This book has been written by one who can boast no Dutch blood or ancestry. It contains the impressions, observations, studies, and sentiments of an American, who has learned to love the Dutch country and people for their solid worth.

In five journeys I have seen the Dutchman's home-land. I have rambled not hastily but leisurely, not in one or two, but in all the provinces of the Netherlands. The majority of Americans, like most British folk, visit only the two Hollands, North and South, and then see but a narrow line of landscape from the car windows. For the average tourist, the elect route is from Rotterdam to Amsterdam. Yet I confess to delightful days in much far-off places as Dokkum and Finsterwolde, Doesburg and Goes, and in such mysterious lands as Drenthe and Limburg. My hope is that my follow countrymen will discover that in Queen Wilhelmina's realm there are nine other provinces, besides the two Hollands; yes even a North, a South, and an East as well as a narrow strip, between the two Dams, of cities near the sea.

In giving my impressions and expressing my sentiments, I may be accused of frivolity, but my aim has been to refresh the reader, break the strain of plain prose, and reveal the poetry underlying the Dutch epic of toil and triumph.

My first visit to the Netherlands, when I crossed the country from east to west on inland waters, and tarried for a night in Rotterdam, was in 1869. My subsequent visits were in 1891, 1892, 1895, and 1898. Unsought and unexpected was election, in 1896, to membership in the Netherlandish Society of Letters at Leyden; and, from the Netherland Circle of Journalists, in 1898, the invitation, as a private individual, to witness the enthronization. I was further honored in being sent by the American Historical Association, as its delegate, to the International Congress of Diplomatic History at the Hague, and by "The Outlook" and "The Nation" as their representative at the inauguration of Queen Wilhelmina.

I sincerely trust that by this work I may interest Americans to become more familiar with Dutch history and the country itself, outside of the two Hollands, fascinating as are these maritime provinces.

W. E. G.

Ithaca, N. Y., October 4, 1899.