half along the right bank of the Meuse, which here. resembles au arm of the sea. The town, as divided by its numerous cauals into insular spots connected by draw-bridges, necessarily resembles Amsterdam. Here also the canals are generally bordered with trees, a circumstance which gives to the sea-ports of Holland a verual appearance which is almost peculiar to them. The town is not fortified, but it is surrounded by a moat, and entered by six gates, two of which are towards the water. The streets of the town are in general straight and long, but narrow. Several of them are so very similar, that a stranger has much difficulty in recognising any distinction. The footpavement usually consists of a line of bricks. The long and stately row of houses facing the Meuse, and called, from its row of trees, the 'Boomtjes,' is the finest part of the town, whether we regard its buildings or the pleasant prospect over the Meuse. Next to the Boomtjes, the quay of the Haring Vleit is the most pleasant place in the city. Many of the houses are built of free-stone, which, not being the produce of the country, must have been brought to the spot at a great expense. The celebrated Bayle once resided on this quay,-and the spot on which his house stood is still pointed out to strangers. The suburbs of Rotterdam are very pleasant, and afford a very favourable specimen of the Dutch taste in rural scenery. The gardens, upon a level with the water, and divided from it by a high raised road, appear to have been all designed by a mathematician; but still their neatness and luxuriance leave a pleasing impression on the mind. Most of the principal merchants of the town have their country seats in the suburbs. Sir John Carr informs us, that upon most of the gates and houses there is a motto indicative of the peace of mind of the owner, or the character of the place; and he supplies the following specimens: "Peace is my garden," "Hope and repose," "Almost out of town," "Look upon those beneath you," (this was inscribed upon a large house that commanded some little cottages,) Very well content," &c. These inscriptions are seldom used but by opulent tradesmen; among the higher classes they are considered to be a little tinctured with vulgarity, though they sometimes indulge in them.

The houses of Rotterdam are rather convenient than elegant, the peculiar style of Dutch architecture being more than usually prevalent there. They are of the height of four, five, or six stories, and, in some quarters, the front walls project as they ascend, so as to place the higher part of the building several feet beyond the perpendicular. Sir John Carr says that many of them project two or three yards; and adds, that if the freshness of their outsides, and the absence of fissures, did not give the houses the appearance of great stability, the stranger would be induced, by the apprehension of personal danger, to prefer paddling his way in the very centre of the canals to walking in the streets. The bricks with which the houses are constructed are of small size. The windows are in general much larger than in France and England. In many of the houses the ground-floor is not inhabited, but serves, with its gate and arched passage, merely as an entrance to the warehouses behind. In their interior arrangements and furniture, the houses of Rotterdam, and of many other Dutch towns, possess a degree of convenience, lightness, and comfort, which is not often realized on the continent, and is, perhaps, exceeded only in this country. Altogether, no scene can at first be more novel or interesting to a stranger than that which Rotterdam presents;-masts of ships enlivened by gay streamers, beautiful stately trees and lofty leaning houses appear mingled, and at one view he sees before him the characteristic features of the country, the city, and the sea.

