KiESBECK’s TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY. 2$I

with tea. They are fo intent upon their bufmefs, and fo entirely taken up with their{peculations, that you may pufh their guts out almoft without difturbing them. OnSaturdays they go to their expenfive gardens, where they fpend the whole of the Sun-day, and enjoy themfelves juft as they do in their counting-houfes. I had occafion toviiit one of them in his garden; he was taken, up all the afternoon, in gathering falladfor his fupper. Another {hut. himfelf up, and ipent the whoIe-Sunday in killing flies inhis himmer-houfe. Thefe, and fmoking tobacco, are their common amufements intheir hours of recreation. When they are in company, they fit as if they were pinnedto their chairs, gape at each other, and every quarter of an hour converfe on the news ofthe day, which, of all the news publifhed in Europe , is the moft piteous. This is thequinteffence of political nonfenfe ; and their ecclefiafticks, who, to the fharne of the refor-mation, are greater monks than the German capuchins, will give you the quinteffence°f the fpiritual. Were it not for the ftrangers, efpecially the officers, and fome of thenobility who have been polifhed by their voyages, there would not be a tolerable focietyto be met with throughout all Holland.

1 heir government, and police, is as extraordinary as the country and every thingbears a tint of the inconverfible melancholy and niggardly humour of the natives*It is received as a common opinion here, that no difh of fifo, which you know is themoft ordinary produce of the country, is brought to table, which has not been paid foronce to the leller, and fix times to the ftate. The fpirit of the inhabitants, which re-volts at every idea of facrifice to the public good, compels the magiftrate to lay thefeheavy irnpofts upon the firft neceflaries of life. It is.thelp heavy charges, as well as theaftonifhing tranquillity of the inhabitants, which are thecaufes of the miferable living ofthis country. 1 will only give you one fpecimen of their police, which is extraordinaryenough. A ftranger, who knows nothing of laws, and the cuftoms of the country,happens to fend his fervant to a wine-merchant to buy a bottle of wine; the merchantgives it the man, without telling him a word of his danger; the fervant carries the bot-tle home in his open hand; he is met by a conftable, and afked where he bought it,■which the other tells without difficulty ; but no fooner has he done fo, than he is ar-fefted, and, in due procefs of time, tried, and baniftied the country. Thus the poorfervant alone fuffers, and neither the mafter who fent him, nor the merchant who foldthe wine in retail, which, according to law, ought only to have been done by tho'fe wh«keep taverns, are at all punfthed.

LETTER LXX.

Amjlerdtm.

THIS, dear brother, according to the generally received opinion, frogs-ftolen coun-try is originally nothing more thanfand, brought down by the Rhine from Switzerland ,ana the upper parts of Germany ; and fea mud, which the north and weft winds havecaufed the waves to bring up. There is in no part of it any folid earth ; and as earlyas on the borders of the duchy of Cleves, you find the moft evident marks of this coun-ty s having been formed like the Egyptian Delta, with this difference only, that thejgde yields a moft fruitful foil; whereas the Rhine carries nothing with it but a hardland. Parts of Brabant and Flanders have been formed in like manner by the Scheld,the Maefe, and fome other rivers : there are notorious proofs of this. At a great dif-tance from the coaft, in Flanders, you find under the good earth, dry fand, and undert ns again, large layers of good earth, as if the rivers and fea had by turns depofitedtheir fands and their mud. The whole coaft of Germany is of the fame kind, as far asV01 ' vi. o o the