We arrived at Leeuwarden, and moored in a widening of the canal with sylvan surroundings, so that we seemed to be in a lake in a park. Hundreds of terns were swooping and circling about us, between the trees and over the water, looking brilliantly white in the sunshine against a rising thunder-cloud, while their plaintive cries mingled with the growl of the distant thunder.

We were at once boarded by a civil harbour-master, who spoke English, and procured us a pilot over the Friesland meres for the next day but one.

Leeuwarden is a remarkably fine town, with modern and fashionable appearances fitting in better than usual with the picturesque characteristics of an ancient Dutch city. The gold helmet, with frontal bangles and pins, is commonly worn by the women, and when covered only by a rich lace cap is very taking; but when, as is too often the case, it is surmounted by a modern bonnet or hat, with artificial flowers and gay ribbons, the effect is incongruous.

Early in the morning we were awakened by the lowing of cattle and bleating of sheep, which passed us at frequent intervals; but there was no sound of tramping feet, which was puzzling until we awoke to the fact that these droves of animals were being conveyed in steamers and sailing craft along the canal, and not by road. The canals were chock-full of vessels unloading animals, merchandise, cheeses, crockery (blue and brown, and quaint and artistic in shape), flowers, and vegetables.

The cattle market was beautifully clean, and the drovers' and dealers' proceedings remarkably orderly. The open spaces of the city were converted into markets -flowers in one place, cheeses in

another, hardware in a third, meat in another, and so on. The streets were crowded, and the brilliant sun shone fiercely upon the golden helmets which bobbed everywhere through the crowd. These helmets are often of very great value, and set with jewels. Of course they are treasured heirlooms. The jewellers' shops are full of them, and full also of the delicate filigree-work for which Leeuwarden is noted.

We did some marketing for provisions, and in vain search for mutton bought some kid's flesh, which was very sweet and crisp. Meat was always our great difficulty, and at Hoorn we were actually offered horse-flesh as a delicacy.

The pilot came on board at five the next morning, and the yacht was poled a long circuit through the canals and out the other side of the town while we were yet in bed. Many routes were now open to us through the most charming district of Friesland, and our actual route was determined from hour to hour by the wind, as it chanced to be fair or not. The south and east of Friesland is a labyrinth of labyrinth of canals and great meres, and when the wind was foul there could be no towing. The wind, however, was conveniently fair, and we bowled along at a great pace, at first through narrow canals by Froskepolle and Warrega. At the latter place the canal was so narrow that we had to lower sail to prevent our boom from breaking the windows. Our advent created great excitement. People catching sight of us would bolt indoors, to reappear with the whole family.

In the bushes in the gardens, and on the trees, were hung gourdshaped baskets, which served as nests for the numerous ducks

One sees these curious basketpurses hung up everywhere in Friesland. by and along, and always above the level of the water. Sometimes they are supported ou a franiework of sticks.

We had to trice up the tack and lower the peak at every bridge. as appears to be the rule, and as we had to put a doublejee or so into the wooden shoe at the end of a fishing-pole, in which the toll is taken at the bridges, we ranged all our small coins on the cabin-top to be in readiness, for we generally shot through the bridges at a great pace.

We came to our first were at the reed-and-water-surronuded village of Grouw, which looked such a thoroughly aquatic sort of place that we should like to revisit it.

Our pilot made many inquiries as to the depth of water from meeting craft as we flew along under a press of sail and with a freshening wind; the season had been a dry one, and the waters were unusually low. It was a wild-looking country through which we were hurrying-water, reeds, marsh, and sky; and nothing else all around, save the numerous wild-fowl-waders, terns, and gulls —which would inake these watery wastes a paradise to the oruithologist.

We shall never forget the sail across Sueekje Meer, which is some eight miles across. We entered it in company with half-a-dozen big tjlks laden with peat (which is scooped from the bottom of the lakes), but soon left them astern and led the way along the straight channel, well buoyed out, which inarked the way across the peatycoloured sea. For sea it looked, the low shores being only faintly discernible, an effect owing more to their flatness than to their distance.

Wishing to visit Sneek, we turned off to the right along a channel so shoal that our keel dragged in the mud. and we had to keep the yacht well laid over by ueans of her topsail to lessen her draught; so the decks were well awash. We met a Dutch yacht about our own size, and very smart and trin, with lofty. narrow-headed sail, and a bright-coloured flag as big as a topsail. [Her owner shouted to us excitedly the only English phrase he could call to mind in a hurry, which was the odd greeting of "Good-bye, sir! Good-bye, sir!"

