UTRECHT TO BREDA. 261 



ing widely both up and down the declivity. It was impos- 

 sible for us not to recall to mind the observations of the 

 late Dr Walker, Professor of Natural History at Edin- 

 burgh, on the advantages of planting fruit-trees on sloping 

 banks, when we had thus under our eye so striking an il- 

 lustration of their truth *. 



In the course of the afternoon, we again crossed the 

 Maes or Holland's Diep ; and for the last twenty miles 

 the country appeared comparatively barren. Although 

 the day was bright, and the prospects occasionally assumed 

 to us a new character, the slowness and clumsiness of the 

 post-wegen tried our patience. We had left Utrecht at six 

 in the morning, and it was past seven in the evening before 

 we reached Breda, although the distance is not much 

 greater than between Edinburgh and Glasgow. 



Being about to leave Holland, we amused ourselves, in 

 the evening, in collecting the general impressions left on our 

 minds by what we had seen of the country. That part 

 which we have visited was long ago well characterised by 

 Sir William Temple, when he said, u It is like the sea in 

 a calm, and looks as if, after a long contention between 

 land and water, which it should belong to, it had at length 

 been divided between them." By much the greater part is 

 in meadow ; and the natural grasses are excellent, Poa tri- 

 vialis and pratensis, Holcus lanatus, and Dactylis glomera- 

 ta, being abundant. Large crops of wheat had in some 

 places been produced, the stems taller but not thicker or 

 stronger than in Scotland. But the soil, upon the whole, 



* These observations are to be found in the Appendix to Vol. II. of 

 Lord Woodhouselee's Life of Lord Kames. As they are equally short as ju- 

 dicious, and are not generally known, we have given them a place in the 

 Appendix, No. VI. 



