In Holland the very old and the very young are alike invisible.
One of the first things that I noticed at Leeuwarden was the presence of a new bird.

Hitherto I had seen only the familiar birds that we know at home, except for a stork here and there and more herons than one catches sight of in England save in the neighbourhood of one of our infrequent heronries.

But at Leeuwarden you find, sweeping and plaining over the canals, the beautiful tern, otherwise known as the sea swallow, white and powerful and delicately graceful, and possessed of a double portion of the melancholy of birds of the sea.

Of the bittern, which is said to boom continually over the Friesland meres, I caught no glimpse and heard no sound.
From Leeuwarden I rode one Sunday morning by the steam-tram to St.Jacobie Parochie, a little village in the extreme north-west, where I proposed to take a walk upon the great dyke.

It was a chilly morning, and I was glad to be inside the compartment as we rattled along the road.