In these flat countries they have no spring water; the land lies so much below the sea that all is impregnated with salt.  Rain water is used for drinking, and the method of preserving it is in a deep reservoir lined with boards and puddled with clay.  I was surprised to find it kept good so long:  it is seldom known to go bad.  One of the farmers on the Grodens drew water out of his well and handed me a glass to drink; it had a yellowish tinge, but except this I never saw clearer and have seldom tasted pleasanter spring water, and the beat tea I ever drank was made from rain water so preserved.  One thing which contributes to its quality is the great surface of tile which it has to run down, and which tends to filter it.

The mode of manuring the land is similar to that practised in Brabant, and the produce proves that it is excellent; for no better meadows, or corn land in a higher state of cultivation are to be seen than in some parts we have lately passed through.

The cows, when fresh in milk, are milked three times a day, by which means more milk is obtained than in the common method; any one wishing to make a fair experiment of this must try it not for two or three days only, but for a week or ten days.

John and Martha Yeardley found the institution at Fredericks-Oort of a deeply interesting kind.  It was Established by private benevolence to improve the condition of the poor, and to relieve the country from beggars, and was commenced in 1818.  The poor families which are placed there are employed, some in manufacture, some in cultivating the soil, and every means is made use of to encourage industry and provident habits.  When our friends visited the colony, it comprised 2900 souls, including the staff by which the institution is worked, and which is necessarily numerous.  They thought the method of instruction in use in the schools excellent, and found that religious liberty was strictly respected.

From Fredericks-Oort they went on to Ommershaus, where is the poor-house and penal colony belonging to the former institution.  Thirteen hundred beggary, orphans, and criminals were then in the colony.

How much, remarks J.Y., such an institution is wanted in England; every inducement is held out for improvement in civil society, and a most effectual check placed against vice and idleness.

The travellers fared badly in Holland, and they were rejoiced to “set foot again in honest Germany, where they know how to use strangers with an honest heart.”  They returned through Bentheim and Osnabrueck, and arrived at Pyrmont on the 19th.  Here they spent ten days in resting, and in preparing to pursue their journey through South Germany.

On First-day, the 30th, they took leave of their friends.

First-day, says John Yeardley, was a solemn time, both at meeting and at the reading in the afternoon; I hope both my M.Y. and I were enabled to clear our minds.  In the evening we took an affectionate and affecting leave of them all; it was to me particularly trying.  I could not refrain from weeping much.