Few of the public buildings of Rotterdam are very striking. Among the principal is the church of St. Lawrence, which was built in the year 1472, and the tower of which, according to Martinière, formerly leaned from the perpendicular, but which an architect found means of setting upright again-a fact commemorated by an inscription at the foot of the tower. From the top of this church the Hague may be seen to the north-west, Leyden to the north, and Dort to the south-west; and under its roof are the tombs of the celebrated admirals De Witt and Van Braakel. There are in all fifteen churches in Rotterdam, of which one belongs to the English Episcopalians and another to the Scotch Presbyterians: a few of these churches are fine buildings. There are three hospitals for the poor, the aged, and orphans. The Town Hall is a good specimen of the old Dutch style of architecture; and the Exchange, though rather plain, is a handsome building, finished in the year 1736. The other principal structures worthy of note are the palace of the Great Council, the Bank, the buildings of the East and West India Companies, the theatre, the arsenals, and the gate towards Delft. Among the objects at Rotterdam calculated to interest a stranger are the statue of Erasmus, and the small house in which he was born. The latter has been preserved with much care by his townsmen, and its claim to notice is declared by a Latin inscription, which has been placed in front. Notwithstanding this testimony of the house, however, there have been persons hardy enough to think that Erasmus was born at Gouda, and was only brought up at Rotterdam. But the good people of the latter town, in the zeal of their claim, have successively erected three statues to him whom Pope declares "the glory and the shame" of the age in which he lived. Each following statue erected by the citizens was of more durable materials than that which it superseded. The first was of wood, the second of stone, and the third of bronze. The wooden statue was set up in 1540 on the occasion of the visit of Philip II., King of Spain, to Rotterdam, as sovereign of the Netherlands. The statue is said to have been very well wrought; it held a pen in the right hand, and in the left a roll addressed as from Erasmus, in the name of the city, to the prince, and congratulating him, in Latin verse, on his arrival. The statue in stone was erected in 1557; and in 1572 the Spaniards shot at it with their muskets and threw it into the canal, from whence it was taken out and again set up on the expulsion of the Spaniards. The statue in bronze, which now forms one of the most interesting monuments of the city, was finished in 1622. It is placed upon a marble pedestal, and is surrounded by an iron balustrade. The figure is ten feet high, and represents Erasmus dressed as a doctor, and reading a book, which he holds with both his hands. It ornaments the great bridge of the Meuse, near the Exchange, and the locality has received, on this account, the name of "Erasmus' Place." The statue itself has been applied to purposes never contemplated by those who erected the monument. This figure of a man of letters has been employed as an index of political opinions. Before the expulsion of the Stadtholder and his family in 1795, every concavity in the dress was crammed with oranges; and on other occasions it has been profusely decorated with emblems of quite an opposite signification.

The city possesses a considerable number of literary and commercial institutions. Among them is a society of experimental philosophy, founded in 1769; a society of literature and the fine arts; a college; a grammar school; a public library; a cabinet of antiquities and natural history; a theatre; a chamber of commerce and manufactures; a chamber for the commerce of the Levant and the navigation of the Mediterranean, and a

colonial board. The time of the greatest prosperity of Rotterdam was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; but after 1795 the invasion of the French and the war with England had a distressing influence, not only on the commerce of Rotterdam, but on that of the country in general. It began to recover in the year 1802, but was again very rapidly depressed by the renewal of the war. The following figures, which show the number of the vessels which arrive at Rotterdam during several years, will serve as a thermometer to indicate the influence of war upon the prosperity of this port. The number of vessels which arrived at Rotterdam was 1786 in the year 1802; 850 in 1803; 693 in 1804; 679 in 1805; 381 in 1806; 294 in 1807; 65 in 1808. In the years 1809, 1810, and still more in 1811, 1812, and 1813, the Dutch trade was almost entirely suspended; but the effects of the overthrow of Buonaparte were speedily indicated by the reviving prosperity of Rotterdam. The number of vessels in the year 1814 was 1284; in 1815, 1603; and in 1817, 1731. Since then the trade and population have continued to advance; and the latter, which is stated to have been 48,000 in the year 1813, amounted to 56,000 in 1826, and exceeds 63,000 at present.

SNOW HARVEST.

In England, and other countries of the north, ices are rarely used, and are considered a luxury of the rich; but in the hot climates of the south, and at Naples and in Sicily particularly, they are classed, during the summer season, among the absolute necessaries of life, and are consumed, in some shape or other, by all classes down to the poorest of the land. We believe there is no traveller that ever past the warm season in those countries but will agree in estimating them and iced water as the greatest of physical blessings. The wine of the country, though kept in the coolest cellars, and the water, though drawn from the deepest well or most gelid source, become, on the shortest exposure to the atmosphere, so tepid and mawkish, that it is scarcely possible to drink them, and, if drunk, they give no refreshment. During the burning, exhausting heats of June, July, and August, even the Neapolitan lazzarone will turn away loathing (se non c'èpeve) if there is no snow to cool his draught. But give him a handful of pure sparkling congealed snow to dissolve in his glass, and the poorest wine of a penny a bottle, or plain water, becomes nectar-he drinks joyfully, and is indeed " powerfully refreshed.”

