Page:Things Seen In Holland (1912).djvu/25

 of canals which make of the land one huge checker-board, there is but one drawback to the enjoyment of the landscape with which the paintings of Ruisdael, Cuyp, Ostade, and Paul Potter of days gone by, and those of the gifted Marises, Israels, Mauve, Willem Witsen, and others of the present time, have made us familiar. A fly lurks in the amber of those toy villages, amid the alleys of limes and poplars. It is the malodorous smell of the grey-green, muddy, stagnant canals. In many places the natives may be seen converting these water-ducts into main sewers while simultaneously rinsing out their coffee-pots and other articles of domestic use, with the utmost indifference to any sanitary regulations.

It is no consolation to the visitor expressing surprise, not to say disgust, at these practices, and remarking that this