AMSTERDAM. 219 



men were chiefly engaged in buying and selling. The wo- 

 men were walking about in their holiday dresses : many of 

 them had very considerable claims to beauty, their features 

 being regular and striking, and their complexions good : 

 even the poorest of these Jewesses, we remarked, were 

 adorned with rich laces. Many of these last were flower- 

 girls : but the flower-market was at this time nearly desert- 

 ed; Sunday, after morning service, being the chief day 

 for nosegays, and Monday for the sale of showy plants and 

 shrubs in flower-pots. The sallow complexion, the large 

 nose, and the sonorous voice of the men, at once betrayed 

 their origin. We experienced no more difficulty here in dis- 

 tinguishing the tone of a Jew, although he spoke Dutch, than 

 in recognising the voice of an old-clothes-man in the streets 

 of London. We felt that we witnessed a standing miracle, 

 — the separation of this ancient " peculiar people," from 

 the various nations among which they are scattered ; while 

 the descendants of the Romans, who conquered the whole 

 known world, who sacked Jerusalem itself, are already ir- 

 retrievably blended with the inhabitants of all the coun- 

 tries of Europe. 



" Amazing Race ! depriv'd of Land and Laws, 

 A general Language, and a public Cause ; 

 With a Religion none can now obey, 

 With a Reproach that none can take away : 

 A People still, whose common ties are gone ; 

 Who, mix'd with every Race, are lost in none V 



Green-Market. 

 Sept. 2.- — Early in the morning, Mr Macdonald visited 

 the Trinzen-gragt Quay, at which the country barges ar- 

 rive, from various districts, with culinary vegetables for 



* Crabbe's Borovgh, Letter 4. 



