As to the country, a peep once an hour will be sufficient; I will look out of the window and give you the result--five plover, a few fat cows, a good many rushes, and a canal bridge. At Amsterdam we dined at a regular Dutch table d'hôte; about 20 people, all of them eaters, few talkers; the quantity of vegetables consumed was quite surprising. With the last dish a boy came round with pipes and hot coals, which were soon followed by a tremendous explosion of Tobacco from a double line of smokers, and as if the simple operation of puffing in and puffing out was too much for these drowsy operators, many of them leaned back in their chairs, put their hands in their breeches pockets, shut their eyes, and carried on the war with one end of the pipe in their mouths and the other leaning on their plates. On Wednesday, Aug. 3rd, we crossed the Gulf by sun rise on a little tour into North Holland, to see the Village of Brock and Saardam, where the house in which the Czar Peter worked still exists. We landed at Buiksloot, from whence carriages are hired to different parts of the country. From Breda to Amsterdam they varied the Diligences according to the number of travellers; sometimes we had a coach and four, and then a machine and three, and as our number diminished we were forwarded the last stage or two in a vehicle perfectly nondescript with two horses; it was a sort of cart painted white, hung upon springs, with an awning, but it was reserved for this morning to see us in a carriage far beyond anything before seen or heard of. I am inclined to think it must have been the identical equipage (for it was a little the worse for wear) which the fairy produced from the gourd for the service of Cinderella--a sort of Phaeton lined with red flowered velvet, the whole moulding beautifully carved and gilt, the panels well painted with flowers, birds, urns, &c., the wheels red and gold. It contained two seats for four persons, and a coach box painted, carved, and gilt like the body of the carriage; the whole was in a Lilliput style drawn by two gigantic black horses, whose tails reached above the level of our heads. It was exactly suited to the place where we were going, the village of Brock, which, like our vehicle, was unlike anything I had seen before. I have, in former letters, talked of Dutch cleanliness and neatness, but what is all I have said compared with Brock? Even the people have their jokes upon its superiority in this particular, and assert that the inhabitants actually wash and scrub their wood before they put it on the fire. Lady Penrhyn's cottages must yield the palm, they are only internally washed and painted, but in Brock, Tops and bottoms, Outside and in, bricks and all, are constantly under the discipline of the paint brush, and as if Nature was not sufficiently clean in her operations, the stems of several of their trees were white washed too! In fact, nothing seemed to