A Family Tour Through South Holland Author:John Barrow Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Chapter III. FROM ROTTERDAM TO AMSTERDAM. There are two methods of making the journey from Rotterdam to Amsterdam, as there are, indeed, between almost every... more » two towns throughout Holland,—by land and by water. The latter is the most common, and most easy and convenient, as well as by much the cheapest, but is somewhat slower than posting ; the treckscuyt going barely at the rate of four miles an hour, while post horses, or others hired for the journey, will make good a little more than five miles an hour. The distance in either way, in the present case, is nearly the same, as the straight line of road generally accompanies, in a parallel direction, the straight canal, and in most parts of it has a straight row of trees on each side; everything in Holland, where it can conveniently be done, being laid out with a line. The trifling difference, however, in point of speed is not the only objection which a stranger, desirous of seeing the country, will make to the water conveyance. The banks of the canal are sometimes so high that the view is intercepted by them, and confined to the line of the canal. We, therefore, hired a four-wheeled carriage, known in Holland by the name of char-a-baiic, .which, with its three cross seats, we found to be sufficiently roomy to hold, without inconvenience,six persons and their luggage, besides a servant on the dickey. In this vehicle the owner agreed to carry us to Amsterdam in two days; and for the hire of this, with two horses, the owner feeding them, and paying the driver, we were charged forty-eight guilders or florins (four pounds sterling), the distance being about fifty miles, or a little more. On the llth of August, about noon, we left Eotterdam. The road, as we afterwards found to be common throughout Holland, was paved with a particu...« less