We spent about an hour in Sneek shopping and money-changing, and meeting with great civility. It is an odd little town, with a wealth of queer bits to sketch; most foreign in its aspect, and a place where oue feels nost comfortably out of the world. We would have stayed there, but our pilot was nervous about the depth of water. and wished to take advantage of the strong fair wind.

On our way out of the Sneek channel, we met the Dutch yacht returning, with her sails soaked half-way up the mast. She had found more "sea" on than she liked on Sneekje Meer.

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As the wind was now blowing very hard, we had to shorten canvas considerably. We tore along canals and over meres before half a gale, and when we entered the stormy expanse of Tjeuke Meer (ten miles across) we were prised to find what a commotion of coffee-coloured waves and tinted surf there was. The channel was very shallow. We kept continually sounding with a pole, to find only five feet of water and a hard bottom. Two great waves mounted on each quarter as we dragged the shallow water after us.

The land was literally invisible through the mist and spray torn

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from the short waves. Our decks were swept with fresh water almost as much as they had been with the North Sea waves. No other craft was moving, but many were anchored or drifted aground. I think the peculiar hue of the water made the scene more wildly grand. As we neared the lower end of the mere, we turned off to the right. Our pilot looked happier as the water deepened to six feet, and we shot into a canal where our swell washed the pike and eel fishers' boats high on to the marsh; then hurried over another large mere (called Groote Brekken), the farther end of which seemed to be merged in the sea; out of this into a narrow canal, and presently lowering all sail, ran under bare poles into Lemmer, having sailed fifty-five kilometres in seven and a half hours of grand sailing.

Lemmer is a little town on the Zuyder Zee, having an excellent new harbour, with further works in course of construction. Harlingen and Stavoren look with jealousy upon its development, and it will prove a formidable rival to them, as the approach to it is not hindered by dangerous sands, as is the case with the two older harbours of Friesland.

We Te spent the next day, which was Sunday, at Lemmer; and as the gale still continued, and it was cold and wet, things were rather dull. The people, too, were decidedly cold and unfriendly in their looks and demeanour. The day passed slowly until the evening, when we came across a man to whom we had, two years ago, done a good turn at the island of Urk. He could speak a little English, and he came aboard and sat with us in the cabin for some time. We apologised for the small size of our cabin, and he replied, "There is

plenty of room. Your frouw is not so thick as mine. Mine weighs two hundredweight."

We returned his call later on by invitation. He was an Aardappelen-handel," or potato-dealer, owning a schuyt and trading to Urk.

In the little parlour behind his shop we found the frouw, a full two hundredweight of unrestrained flesh, but with a comely face under her golden crown; his daughter, a strapping young woman, who was a champion skater;. a nice china tea-service, the coffee-pot on its little lamp, and the very best cigar I ever smoked. The coffeepbt would not pour, and the frouw retired with it, and we distinctly heard her blowing down the spout. She brought my wife a stooftje, or wooden - box footstool, in which was an earthen pan containing a glowing peat, which I was told diffused an agreeable warmth on this cold night. These foot-warmers are in general use all over Holland, and one sees in the churches great piles of them, set aside in the summer time. In the winter the fire-box is as essential an article of church-going as a. Bible.

When we rose to take our leave, I gave them my card, and to our great delight the frou ran to the shop-window, and taking down a placard about eighteen inches square with the name on it, "P. Ionge, Aard-appelen-handel," gave it to us in exchange. Before we could carry it off, however, the daughter ran up-stairs and returned with a proper card of her own, with which we were fain to be

content.

In the morning, while going through the lock, we were amused to see the town bellman making a proclamation. Instead of a bell, he had a big brass plate dangling

at the end of a string, and this he banged with a stick.

Once out of the harbour. we ran to the southward for the island of Urk. over a gently heaving sea, and with a light fair wind filling our biggest topsail and balloon jib The shores of Friesland faded away, leaving only a line of clumps floating in a silvery haze; then, as these disappeared, Urh island rose like a cloud on the horizon. and presently became plainly visiblea curious mound of gravel distinctly unlike any part of the mainland. crowned with its serrated group of houses and the lighthouse on the green. As we had visited Urk twice before, and knew well its brawny fishermen and amazonish but comely wonien, we did not now laud. In manner, customs, and dress, and also in lack of household cleanliness, the Urk islauders are a tribe apart from the Dutch.

