202 SAND-DUNES IN HOLLAND. [Jan. 



mounds is not over some fifteen metres (50 feet), and taken 

 altogether tliey do not extend inland for more than a French mile. 

 But in the absence of mountains, they seem to the deluded eye to be 

 a vast hilly tract of country. Valleys, gorges, and precipices are dis- 

 cerned among them ; prospects seem to be a great way off, while in 

 reality they are close at hand ; tops of neighbouring dunes, where 

 one would suppose a man would look no bigger than a child, and 

 where in reality he appears to be a giant. Looked down upon from 

 above, the aspect of this region is similar to that of a stormy yellow 

 sea. The dreary appearance of this wilderness is still further 

 increased by the rank straggling vegetation, which seems to be the 

 mourning garb of this dead and desolate region ; scanty puny tufts 

 of grass ; flowers with almost diaphonous petals ; broom, heather, 

 rosemary, valerian — with now and then a rabbit scudding away 

 among them — are the only things enterprising enough to grow upon 

 so ill-conditioned a soil. Extensive tracts may be traversed without 

 seeing a house, a tree, or a living soul. Now and then a crow, a 

 sea-gull, an owl, will fly past ; their cries and the wind moaning 

 among the trees are the only sounds that break the silence of this 

 dreary waste. 'Wlien the sky is dark and lowering, then the dead 

 uniform hue of the ground is tinged with an ominous light similar to 

 the unnatural tints imparted to all things through coloured glass. 

 At such times the stranger, wandering among the dunes, experiences 

 a feeling akin to terror, as one who finds himself in an unknown 

 land, far from every human dwelling ; and he anxiously scans the 

 misty horizon, vainly searching for some church-tower in the 

 distance to cheer his heart." 



The impressions produced on me wore similar. I had come from 

 visiting the picture-galleries of Antwerp, Amsterdam, and the Hague ; 

 but here I had a new sensation, oppressive, so oppressive that 

 I could only seat myself on a sandhill and muse, excited yet sad. 

 There were other attractions, but they were powerless to attract me. 

 Sand ; what is it ? whence comes it ? These were the questions 

 appropriate to the place ; and on these and other related questions 

 I shall make some remarks in the sequel. 



Appointment. — Messrs. Thomas Metliven & Sons have just 

 received a Eoyal warrant appointing them Nurserymen, Seedsmen, 

 and Florists to Her Majesty the Queen at Edinburgh. 



