200 IN DUTCH WATER MEADOWS 



Storks are becoming much less common in Holland 

 than they were a few years ago, and though occasion- 

 ally we saw a stray bird or pair, this, and one other of 

 which a passing glimpse was caught from the train, 

 were the only nests we saw. 



We had steamed next day in a spanking breeze from 

 Helder, the Portsmouth of Holland, across the Dutch 

 Solent, through a fleet of Texel trawlers, which lifted 

 at one moment their heavy bows clean out of the 

 water, and the next moment dipped until half hidden 

 in clouds of spray. We had spent a quiet night in the 

 cleanest and sleepiest of little inns, and after an early 

 breakfast in a room looking out on a miniature square 

 paved with bricks on edge, in deep shade, excepting 

 where dotted with the few specks of almost tropical 

 sunshine which found their way through the foliage 

 of twenty-nine closely planted lime-trees in full leaf, 

 resonant with the notes of Warblers and Starlings had 

 been driven with a pair of fresh horses for some miles 

 along the top of a wall like the back of a knife, on the 

 one hand the sea, on the other, apparently at lower 

 level, ditches and meadows. From the top of the wall 

 we had dropped down suddenly to an inland country, 

 to be reminded that the sea was not twenty yards off, 

 as every now and then the sails of a fishing-boat showed 

 over the green banks which we skirted. 



For another mile or two we had jolted along a cart- 

 track, till, our coachman having lost his way, we were 

 brought to a full stop by a ditch and rail. At last we 

 had succeeded in finding and introducing ourselves to 



