amounted, in 1825, to the value of 2,300,000 dollars; and of butter and cheese, 1,300,000 dollars. Holstein and Sleswick, called the duchies, export largely of the same productions as Jutland.

Denmark, from its situation between the northern and middle states, has a considerable carrying trade of the bulky articles produced by the former; and has also a good deal of ship-building. Both the whale and herring-fisheries are likewise carried on to some extent.

The constitution of Denmark, originally founded on the basis of the most complete feudal independence, to the extent of rendering the monarchy itself elective, underwent a complete change in 1660, when Frederick III. had the address to obtain an act by which the crown was declared hereditary, and himself invested with supreme and absolute power. The sway of the Danish princes has, however, been exceedingly mild and popular, and their despotic power exerted in a manner beneficial to the people, as it limited the oppressive rights exercised by the nobles. These, however, continue to be extremely obnoxious; and it is only within a very few years that the body of the people were emancipated from a state of personal slavery. The nobles are few in number, consisting only of one duke, nineteen counts, and twelve barons. The king himself presides at the supreme national tribunal.

The revenue amounts to from about $7,500,000 to $8,000,000. nominal debt of $75,000,000; but the interest paid upon it is small.

There is a

The military and naval establishments are on a scale suited to a greater country than what remains of Denmark. The army is kept up to nearly 40,000 regular troops and 60,000 militia. The navy consists of six ships of the line, six frigates, and four corvettes, besides smaller vessels. The sailors being all registered, no difficulty is ever found in manning the navy.

The population of the Danish dominions in 1832, amounted to 2,049,000; of which 1,540,000 were in its ancient domain of the islands Jutland and Sleswick; 404,000 in Holstein; 40,000 in Lauenburg; 51,000 in Iceland; 14,000 in Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The Danish colonies are Christiansburg, and other stations in Guinea, with 44,000 inhabitants; Santa Cruz, St. Thomas, and St. John, in the West Indies, with 47,000; and Tranquebar and factories on the Coromandel coast, in the East Indies, with 60,000.

The Danes are generally quiet, tranquil, and industrious. The inhabitants of the towns, who are chiefly engaged in trade, have a great share of the patient, thrifty, and persevering habits of the Dutch. The peasantry, poor and oppressed, are beginning, however, to raise their heads; and the nobles, no longer addicted to those rude and daring pursuits which rendered them once so formidable, live much in the style of opulent proprietors in other European countries.

The Lutheran religion was early and zealously adopted in Denmark, to the extent, indeed, of granting toleration to no other; but the liberal principles now diffused throughout Europe, have made their way fully into that country. Science was at one era somewhat brilliantly patronised in Denmark. The observatory at Orienbaum was the theatre of many of the most important modern observations; and Tycho Brahe ranks as one of the fathers of modern astronomy. Late writers have introduced a school of poetry and dramatic literature, founded upon that of the modern German. The government has bestowed a laudable attention on the general education of its people, and has even passed a law, requiring every child, of a certain age, to be sent to school. The schools, on the plan of mutual instruction, amounted, in 1829, to 2500, and more were in progress; there are also 3000 grammar and parish schools.

Copenhagen, called by the Danes Kiobenhavn, the metropolis of the Danish dominions, is situated on a low and marshy promontory, on the east side of the island of Zealand. The circumference of the city is about five miles; it is regularly fortified towards the land and sea. Many of the streets are intersected by canals, by which a considerable commerce is carried on. The town is divided into three parts, viz. the Old and the New town, and Christianshaven. There is a beautiful octagon, called Frederic's Place, in the New town, ornamented with! an equestrian statue of Frederic V. in bronze. The arsenal, the exchange, and

the barracks, are handsome edifices. The Royal Observatory is about 130 feet high, and 70 in diameter, and has a spiral road of brick, affording an easy ascent for carriages to the top. This city owes much of its present regularity and beauty to the disastrous fires, by which it has so often been partially destroyed. The buildings are mostly of brick covered with stucco, or of Norwegian marble. There are here three extensive libraries, namely, the Royal Library, containing above 260,000 volumes, the University Library, containing 100,000 volumes, and the Clasen Library. Population 115,000.

Sleswick, the capital of the duchy of that name, is a long, irregular, but handsome town with 15,000 inhabitants. Its cathedral with numerous monuments of ancient dukes is viewed with interest. Altona, on the Elbe, about two miles from Hamburg, is a place of considerable trade and extensive manufactures. Population 25,000.