Leaving the island on our left, we ran still to the south-west in search of a beacon which marks the end of the large shoal known as Enkhuisen saud, which stretches out so far from the shore that the lofty church-tower of Enkhuisen was the only thing visible on th western horizon. We caught sight of the beacon just as we began to think we had missed it. It is a mere stick with a cage on the top. We raced past it with a freshening wind and sea, and as we hauled our wind and stood to the westward to fetch Hoorn Bay, we had to lower the topsail. Soou wo were among the fleet of schuyts engaged in fishing for anchovies. Queer-looking craft they are; flat bottomed of course, with long narrow lee-boards, very beamy, and with such high sloping prows as to make them look all bow and no stern, But nothing can be Better adapted for riding safely

over the short steep seas which a strong wind soon raises on the Zuyder Zee. The many harbours of the Zuyder Zee are crowded with these craft, especially on Saturday nights, when the boats have all coine in for the Sabbath's rest. It is said that a thousand may sometimes be seen in sight at one time, and the sky - line to the southward seemed like the teeth of a saw with their narrow sails, so numerous were they. There are harbours to leeward from wherever the storm - wind may low on this beautiful sea, and its so called dead cities are busy with sea-life, and their spacious harbours thronged with craft.

The North Holland coast was now visible in a succession of clumps-trees, or houses, with the ever-present pearly lustre underneath and between. Then the clumps were joined by the thin flat line of shore, and we stood along the land looking for Hoorn. smart breeze and some rain sent us swishing along with the lee decks awash, and as close-hauled as we could go, until the beautiful watergate of Hoorn, with its lofty tower, came in sight, and then we

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ad to tack up the harbour, sounding carefully with a pole on each tack, and sailed into the pretty tree-bordered basin which forms the inner harbour of Hoorn. Here we were quietly and safely moored for two days. There is plenty to see at and near Hoorn. The city itself is so delightfully ancient, with its pointed and ornate gables leaning this way and that in defiance of the laws of architectural gravity; its weigh-house, where the cheese weighers attached to the huge scales wear different

coloured hats as a distinctive mark for the cheese of each district; the market-place, where the country chariots were drawn up, and

the cheeses spread upon the ground in readiness for the morrow's market, protected by tarpaulins and canvas in case of rain during the night; the busy modern Dutch life, which is yet as quaint and distinctive as the ancient life, and is still well fitted to the ancient streets, the English shield from a war-ship hung as a trophy outside the town hall; all is interesting in the extreme, and makes every step in Hoorn a pleasant

one.

We revisited Enkhuisen, which we had remembered to have been the deadest of the dead cities, but where we now found a large new harbour with steamers to Friesland, running in connection with trains which entered a brand-new and sumptuous station.

The harbours were crowded with fishing craft, and the channels between the mainland and the sand were thronged with sailing-craftgreat tjalks laden high with peat or hay, or the brushwood used for repairing dykes, unwieldy floating stacks which yet managed to sail well.

The streets were less grass-grown than before, and the dead city is awaking from its long sleep. We went to Zaandam, with its broad and beautiful river, and its three hundred and sixty-five windmills, sawing wood, grinding flour, and turning out money for the wealthy Zaandammers. Westrolled through the bright green meadows, where the black-and-white cows were milked by blue-bloused. men into red milk-pails, and the milk was carried in green-and-white boats, along green dykes to green-andred farms, within squares of green and yellow stemmed trees; and all under a blue-and-white sky and a blazing sun: all bright pronounced colour, and never a half-tone anywhere.

We strolled under the great dyke which surrounds the Zuyder Zee with a rampart of Norway stone, and holds its waters as in a gigantic cup above the surrounding land, and we heard the waves breaking above our heads on the other side of the dyke.

We left Hoorn at eight o'clock on a sunny morning, but had not gone half a mile when a fog came on so thick that we could not see the bowsprit-end. As there was a good and fair breeze, we kept on, hoping the fog would soon clear, but taking the precaution to set the log and a proper compass course; but the fog thickened, and we could hardly see each other. We were bound to Amsterdam, twenty-seven miles to the southward, but wished to touch Marken, thirteen miles off. On we sailed, peering anxiously with straining eyes for the schuyts which we knew to be near us. A gigantic shape would suddenly loom up and quickly disappear, and we knew that we had passed within a very few yards of a schuyt, or a tall pole would glide past within a few inches of the bulwark, showing that we were among the long lines of sticks to which the eel-fishers fasten their eel lines and nets. The average depth of the southern part of the Zuyder Zee is but eight feet, and it is this shoalness which makes its seas dangerous in a storm.

There were momentary lightenings of the fog and then dense smotherings of it, until we could hardly see the compass-card: of all sea troubles short of an actual gale a fog is the worst, and to a well-found and strong yacht a fog in crowded waters is perhaps worse than a gale. Our eyes ached and our heads grew dizzy peering through the darkness. As the skipper said, "One can see any