THROUGH CONTINENTAL EUROPE. 
349 
having sold it, as he has plans for enlarging his territory by conquests in Asia 
and can make a better use of $7,000,000 than to keep it packed down in 
American ice ; and so the satisfaction is mutual. 
The Russians are a robust and hardy people, and under the rule of the 
great Alexander are fast building up a power that eventually shall know no 
rival in Europe. 
The variety and immensity of their resources, distributed over an empire 
that is washed by the Black Sea on the south and the Arctic on the north, 
by the Baltic on the west and the Northern Pacific on the east; the native 
vigor, bravery and resolution of their nearly one hundred millions of people, 
directed and controlled by a sovereign in whose veins courses the blood of 
Peter the Great; these circumstances, are of themselves, a prophecy of future 
greatness. One important condition of success and increased power Russia 
lacks. Turkey holds the gateway by which alone her ships can reach the 
the Mediterranean. Her maratime possibilities are very limited, therefore. 
The other great powers appreciate this limitation and strive to perpetuate it. 
But they contend with Fate and are sure to suffer defeat. The Czar, like a 
statesman, is willing that his empire should bide its time. But his eye is 
immovably fixed on that southern sea, and when he knows that the time is 
come, he will move upon the i)upedimenCs, whatever they may be, with 
irresitible might. 
From St. Petersburg my course was southward, by a grand sweep across the 
sparsely settled steppes of Western Russia, into Poland; thence to the uni¬ 
versity of Konigsberg, in the northeast corner of Prussia, on the Baltic ; 
then, with a rapid dash due westward, through the whole length of Prussia, 
via Berlin and Hanover, into quaint, thrifty, anomalous old Holland, land 
rescued from the sea and everywhere distinguished for its agricultural and 
mechanical industry, its commercial enterprise, its educational progress, and 
the indomitable energy and heroism of its people. iVe^Aejdands indeed ; being 
lower than the sea, and its rich meadows, animated by grazing herds of fat 
Dutch cattle, often quite below the inosculating canals that constitute the 
arteries of trade. 
The whole kingdom of Holland is so small and compact that but a few days 
are necessary to a complete circuit of all its principal cities and towns. 
From Arnheim to Utrecht, a most charming university town, its streets, ca¬ 
nals and suburban promenades beautifully shaded ; to the famous old com¬ 
mercial city of Amsterdam ; to the interesting town of Leyden, still distin¬ 
guished as the proudest seat of learning in the Netherlands; to Haarlem, 
growing up, by the grace of numberless wind mills, on what was but lately 
the bed of Lake Haarlem ; to the capital city of Hague ; to the stirring com¬ 
mercial Rotterdam ; thence, by steamer on the Rhine, and by sail, to Ant¬ 
werp, leading maritime city of Belgium, and once the commercial centre of 
Europe, holding by means of the thousands of ships which then crowded its 
great harbor, relations with every civilized country on the globe; thence 
once more to Brussells, for the inspection of its numerous factories, its in- 