Elsinore, or Elsineur, at the narrowest part of the Sound, is protected by the strong fortress of Cronenberg, and contains about 30 commercial houses. It has an excellent roadstead, in which ships anchor almost close to the town. At this place the tolls of the Sound are collected. Population 7,000.

Kiel, the capital of Holstein, is a fortified town on a bay of the Baltic, and is the seat of a celebrated University. Population 7,500.

Gluckstadt, near the mouth of the Elbe, has some trade, and is engaged in the Greenland fishery. Population 5,200.

Flensberg, in the duchy of Sleswick, has a good harbour and is a place of some commerce. Population 15,000.

ICELAND.

ICELAND, an appendage of the Danish crown, unimportant in a political view, but interesting from its physical and moral aspect, is situated in the Northern Ocean, on the border of the arctic circle, and at the farthest verge of the civilized world. It is a large island, 220 miles in length, and 210 in breadth; containing about 40,000 square miles. Iceland belongs, by its situation, to the polar world; and the mountain chains, from 3000 to 6000 feet high, with which it is everywhere intersected, give it a still more severe and stern character. Barley is the only grain that can be raised, and this only in patches; cabbages, and a few other imported vegetables, may be produced, but by no means in perfection. The dependence of the inhabitants is chiefly upon the abundance of fish which the surrounding seas afford; so that the interior, comprising about half of the island, is a desert of the most dreary character.

The mountain phenomena of Iceland are very striking. Hecla, with its flaming volcano, is the most celebrated; but its eruptions, of which six have occurred in the course of a century, are at present suspended.

The Geysers form a phenomenon strikingly characteristic of Iceland, and rank with the most extraordinary that are produced on any part of the globe. They consist of fountains, which throw up boiling water, spray, and vapour, to a great height into the air. The eruptions are not continuous, but announce their approach by a sound like that of subterraneous thunder; immediately after which, a column of water, accompanied with prodigious volumes of steam, bursts forth, and rushes up to the height of fifty, sixty, ninety, or even a hundred and fifty feet. The water soon ceases; but the spray and vapour continue to play in the air for several hours, and, when illuminated by the sun, produce the most brilliant rainbows. The largest stones, when thrown into the orifice, are instantly propelled to an amazing height, and remaining often for some minutes within the influence of the steam, rise and fall in singular alternation. Stones thrown into the fountain have the remarkable effect of acting as a stimulus to the eruption, and causing it to burst from a state of tranquillity. The basin of the Great Geyser is of an oval form, with diameters of fifty-eight and sixty-four feet. Every spot around the Geysers is covered with variegated and beautiful petrifactions.

Leaves, grass, rushes, are converted into white stone, preserving entire every fibre.

The Sulphur Mountains, with their caldrons of boiling mud, present another phenomenon which the traveller beholds with the utmost astonishment. These consist chiefly of clay, covered with a crust, which is hot to the touch, and of sulphur, from almost every part of which, gas and steam are perpetually escaping. Sometimes a loud noise guides the traveller to a spot where caldrons of black boiling mud, largely impregnated with this mineral substance, are throwing up, at short intervals, their eruptions. That on the Krabla had a diameter equal to that of the Great Geyser, and rose to the height of thirty feet. The situation of the spectator here is not only awful, but even dangerous; standing, on a support which feebly sustains him, over an abyss where fire and brimstone are in dreadful and incessant action.

The civil and social state of Iceland presents features no less interesting. It was discovered about the year 840, by Nadod, a Danish pirate. After its settlement it became a little independent republic; and the arts and literature, driven before the tide of barbarism, which then overwhelmed the rest of Europe, took refuge in this remote and frozen clime. Iceland had its divines, its annalists, its poets, and was for some time the most enlightened country then perhaps existing in the world. Subjected first to Norway, in 1261, and afterwards to Denmark, it lost the spirit and energy of an independent republic. Yet the diffusion of knowledge, even among the lowest class, which took place during its prosperous period, still exists in a degree not paralleled in the most enlightened of other nations. Men who seek, amid the storms of the surrounding ocean, a scanty provision for their families, possess an acquaintance with the classical writings of antiquity, and a sense of their beauty. The traveller finds the guide whom he has hired able to hold a conversation with him in Latin, and on his arrival at his miserable place of rest for the night, is addressed with fluency and elegance in the same language. "The instruction of his children forms one of the stated occupations of the Icelander; and while the little hut which he inhabits is almost buried in the snow, and while darkness and desolation are spread universally around, the light of an oil-lamp illumines the page from which he reads to his family the lessons of knowledge, religion, and virtue." Population 51,000.

