Amsterdam is the largest and most commercially important city in Holland. Founded in 1204 by Gysbrecht II, who built a castle here, and choked the flow of the river Amstel by throwing a dam across it--from which more or less momentous event the town derived its appellation,--Florins V, of Binnenhof fame, favored the place to the extent of granting its exemption from the taxes imposed by Zeeland and Holland. In 1311 it was formally absorbed by the latter province. From that time on Amsterdam gathered greater importance as a commercial center, until, in the early years of the seventeenth century, after the Dutch had finally succeeded in beating off the Spaniards, the establishment of the Dutch East India Company added its might to raise Amsterdam to the rank of the foremost mercantile community in the world. Later she commenced to gravitate slowly down the incline of trade and her cogs refused to take hold again until the latter half of the nineteenth century, although at the time of the dividing of the Dutch Republic, when King Louis Bonaparte took up his residence in Amsterdam in 1808, she was considered the third greatest city in the French Empire. To-day she has advanced well past the half million population mark. Although as regards her foreign trade she does not profess to compete with Rotterdam, as a money market and clearing house for colonial products she is preëminent in the Netherlands. The Dam--a large square that owes its name to the fact of its being the eastern boundary of Lord Amstel’s embankment across the river--is the axis around which Amsterdam revolves. It is literally the hub of the Dutch universe. Every electric car in the place starts from the Dam, and in due course of time will wind its way back again. The principal edifices adjacent to it are the Royal Palace, the Nieuwe Kerk, or New Church, and the imposing post and telegraph offices. Completed in the year 1655 at a total cost of more than $3,000,000, this Royal Palace was originally the Town Hall, but when Louis Bonaparte came upon the scene the Dutch made him a present of it for his use as a royal residence. At a later date King William I of Holland handed it back to the city, whose property it still remains, instead of that of the Crown; so that when Wilhelmina makes her annual ten days’ visit to Amsterdam she comes more as a private citizen and is the guest of the city for the period of her stay. With its 264 feet of length and its 207 of width it seems rather a strain upon the imagination to picture the Royal Palace as standing upon stilts; but such is actually the case, for its foundations consist of 13,659 piles (to be absolutely accurate) driven from forty to sixty feet into the sand.