Cities of the World Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 Excerpt: ...Amsterdam is a very picturesque-looking city, with its six broad belts of water and its hundreds of smaller canals and water-lanes, beside which rise rows upon rows of tall, dark houses with curiously-carved gables--houses higher than in any other Dutch city, and, in the old quarter of the town, in streets as narrow as any to be found in Genoa or Venice. Draw-bridges are everywhere; every outlook is bounded by windmills; every street seems to be a dockyard; tar is the prevailing odour; ships and carriages pass tip and down the same streets; masts and trees vie with one another for supremacy; "shops are reflected in the water, sails are reflected in shop windows." A strange and interesting spectacle is presented by the appearance of the Harbour. "On every side you see dykes, bridges, locks, palisades, and basins, presenting the aspect of an immense fortress, so constructed as to baffle the curiosity of any one who might seek to discover its form. This can only be done by help of a map and after several hours' walk. From the centre of the city, at a distance of a thousand metres from each other, two great dykes on arches start in opposite directions, and embrace and defend from the sea the two extremities of Amsterdam, which extend beyond the semicircle of her houses like the two horns of a half-moon. These two dykes have each a lock furnished with gigantic gates, close in two basins or harbours capable of containing a thousand ships of large tonnage, and several islets on which are storehouses, arsenals, and workshops, where thousands of workmen are employed. From the two great dykes advance several smaller dykes made of robust piles, and serving as landing-places for the steamers. On all these dykes there are houses, sheds, barracks, among wh...