The Netherlands [antikvár]

THE NETHERLANDSIt may seem to some only yesterday, to others quite a long time since flying was discovered to be possible also for beings possessing no wings; before that, the stranger could approach a foreign country only by a frontier post or a seaport. Today, tens of thousands of travellers fly to and over Holland every year; up in the clear sky, or through a hole in the clouds they may cast a glance downward and see a tiny country full of lakes and woods and towns so closely packed together, running into one another as it were, that it looks like an attempt to collect all or most of the existing types of European landscapes into one small area. And anything still lacking after thatwell, the Dutch themselves just made and added it, either by taking a piece away from the sea or laying dry a lake here and there, when, lo!after a while, there was one more field of golden corn waving in the breeze, such as you may see in Denmark or Germany. The landscape of Drente, maybe, reminds the spectator of the disconsolate emptiness of the border states near the Russian frontier; but on looking over the southern scene, or the North Holland dune-landscape, he is sure to be struck by a likeness with the charming lanes and the vegetation of Sweden's countryside.Well, all the things you may have merely spotted in passing when taking your bird's eye view from above in your 'plane, you will find, neatly arranged in proper order and in full detail, in this book; and without the picture being blurred by clouds or mist although clouds and nebulous haze too are depicted in it. Here, then, are the towers and the cities of the Netherlands; its meadows and cattle, meres and waterways, moors and woodlands; its people, its animals. You can see what they are doing, how they move about and live; you will see a dense net of railways, canals and rivers intersecting this little country; for in this limited area there are eight million people packed together, accustomed to a high standard of well-being. And so they all have to work iets iiitvoeren, we say in Dutch, the remarkable thing being that this word uitvoeren has the double meaning of 'to work' and 'to export'! And indeed, 'work' in Holland is about synonymous with 'export'; that's why we have so many factories; that's why