It is doubtful indeed if any other city in Holland than Amsterdam can tempt the tourist with a greater number of pleasant day’s excursions. Lying at the very feet of North Holland--a travel territory no larger in area than the state of Rhode Island, but replete with picturesque nooks and corners, congested with types and abounding in peculiar customs--every part of the province is readily accessible to Amsterdam by rail or by water. Back of its central railway station there is a long line of docks which berth the boats that only await your patronage. Here you may board the large river steamer that takes you to Zaandam in half an hour for the price of one-half of one Dutch cent a minute; here you may take the little excursion boats for ports along the Zuyder Zee; here you may engage passage to Alkmaar or to The Helder or even to Leeuwarden or Groningen or Zwolle, situated in that unpenetrated part of the kingdom which may be termed the hinterland of Holland; and here you may hire a private yacht or motor boat, master and all, to carry you whither you will and for as long as you wish for as little as five dollars a day inclusive. If you cross the arm of the Zuyder Zee they call the Ij--much easier spelled Y--by ferry to the Tolhuis you have only to board the steam tram to be rattled across country to Alkmaar, Edam, or Volendam. To Haarlem is but fifteen minutes’ ride by rail, while The Hague itself is only an hour’s trip in the _schnell zug_. Zandvoort, on the North Sea, is served by electric train direct from Amsterdam, stopping at Haarlem to break the short journey. A favorite excursion for a summer’s evening is from Amsterdam by steamer to Zaandam, the most typically Dutch of all Dutch towns. The course of the steamer leads up the North Sea Canal to a point a little beyond the Petroleum Harbor and then turns off into the river Zaan. [Illustration: A waterfront street in Volendam, which with Marken is the most advertised showplace on the tourist’s beaten track]