Until the advent of the little Princess Juliana Holland realized her danger of being ultimately absorbed by Germany. A German Prince had married the sovereign of the Dutch nation, and German journals were not reticent in suggesting that, in the event of Queen Wilhelmina leaving no direct issue, the succession should revert to the family of the Prince Consort. Moreover, Germany had ever been jealous of Holland’s possession of the mouth of the greatest of German rivers--the Rhine, of which she sought the control from its source to the sea. Germany also had an eye upon Holland’s possessions for her own colonization--possessions that give this little country second place among the colonial powers of the world and which, in the Far East alone, aggregate in acreage fourteen times her own area. But the birth of Juliana precluded all immediate possibility of German usurpation, and the Hollanders didn’t convalesce from the effects of the joyous news for a whole week. The Dutch are an intensely patriotic people and have made heroic sacrifices to maintain the independence now assured them by the powers of the world--and the birth of Juliana. They are phlegmatic rather than impetuous; stoical rather than demonstrative; impassive rather than excitable. By virtue of their country’s unique maritime position it has bred the naval heroes, navigators, discoverers, and engineers whose names will remain synonymous for indomitable pluck so long as there exists a history of unequal fighting. By reason of the wealth derived from the foreign trade that these men made possible it has fostered conspicuous groups of artists and scholars and scientists who in their times were the leaders of their guilds. [Illustration: The Dutch build good roads and beautiful ones. On the left is one of the long shady avenues leading from Veere to Domburg; on the right a typical brick-paved highway] It is with keen appreciation of the characteristics of the Hollander which enable him to offer to the traveling world so delightful a handmade territory, that I turn to the pages of “The Traveler” by Oliver Goldsmith and quote a short summary of Holland from the pen of one who traveled and observed, and who, by his enviable powers of description, analysis, and condensation, could epitomize a volume of significance in a single word of syncope.