Beyond the sluice, the canal passes several breaches, made by inundations of the Y, and not capable of being drained, or repaired. In these places the canal is separated from the inundations either by piles, or floating planks. None of the breaches were made within the memory of the present generation, yet the boatmen have learned to speak of them with horror. There is nothing magnificent, or grand, in the approach to Amsterdam, or the prospect of the city. The sails of above an hundred windmills, moving on all sides, seem more conspicuous than the public buildings of this celebrated capital. The trechtschuyt having stopped on the outside of the gate, we waited for one of the public coaches, which are always to be had by sending to a livery stable, but do not stand in the street for fares. It cost half-a-crown for a drive of about two miles into the city; the regulated price is a guilder, or twenty-pence. Our direction was to the _Doolen_; but the driver chose to take us to another inn, in the same street, which we did not discover to be otherwise called, till we had become satisfied with it. Nearly all the chief thorough-fares of Amsterdam are narrow, but the carriages are neither so numerous as in other places of the same size, nor suffered to be driven with the same speed; so that, though there is no raised pavement, foot passengers are as safe as elsewhere. There are broad terraces to the streets over the two chief canals, but these are sometimes encumbered by workshops, placed immediately over the water, between which and the houses the owners maintain an intercourse of packages and planks, with very little care about the freedom of the passage. This, indeed, may be constantly observed of the Dutch: they will never, either in their societies, or their business, employ their time, for a moment, in gratifying the little malice, or shewing the little envy, or assuming the little triumphs, which fill so much of life with unnecessary miseries; but they will seldom step one inch out of their way, or surrender one moment of their time, to save those, whom they do not know, from any inconvenience. A Dutchman, throwing cheeses into his warehouse, or drawing iron along the path-way, will not stop, while a lady, or an infirm person passes, unless he perceives somebody inclined to protect them; a warehouseman trundling a cask, or a woman in the favourite occupation of throwing water upon her windows, will leave it entirely to the passengers to take care of their limbs, or their clothes.