafty it. His
windows and little plot of garden are
filled with flowers and shrubs, and
both are tended with loving care,
though the flowers are often stiff and
artificial, and the shrubs tortured into
the most hideous and fantastical
likenesses. His domestic animals,
too, are all treated like children, and
the very goats have groomea and
fatted air, quite unlike the gaunt
animals you find elsewhere. The
canal boatmen, whose boats are their
homes, with wife and a child or
two always on board, contrive to give
their cabins, small as they are, an
ornamented look, as well as an air of
inviting comfort, by coarse muslin
curtains to their twelve inch windows,
and a flower pot on the ledge. They
will go through the most unceasing
toll but toll brings its sure reward,
and they enjoy life as it goes by. AS
buy a larger boat, sleep in a larger
cabin, enlarge their aspirations and
their sphere, but make no, changes
except of degree. - -, e.,