The Faroe Islands compose a group in the Northern Ocean, between 61° 15' and 62° 20′ N. lat., to the north of Shetland, which they resemble. The principal are Stromoe, Osteroe, Suderoe, and Sandoe, with the smaller islands of Nordoe, Wideroe, and Waagoe. Their only wealth is produced by the rearing of sheep, fishing, and catching the numerous birds which cluster round the rocks. With the surplus of these articles they supply their deficiency of grain. Thorsharn, on Stromoe, is the only place that can be called a town.

HOLLAND.

THE Netherlands, comprising now the two kingdoms of Holland and Belgium, form a maritime territory, which, situated almost in the centre between the north and south of Europe, and penetrated by the Rhine and its tributaries, possesses great natural advantages for industry and commerce. It has, accordingly, from a very early period of modern history, ranked as one of the most prosperous and flourishing parts of Europe. The union of the Batavian and Belgic Netherlands into one kingdom, though in fact only a renewal of that which subsisted at a former period, was suddenly terminated, in 1830, by a revolution of the Belgians, and the erection of their country into a separate monarchy, through the mediation of the five great powers of Europe; and the crown, with their consent, has been conferred on prince Leopold, formerly of Saxe-Coburg.

Holland is bounded north by the German Ocean, east by Germany, south by Belgium, and west by the German Ocean. It extends from 51° 10' to 53° 25' N. lat., and from 3° 23′ to 7° 5' E. lon., and contains 11,100 square miles. The Rhine

enters this country from the south-east and flows through it to the sea by several mouths. The Maese or Meuse rises in France and flows north-easterly through Belgium into Holland, where it turns to the west and unites with the mouths of the Rhine. The Zuyder Zee is a large inland bay, in the northern part, 60 miles in extent. The Sea of Haarlem is a lake, 14 miles in length, to the west of the Zuyder Zee, and communicating with it by the river Y, which passes by Amsterdam. There are many small lakes in the northern province of Friesland. The whole country is low and flat, a great part of it being below the level of the sea. From the top of a steeple the eye ranges over a boundless plain, intersected by canals and dikes; meadows of the freshest verdure, covered by numerous herds of cattle; towns, villages and detached houses embosomed in trees: numerous vessels continually gliding along the canals, and by the animation which they give to the landscape, compensating in some degree for its want of bold and picturesque beauty.

Canals are as numerous in Holland as roads in other countries, and the country is so level that they scarcely need a lock in their construction. Some of them are as old as the 10th century. The most noted is the Great Dutch Canal, 50 miles in length from Amsterdam to the Helder. It is 124 feet wide at the surface, and 20 feet 9 inches deep. It has two tide-locks at the extremities, and two sluices with flood-gates in the intermediate space. The width is sufficient to allow two frigates to pass each other. This canal was begun in 1819 and completed in 1825, at a cost of about 4,400,000 dollars. It is highly convenient for vessels sailing from Amsterdam, which otherwise are liable to be detained by head winds for several weeks.

The Dutch, by unwearied industry, have conquered every disadvantage of climate, soil and territory. The humidity and coldness of the air are unfavourable to the culture of corn. Yet the labours of the patient inhabitants have converted their boggy and sterile territory into one of the richest spots in Europe. The corn raised is insufficient for home consumption, but the products of the dairy are abundant. By draining the bogs and marshes, excellent meadows are created, upon which cattle fatten to a vast size; the utmost attention is paid to their warmth and cleanliness, and even in the summer these animals appear in the meadows clothed with apparently ludicrous care to keep off the flies.

Wheat, rye, barley, oats, peas, beans and buckwheat are raised for internal consumption: and madder, rape seed, hops, tobacco, clover seed, mustard seed, flax, hemp and poppy oil, for consumption and exportation. Much attention is paid to horticulture: the gardens and orchards are kept in very neat order. Holland became at an early period, a maritime power, and established settlements in various parts of the globe.

