Somewhat in the same way as such a supposed philosophic observer might be imagined to foresee that democratic strains of remonstrance would here succeed to foresters' and freebooters' songs, may a well-qualified observer of the present day discern the interior mechanism and the remote issues of what lies beneath his eyes. While surveying the vast prairies on the banks of the deep rivers of the Western world, he may safely anticipate the time when self-governing communities will swarm where now a settler's log-house and enclosure are the only break in the wide surface of verdure. While looking down upon the harvests of Volhynia, or watching the processions of wagons laden with corn, and slowly wending their way down to Odessa, he may securely conclude that no vivacious artisan population will enliven this region for a long time to come; that the inhabitants will continue attached to the despotism under which they live; and that the morals of a despotism--the morals which coexist with gross ignorance and social subservience--may be looked for and found for at least an age. Some preparation may thus be made by a glance over the face of the country. Much depends on whether it is flat or mountainous, pasture or arable land. It appears from fact, too, that much depends on minor circumstances,--even on whether it is damp or dry. It is amusing to the traveller in Holland to observe how new points of morals spring up out of its swamps, as in the East from the dryness of the deserts. To injure the piles on which the city is built, is at Amsterdam a capital offence; and no inhabitant could outgrow the shame of tampering with the vegetation by which the soil of the dykes is held together. While Irish children are meritoriously employed in gathering rushes to make candles, and sedges for thatch, "the veriest child in Holland would resent as an injury any suspicion that she had rooted up a sedge or a rush, which had been planted to strengthen the embankments."[L] Such are certain points of morals in a country where water is the great enemy. In the East, where drought is the chief foe, it is a crime to defile or stop up a well, and the greatest of social glories is to have made water flow where all before was dry. In Holland, a malignant enemy cuts the dyke, as the last act of malice: in Arabia, he fills up the wells. In Holland, a distinct sort of moral feeling seems to have grown up about intemperance in drink. The humidity of the climate, and the scarcity of clear, wholesome water, obliges the inhabitants to drink much of other liquids. If moderation in them were not made a point of conscience of the first importance, the consequences of their prevalent use would be dreadful. The success of this particular moral effort is great. Drunkenness is almost as rare in Holland as carelessness in keeping accounts, and tampering with the dykes. There is no country in the world whose morals have more clearly grown out of its circumstances than Holland.