guards are p r o - 

 vided to prevent 

 the careless or in- 

 ebriate from fall- 

 ing in, one would 

 naturally suppose 

 that the mortality 

 from drowning 

 would be very 

 great ; but it is said 

 that few deaths 

 occur from this 

 cause. 



History, h o w - 

 ever, records many 

 occasions of terri- 

 ble inundations that 

 have claimed great 

 numbers of the 

 population. In the 

 latter part of the 

 thirteenth century 

 the waters o v e r - 

 came the dikes at 

 the mouth of the 

 Ems, causing a loss 

 of 80,000 lives. 

 Again, in 142 1, the 

 overflow of the 

 Meuse buried 72 

 villages and 

 drowned 100,000 

 people ; and in 1 570 

 another i o 0,0 o o 

 lives were swal- 

 lowed up by the 

 North Sea, when it 

 broke through the 

 dikes. 



rut CANAL-BOAT 

 POPULATION 



WHERE THE FAMOUS CHEESE COMES EROM 



Edam may be a small town and its population may live as their 

 ancestors lived a century ago, but it is known in every part of the 

 numerous world where people who live well dwell ; for Edam gave its name to 

 canals of Holland the cheese produced in the rich farming district that surrounds the town. 

 are populated by 



are said to become in time quite inde- 

 pendent. 



The attractive old town of Vollendam 

 is one of the quaint little places which 

 every one who visits Holland should see. 

 Here for centuries one generation after 

 another of the people have lived on in the 

 same rut, content to exist in the memo- 

 ries of the past, when wealth was abun- 

 dant, but which in return for the prevail- 

 ing lethargy has taken its departure. 

 The advantage of visiting the place on 



The 



about 50,000 people, to whom the house- 

 boat represents home all the year round, 

 and with the exception of the winter sea- 

 son, when the canals are frozen, they are 

 constantly on the move. The stern of 

 the vessel is fitted up for the boatman 

 and his family, while the space in front 

 is used for carrying freight. So large a 

 part of Holland is intersected by this net- 

 work of waterways, which also connects 

 with the river Rhine, that the owners of 

 these barges do a thriving business and 



17 



