human
I think I should prefer to live in something that would float, in case of accident, laughed the doctor,
gpt
The Leck, on which we sailed for a time after leaving Rotterdam, was a canal dug by the Romans to connect the Rhine and the Waal, added Mr. Fluxion.
human
A freshet cleaned it out, and tore away its banks so as to make the present broad river of it. In an inundation a few years later, seventy-two villages were swept away, and one hundred thousand people lost their lives. Thirty-five of these villages were never heard from afterwards, and not even their ruins could be found.
gpt
I should emigrate if I lived here,
human
The people of Holland are very much attached to their country,
gpt
Well, they ought to be, on the principle that we like best what has cost us the most trouble to procure, added Paul.
human
It seems to me a great pity that people should struggle here to keep their heads above water, when we have so much spare land in America. We could take them all in without feeling it.
gpt
Dutchmen would not feel at home on high ground.
human
We could plant them down in Louisiana, and even treat them to an occasional inundation.
gpt
Certainly we should be very happy to accommodate them with a country. We have a great many Dutchmen already, and they make thrifty, industrious, and useful people, continued the doctor.
human
But I think, if Holland were blotted out of existence, the world would miss it very much.
gpt
This is a great lumber port, said Mr. Fluxion.
human
Those great rafts which float down the Rhine from Switzerland are mostly brought to this place. I hope the boys will have a chance to see one of those rafts, for they are stupendous affairs. One of them sometimes contains a hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of lumber, and has a crew of four or five hundred men.
gpt
I think I heard Mr. Lowington say that we were to go down the Rhine,
human
That is the Kloveniers Doelen, said Mr. Fluxion, as he led his companions into a back street and pointed out an old Gothic building.
gpt
It was here that the Protestant divines discussed the doctrines of the reformed religion, whose 'miraculous labors made hell tremble,' to quote the words of its presiding officer. The assembly is called in history the Synod of Dort. The building, as you may see by reading the sign, is now a low public house and dance-hall.
human
Reading the sign! exclaimed Paul, laughing;
gpt
But many of them are very like English words. A dike is a _dijk_.
human
Steamboats are _stoombooten_, said Paul;
gpt
Whew!
human
But you can observe something like open-bridge in the sound. You see that the _spiegels_ are very common here.
gpt
I see they are; but I haven't the least idea what they are.
human
The little mirrors placed outside the windows.
gpt
I saw plenty of them in Antwerp.
human
They are not as common there as in Holland, where they are to be seen attached to almost every house. By this contrivance a Dutch dame can see every person that passes in the street, without raising the blinds. But I think the hour is nearly up, and we must return to the steamer,