If the American traveler expects to stop off along the line from Middelburg at a little place called Goes, he will undergo his first operation with the Dutch language. Should he fail to catch sight of the signboard that proclaims in print the name of the station, or to compare his watch with his timetable in order to ascertain in this manner the exact bearings of the point of stoppage, he will probably be carried on through, for it will not occur to him that he had planned to detrain when the tin-horn-girdled conductor rattles up and down the platform shouting, “Whose.” But “Whose” is the way Goes is pronounced--and this is simply introductory. Some there be who try to insist that we have nothing to brag about in the way of euphonic orthography, which is more or less of a cold fact. But then, we are used to it. The same may be said of the Dutch language, and it is to be hoped that the Dutch are used to _it_. They seem to get along with it passably well, at all events. But their ability to master the impossible does not alleviate our troubles in the least. Any nation that can spell “ice” y-s and i-j-s with equal complacency, and gather the same meaning from both methods, deserves to be misunderstood. The Dutch letter _g_, to come back to Goes, strikes terror to the vocal organs of the most versatile linguist. It is treated with somewhat the same disrespect that the Spanish treat their _j_, only more so. The Dutch pronunciation of a word beginning with _g_ is started somewhere in the anatomical vicinity of the diaphragm and allowed to percolate up through the æsophagus, gathering harshness and strength until it comes in violent contact with the larynx, whence it is finally ejaculated with about the same sound as a bad attack of hay fever. I quote a passage from a certain work on Holland, the author of which infers that if any person not of Dutch descent can repeat the sentence correctly as to sound and emphasis, to him the mastery of the remainder of the language will seem like child’s play. The sentence follows: “_Grietje, gooi geen goeje groente in de gracht._” The interlinear cribbing of it would be in English, “Gretchen, do not throw any good vegetables into the canal.” [Illustration: Behind the dike near Goes--a typical Dutch scene, with the black and white cattle and the milkmaid]