every part below the level of the water, and of course the mariner, in sailing along the coast, sees nothing but tall spires rising above the dykes, to show that within are flourishing cities, and a numerous population. Walcheren, so famous in our own times for the disastrous expedition of the English, whose troops perished through the noxious dampness of the climate, is the most important, although not the largest, of the islands of Zeeland. It is enriched by the cultivation of flax, grain, and madder; and contains the large and ancient town of Middelburg, beside many villages and smaller towns, among which are Vlissingen, or Flushing, and Ter Vere, or Kampneer, which formerly served as the great markets for the Scottish merchants, and for contraband trade with England. Middelburg itself is distinguished for its public edifices, and for the prominent part which its inhabitants have acted, in all the political events of the Netherlands. But the prosperity of Walcheren, and of all the other islands of Zeeland, has been continually checked by inundations, and by the vast expense necessary to prevent their recurrence.
When off Schouwen, the northernmost of the islands, we received a pilot, and immediately steered in for the port of Hellevöetsluys. Passing close to the small island of Goeree, with its beacon and lighthouse, we entered an arm of the sea called Quaks Diep, in shallow, clay-colored water, surrounded by flat low-land, almost level with the sea, with houses, clumps of trees, and wind-mills, visible on all sides. Long lines of stakes stretched along the shores, serving to collect and retain the shifting sands, and to aid in furnishing protection against the sea. At length we arrived in the roadstead, and dropped anchor near several large ships of war, and amid a large number of vessels, whose high poops and bows, and round stem and stern, painted all of one uniform dingy color, sufficiently betokened a foreign sea-port, had the stranger-looking buildings on shore been wanting to complete the conviction. And landing at Hellevöetsluys, it was there I received my first impressions as to the peculiarities in appearance of the people and the towns of Holland.
At the mouth of the river Maes, as at that of the Scheldt, stands a group of large but low and flat islands, separated from each other and from the continent, by branches of the river or of the sea. Of these, Over Flakkee lies to the south of an arm of the sea called Hollands Diep, while Voorn, Beierland, and Ysselmonde, are situated to the north of it, and contiguous to the proper waters of the Maes, which, having arisen in France, and then crossed the provinces of Namur and Liege, in the Netherlands, at length changes its course, and proceeds in a westerly direction to the North Sea. But in fact, the body of water which flows around these islands, consists of the united currents of the Maes and the Rhine. Taking its rise in Switzerland, and holding its course northwardly between France and Germany, where its picturesque banks are the admiration of the traveller, the Rhine loses its beauty on entering the flat country of the Netherlands. Here it branches off into two streams, one of which, assuming the name of the Waal, goes to join the Maes, while the Rhine itself continues to Arnheim, and there throws off another stream, called the Yssel, which flows into the Zuyderzee. Proceeding now toward the western coast of Holland, the Rhine is once more
