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226 exception of a few streets in the best quarter of the town, they are in general extremely dirty, and the canals abound with putrid offals of every description. During the heats of summer, the noxious effluvia which proceed from the stagnate waters of the canals, corrupted with the most offensive animal and vegetable substances, must be highly pernicious to the health, and destructive of the comforts, of the inhabitants of this city. To purify the canals, there are erected at the extremities of the town, mills to pump out the foul water, and cause the stagnate pools to circulate. Every day the gates and sluices are opened, and a number of barges are employed to collect the dirt that floats on the surface of the canals, or raise the mud from the bottom. These boats, when they are full, transport their cargoes to Brabant, and the price which is given there for the manure defrays the expence of the voyage.

Notwithstanding all the care that is taken to cleanse the canals of Amsterdam, they are most disgustingly impure. In most of them are to be seen the offals of slaughterhouses,