We have spoken of "ices " and " iced water," because such are the names (in our own case derived from the true material employed, which is ice) in use in England. But in the south of Italy, it is not ice but snow that is employed in all cases. The quantity that is consumed annually, particularly when the summer proves long and unusually hot, is prodigious. In the low country, even in their coldest winters, snow never lies upon the ground; but in the Apennines that run all through the peninsula they have an exhaustless magazine of that precious substance. A few of the loftiest mountains of that great chain,-as Il gran Sasso d' Italia, or the Great Rock of Italy, and Monte Majello (both in the Abruzzi),-have snow on their summits all the year round, and even glaciers in some of their deep crevices; but, generally speaking, the snow disappears from the ridges of the Apennines towards the end of May, and were not art and precaution employed it could not be made available to man at the season he most wants it. The Neapolitans, therefore, dig deep wells or caverns high up the mountain's sides, or sometimes make use of natural caves among the rocks. Into these, at the proper season, when they can procure it in broad, thick, purely white layers, they throw the

snow to be preserved. The snow is well pressed together, and, when the chasm is full, or nearly so, they throw in a quantity of straw, dried leaves, and branches of trees, to keep the external air from the snow, and then shut up the mouth of the well or cavern, which is sometimes, though not always, enclosed by a small, rude stone building. These snow-caves are mostly on the northern face of the mountain. By paying proper attention to their exposition and the points of the compass, by taking advantage of thick trees that, in summer, afford a cool, dense shade, or of a deep, narrow rift in the rocks where the sun never penetrates, these depôts may be safely placed as low down the mountain as the snow falls and lies. This is an advantage of no mean value, as the labour and expense of carriage are reduced, the material being nearer market and more easily accessible. When the snow does fall in any quantity on the lower and inhabited ridges of the mountains it gives occasion to great joy and festivity among the peasants, who troop from all parts to collect it, and carry it off to a safe snow-cave. The writer of these pages once witnessed a curious and enlivening scene of the sort. He was travelling from Naples towards Apulia, and was crossing the first, or lower ridge of the Apennines, between the towns of Il Cardinale, and Monte Forte, and Avellino, when suddenly a sharp snow-storm came on, which soon covered the ground with a thick white mantle. As soon as the flakes began to fall quickly and compactly, all the country people set up a joyful shout, and presently men, women, and children all ran out with rakes, shovels, baskets, hand-barrows, rush-mats, and every thing available that they could seize at the moment, to collect the falling treasure. The Israelites in the desert could hardly have shown more joyous feelings at the fall of their manua. They sang-they shouted-they laughed-they kept up a constant fire of jokes, not forgetting, however, to gather in the snow all the while. There was none of that pleasant sport which we call snow-balling-the material and their time, on such an occasion, were too precious to be lost or wasted. Balls, to be sure, were made, and of an enormous size; but these the children carefully rolled along the mountain's side to throw into the snow-caves. They were all evidently foretasting the refreshment and delight to be procured from this gift of winter during the scorching heats of summer, and the suffocating airs of the sirocco, not overlooking, in all probability, the gains to be derived from selling their overstock of snow to their neighbours in the hot thirsty plain of the Terra di Lavoro. As the travellers went by, the groups of busy peasants, men and boys, shouted out to them" Ecco, Signori, una bella raccolta ! questa è una bella raccolta !" (Here, Sirs, is a fine harvest! this is a fine harvest!)

To supply the city of Naples, one of the largest capitals of Europe, which has a population of 400,000 souls--all snow-consumers-a very extensive mountainrange is put in requisition. From the Apennines, and from all the nearer branches and ramifications of those mountains, snow, during the summer months, is constantly being brought into the city by land and by sea always, however, by sea when practicable, as, by that mode of conveyance, it is kept cleaner, loses less by melting, and costs less for carriage. Hundreds of men and boys are employed exclusively on this business.

A mountain that contributes very materially to the supply of the capital is Monte Sant' Angelo, the loftiest point of the bold promontory that separates the Bay of Naples from the Bay of Salerno. This mountain, which towers majestically immediately behind the town and sea-port of Castellamare, near the end of the Neapolitan bay, is only about twelve miles from Naples itself. On account of the short distance, and the advantage of an easy water-carriage, the snow is