Rollo in Holland

by Jacob Abbott

"We will go in search of adventures," said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George, "and if we lose our way, we shall be likely to have some adventures, for we cannot speak Dutch to inquire for it."

"Never mind," said Rollo, "I'm not afraid. We will be careful which way we go."

So they went out and took quite a long ramble through the town. The first aspect of the streets struck them with astonishment. The space was now more than half filled with docks and basins, and with canals in which ships and boats of every kind were moving to and fro. In fact almost every street consisted one half of canal, and one half of road way, so that in going through it you could have your choice of going in a boat or in a carriage. The water part of the streets was crowded densely with vessels, some of them of the largest size, for the water was so deep in the canals that the largest ships could go all about the town.

It was curious to observe the process of loading and unloading these vessels, opposite to the houses where the merchants who owned them lived. These houses were very large and handsome. The upper stories were used for the rooms of the merchant and his family, and the lower ones were for the storage of the goods. Thus a merchant could sit at his parlor window with his family about him, could look down upon his ship in the middle of the street before his house, and see the workmen unlading it and stowing the goods safely on his own premises, in the rooms below.

In some of the streets the canal was in the centre, and there was a road way along by the houses on each side. In others there was a road way only on one side, and the walls of the houses and stores rose up directly from the water's edge on the other. It was curious, in this case, to see the men in the upper stories of these stores, hoisting goods up from the vessels below by means of cranes and tackles projecting from the windows.

There was one arrangement in the streets which Rollo at first condemned, as decidedly objectionable in his mind, and that was, that the sidewalks were smooth and level with the pavement of the street, differing only from the street by being paved with bricks, while the road way was paved with stone.

"I think that that is a very foolish plan," said Rollo.

"I should not have expected so crude a remark as that from so old and experienced a traveller as you," said Mr. George.

"Why, uncle George," said Rollo. "It is plainly a great deal better to have the sidewalk raised a little, for that keeps the wheels of the carts and carriages from coming upon them. Besides, there ought to be a gutter."