JET. 26.] TOUR THROUGH HOLLAND. 273 



and 2000 Dutch soldiers are in the camp and outposts, 

 well clothed and armed, with depots fine-looking 

 men. Supped and had a bath, which, after thirty- 

 six hours passed on shipboard, was a great luxury. 



Aug. 9. I hired a sort of phaeton, with two good 

 horses, and set out to Alkmaar : sandy roads country 

 all sand-hills, but improved after the first two hours. 

 Passed the field of battle, and the camp. 



Conversed with my driver, very intelligent, and 

 picked up some Dutch. Find, if he can be trusted, 

 they don't like the French, and still less the English. 

 Common Dutch and French soldiers at constant dag- 

 gers-drawn, but officers on good terms. The Dutch 

 like Americans better than any. This is so natural 

 in Dutchmen, that I take this as truth, though on 

 sorry authority. The horses being troubled with flies 

 from the extreme heat of the day, I jocularly called 

 them Frenchmen, and said the English were the whip 

 that drove them off. The man said, the Dutch pre- 

 ferred the trouble of feeding the fly to the pain of 

 the lash that drove it off. We stopped twice on the 

 road at neat little villages, and our route lay through a 

 delightful country of meadow and canal. Little or no 

 wood, except here and there a corner cut off to make a 

 young shrubbery for the neighbouring house, though in 

 no form or taste. The hedges are good. Lust-houses 

 on all banks, sometimes on the canal a box like a 

 bathing-machine, with one or two rooms; sometimes a 

 row of these together. Last stage from Alkmaar is 

 called Schooldam, all battered by shot, still to be seen. 



VOL. i. s 



