, and
defend the land cities with her fleet. Water was the source of her
poverty, she has made it the source of wealth. Over the whole country
extends an immense net-work of canals which serve both for the
irrigation of the land and as a means of communication. The cities,
by means of canals, communicate with the sea; canals run from town to
town, and from them to villages, which are themselves bound together
by these watery ways, and are connected even to the houses scattered
over the country; smaller canals surround the fields and orchards,
pastures and kitchen-gardens, serving at once as boundary-wall, hedge,
and roadway; every house is a little port. Ships, boats, rafts move
about in all directions, as in other places carts and carriages. The
canals are the arteries of Holland, and the water her life-blood.
But even setting aside the canals, the draining of the lakes, and
the defensive works, on every side are seen the traces of marvelous
undertakings. The soil, which in other countries is a gift of nature,
is in Holland a work of men's hands.
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