ON GETTING THERE 3 



instructive thing ; spends the night at sea, which 

 if one has to go to sea seems the best time to 

 spend there ; and, if it is summer, sees the piers 

 of Ymuenden when sea and sky look like the 

 two halves of a pink pearl in the dawn. After 

 Ymuenden one is in the Great Canal of Amsterdam, 

 and it is a bad sailor who can then find reason to 

 object to the motion or vibration. The latter 

 appears principally to be connected with the steam 

 whistle, which gives notice of approach to railway 

 bridges, and the former to be rather conspicuous 

 by its absence. Children driving goats to pasture 

 and early astir pedestrians seem as if they could 

 easily outdistance the very steady and matronly 

 pace of the little steamer. But it is quite suitable, 

 everything else on the water moves at the same 

 pace, which agreeably allows of greeting and con- 

 versation with occasional sister craft, even allows 

 of learning what they have for breakfast on board. 

 And no doubt it is necessary, — the banks which 

 shut the canal from the land, usually lying below 

 the water-level, are very soft ; even as it is, dredgers, 

 those most fascinating craft of childhood, are 

 eternally at work. 



It appears to be the cautious custom of the 

 country not to open the swing railway bridges 



