Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/153

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THE BATAVIAN REPUBLIC.
141

in our minds by the report of the magnificence of that charming village had been disappointed, and we had derived unlooked-for pleasure and advantage, from agreeable society and curious information.

The disasters of our former voyage did not intimidate us from again embarking in a treckschuyt; and I shall now describe to you a mode of travelling which has three excellent qualities to recommend it — cheapness, regularity, and security. I say security, for such storms as that to the violence of which we were exposed, do not perhaps occur above once in a century, and unless it blows a hurricane there is no danger to be apprehended in these boats. A treckschuyt is a covered barge, divided into two apartments; the after one, called the roof, which is superior in point of accommodations, contains from eight to a dozen persons, and the other from forty to fifty, according to the size of the boat. This vessel is drawn by a single horse, and moves so precisely at the rate of four miles an hour, that people in Holland universally compute the distance from place to