years ago, Hans and Gretel skated on the frozen Y : in fact, more wonderful; for every day increases the marvel of its not being washed away by the sea. Its cities have grown, and some of its peculiarities have been brushed away by contact with other nations; but it is Holland still, and always will be,—full of oddity, courage, and industry, the pluckiest little country on earth. I shall not tell you, in this letter, of its customs, its cities, its palaces, churches, picture-galleries, and museums,—for these are described in the story,—except to say that they are here still, just the same, in this good year 1873, for I have seen them nearly all within a week.
To-day an American boy and I, seeing some children enter an old house in the business-part of Amsterdam, followed them in—and what do you think we found? An old woman, here in the middle of summer, selling hot water and fire! She makes her living by it. All day long she sits tending her great fires of peat, and keeping the shining copper tanks above them filled with water. The children, who come and go, carry away in a curious stone pail their kettle of boiling water and their blocks of burning peat. For these they give her a Dutch cent, which is worth less than half of one of ours. In this way persons who cannot afford to keep a fire burning in hot weather may yet have their cup of tea or coffee, and their bit of boiled fish and potato.
After leaving the old fire-woman, who nodded a pleasant good-by to us, and willingly put our stivers into her great outside-pocket, we drove through the streets enjoying the singular sights of a public washing-day. Yes, in certain quarters of the city, away from the canals, the streets were lively with washerwomen hard at work. Hundreds of them in clumsy wooden shoes, with their tucked-up skirts, bare arms, and close-fitting caps, were bending over tall wooden tubs that reached as high as their waists, gossiping and rubbing, rubbing and gossiping, with perfect unconcern, in the public thoroughfare, and all washing with cold water, instead of using hot, as we do. What a grand thing it would be for our old fire-woman if boiling water were suddenly to become the fashion on these public washing-days!
But I forget. If this letter ever reaches you, it must do so by being put in the place where prefaces belong,—a small place, you
