hundred feet high, the hat of Batavian liberty. The mast is painted with the national colours, red, white, and blue; and towards the top it is ornamented with artificial foliage of the palm-tree. The base of the pole assumes somewhat the form of a column, and figures, painted on boards, of Liberty, Justice, Independence, &c. are attached to it. As in other places of Holland, the tree of liberty was found not to flourish here, and therefore it was thought necessary to rear a mast, conspicuously to display the emblem of Dutch freedom.
The space before the stadthouse, or the dam as it is called, is disgraced with a mean erection, the custom-house of the city. It is a small, miserable building, and furnishes a stranger, who has seen the spacious and magnificent edifices for the collection of revenue in London, with very humble ideas of the commerce of Amsterdam. There was not a throng of persons about it, though at a time of the day when business is usually transacted: but I saw a considerable quantity of merchandise, which was brought to be
