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Show 1KOM (.EltMAXV. Continued irom 1st page. land, the ties are generally of iron, as is al-o the case ill Germany. Pew will credit the statement, but it is a fact that fur It. it. tie i"'.'i is .'ii - iper here than wood. You may be sure thai. -. wn ti"'' the iron is more durable it t. t aiTord as easy riding when used in this case. One w ill at once sense the hard, still effects that its use has upon railway rail-way travel. But the land of Holland ah, this is beautitul! the pretty scenes of meadow in the foreground,., grazing cows and merry milkmaids: and in the back-around back-around a moss-covered old Dutch windmill, wind-mill, the whole dressed up in a landscape land-scape of rolling hills with wooded crests. Such scenes as this, which we of the ''West'" see but in oils on canvass, are afforded the traveler in this land in beautiful reality. And old Rotterdam Rotter-dam still presents to the eye such scenes of architecture and commerce as we have in history from old New York when known as Xew Amsterdam. From the X'oriuan-Saxon of old England Eng-land we come here to the distinct Dutch architecture, ofttimes so picturesque pictur-esque and interesting. The houses are generally of brick, made secure by wooden braces running in all directions, direc-tions, but with an eye to order and symmetry; and these are as a rule left exposed to be painted in contrast to the body of the house and thus serves as a sort of decoration. All roofs are of slate or tile or corrugated terra cotta. In the cities we find beautiful and modern designs harmonized with the old, but in the rural districts everything every-thing is distinctly Dutch. The old custom of drying and bleaching the wash or linen wares is still adhered to, by which the material is spread out upon the grass; it is the exception, and very rare at that, to see a clothes line in this land. One modern convenience afforded overland travelers through Holland is the dining car, and it was in one of these that I ate my first real Dutch cheese and tasted genuine Dutch cream. But Holland is small, and one is only allowed the best part of a day when traveling through to observe the characteristics of the land of levees and dykes. At Bentheim on the German border we must submit to examination in the customs house. I passed without with-out question until a package containing contain-ing a fruit cake was encountered by the officers. I was carrying this to one of the elders in Germany from a fond mother in Utah. Of course I couldn't speak a word of German, and there wasn't an officer in the force who knew any English. The package was about to be opened when a Dane near by, seeing see-ing my predicament and being able to speak both English and German, in- tcmnt'of-rl tViol T nnlv V.v.3 ,-. . . - .-. lunch therein. I passed, but bad it been transalated "cake" I should have had duty to pay; From Bentheim to Hamburg by rail one rolls through a vast and beautiful panorama of German landscape; haying just left the north bank of the scenic Rhein he crosses the Weser and Elba, and all the way has a representative sample of the lowland scenery of Germany. Ger-many. There is no such thing as a mountain through this part, only a broken surface, of the land of gently rising hills and wide-spreading vales, the whole expanse averaging but 300 feet above sea-level Of course it is known that some parts of Holland are below sea-level, and a3 for Germany it must be remembered that this land is low in the north and high in the south. But whether the traveler go into the south or the north he finds the beautiful beauti-ful young forest as a characteristic of nearly every hill. - These, however, are not very extensive in any instance, being in most oases the product of the last century, for the primeval forests are no longer to be found except in a few parts of the highland country. The young forests and groves enjoyed today have all been planted by the hand of man. Every acre of ground is under control and bears the evidence of care and treatment. One is either in a city or in the farming district, at no time away from the evidence of life. Paved or macadamized roads are everywhere every-where in evidence. In fact it might be said that so far as Prussia is concerned "the high places have been brought low and the low places exalted." If the stranger visit here in Autumn, even so late as November, he will find the country still green, for although the leaves are by that time gone from the fruit and shade trees, the evergreen ever-green of the country and the grasses are still dressed as in summer. As we ride along in the jerky trains we might observe many strange and interesting characteristics of this land and its people. peo-ple. It will be born in mind that the metric system of weights and measures is in vogue here, and the American observes that he passes the mile posts, or kilometer posts, over shorter distances dis-tances than in his own country. The systems of switches and signals on the railroads are much the same as in the eastern states of America and in England. Eng-land. Railroad accidents are not so frequent here as in America. More later. Greetings to The News and its readers. Walter Adams. |