Previous to 1836 the Dutch had tolerated the Haarlemermeer. In November of that year a violent west wind lashed its waters into a fury and poured them into the streets of Amsterdam. On Christmas day there came an east wind that drove the waters from Amsterdam over into the streets of Leyden. This was too much. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. This was what exhausted even the patience of the Dutch, and they picked up the gauntlet. They contrived a plan of methodical, systematic attack. They diked in the Lake with a high earthen cofferdam, installed a series of powerful pumps that sucked a thousand cubic feet of water at a single stroke of the piston, and they drew 800,000,000 tons of lake water up into the surrounding canals to be carried off to the sea with much the same complacency that you would imbibe a glass of soda through a straw. It took more than four years to complete the process. When it was finally finished the Dutch struck a medal in commemoration which bore in Latin the following matter-of-fact inscription: “Haarlem Lake, after having for centuries assailed the surrounding fields to enlarge itself by their destruction, conquered at last by the force of machinery, has returned to Holland its 44,280 acres of invaded land.” The significance of the Dutch _bon mot_, “God made the sea; we made the shore,” will never be more apparent than when you look out from the car window across the Zuidplaspolder near Rotterdam, with a minus altitude of more than thirty feet below the level of the ocean at mean tide. Holland being, as a whole, the lowest country in the world, is protected at the danger zones by the great dikes upon which almost the entire kingdom depends for its safety from disastrous inundation, and which require the annual cost of maintenance of approximately $12,000,000 and the undivided attention of a whole department of engineers. The mileage of the canals which intersect the country in every direction is greater than the mileage of the railroads. First and all the time, these canals, except those constructed for special purposes, serve for conducting the superfluous water from the cultivated areas. Second, they are highways for traffic. Travel on them is cheaper than on the steam tram lines, which is cheaper, in turn, than on the railways, for many of the latter are owned and operated by private companies, as in England. Even some of the lines built by the State are leased to a private concern. But unlike those of England, there can be little doubt that an investment in their stocks is a paying one, because railway building and railway up-keep in Holland are comparative sinecures. Grades are unknown, curves are scarce as the proverbial hen’s teeth, except in the approaches to a city, and I failed to find a tunnel in the whole country.