The manufacturing industry of the country was one great support of its commerce, and the linens, silks, and woollens of Holland were spread over all Europe. The political revolutions of modern times have been ruinous to the Dutch commerce, yet the trade is still considerable. In 1828, there entered at the port of Amsterdam, 2132 vessels. Much of the commerce is carried on by native vessels. Vast floats of timber are received by the Rhine from Switzerland and Germany. The herring fishery has been prosecuted on a large scale by the Dutch, ever since the twelfth century. The art of curing and barrelling these fish was discovered here in 1316. In the middle of the eighteenth century, the business employed 100,000 fishermen. At present there are in Holland and Belgium 20,000 families and 200 busses in occupation. The whale fishery is also prosecuted.

The manufactures of Holland have been greatly checked by the rivalship of the English. Before the French revolution there was scarcely a manufacture which the Dutch did not carry on. In this they were assisted by the populousness of the country, the cheapness of labour, and above all, by the water carriage, which gives an immense facility to all the operations of trade and industry. The manufactures are still considerable, and consist of woollen, linen, silk, cotton, tobacco, snuff, pipes, leather, &c. The distillation of gin is largely carried on. The value of the whole manufactures of Holland and Belgium some years ago was estimated

at about 135 millions of dollars. The amount appertaining to each at present cannot be ascertained.

The general method of travelling is by the trekschuyt, or drag-boat; this is generally ten feet wide, and fifty long; and in shape it resembles the common representations of Noah's ark. The expense does not exceed three cents a mile, and the rate of travelling is three miles an hour, which is so invariably the result, that distances, as in the East, are reckoned by hours, and not by miles. When frozen, the canals are travelled over by sleighs and skates. All persons skate; the peasant girl skates to market, with her merchandise on her head, the senator to his assembly, and the clergyman to his church.

The Dutch are distinguished for frugality, neatness, and industry. They are of a cold, phlegmatic temperament, but when roused to passion, have as much ardour as any people. They are grave and heavy in appearance, and even children are sedate. They are quiet and domestic, and enjoy much happiness in their family circles, Generally they prefer gain to ambition, but in their dealings they are honest. The very soil they till is a monument of their perseverance and industry. They live in a country of meadows, reclaimed from the sea, and the acquisition is maintained only by continual vigilance, toil, and expense.

The prevailing religion of Holland is Calvinism, while that of Belgium is almost exclusively Catholic; a difference which contributed not a little to that rooted dislike entertained by the inhabitants of the latter to those of the former. The Dutch have the honour of being the first people who established a system of unrestrained toleration. Even popery, notwithstanding the grounds which the nation had to dread and hate it, was allowed to be professed with the utmost freedom. The government allows salaries, of a greater or less amount, to the clergy of every persuasion, only making those of the Presbyterian ministers higher than the others. There are, besides, Lutherans, Baptists, Jews, Quakers, Armenians, and Catholics. By the budget of 1833, 1,330,000 florins were voted for the support of the Protestant worship, and 400,000 for the Catholic.

In naval affairs, Holland, no longer the maritime rival but the close ally of Britain, made only faint attempts to raise her navy from the low state to which it was reduced by the disasters of the revolutionary war. It consists, at present, of six ships of the line, sixteen large class and seven small class frigates, thirty corvettes and brigs, four steam vessels, and about eighty armed barks, of five guns, for the defence of the interior waters.

The foreign possessions of Holland, after being entirely wrested from her during the war, were, with the exception of Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, Demerara, and Berbice, restored in 1814. In the East Indies, she possesses the Moluccas, the extensive and fertile island of Java, with settlements on Sumatra, Celebes, and Borneo; and some factories on the coast of Malabar and Coromandel. In Africa, she retains El Mina, and other factories on the Gold Coast. Her West India colonies are not, and never were, very considerable, unless as commercial depôts. Both the navy and the colonial possessions, in the separation of the two kingdoms, remain with Holland.

The government is a constitutional monarchy, with some resemblance to the British, though the sovereign in Holland has greater powers, and the two houses of assembly are much less powerful than the British Commons and Peers. The constitution provides for the security of persons and property, for trials within three days, and for the liberty of the press, under the responsibility of him who writes, prints, or distributes. Religious toleration is secured, and judges cannot be removed by the executive.

Holland is divided into 10 provinces: North Holland, South Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Guelderland, Overyssel, Drenthe, Groningen, Friesland, and North Brabant.

By a census taken in 1833, the population of Holland was 2,745,000.

The public debt of the Netherlands, in 1826, amounted to 832,334,500 florins, which was almost wholly contracted by the Dutch, principally during their pro