"They have no business to make me pay duty upon it," said he to Mr. George.
"Why not?" asked Mr. George.
"Because it is not for merchandise," said Rollo. "It is not for sale. I have bought it for my own use alone."
"That has nothing to do with it," said Mr. George.
"Yes it has, a great deal to do with it," replied Rollo.
There might have been quite a spirited discussion between Mr. George and Rollo, on this old and knotty question, over which tourists in Europe are continually stumbling, had not the train stopped. The moment that the motion ceased, the doors of all the carriages were opened, and a man passed along the line calling out in French,-
"Gentlemen and ladies will all descend here, for the examination of passports and baggage."
Mr. George and Rollo had no baggage, except a valise which they carried with them in the carriage. Mr. George took this valise up and stepped down upon the platform.
"Now, Rollo," said Mr. George, "if they find your musical box and charge duty upon it, pay it like a man."
"Yes," said Rollo, "I will."
"And don't get up a quarrel with the custom house officer on the subject," continued Mr. George, "for he has the whole military force of the kingdom of Holland at his command, and what he says is to be done, in this territory, must be done."
So saying, Mr. George, valise in hand, followed the crowd of passengers through a door, over which was inscribed the Dutch word for baggage. In the centre of this room there was a sort of low counter, enclosing a sort of oblong square. Within the square were a number of custom house officers, ready to examine the baggage which the porters and the passengers were bringing in, and laying upon the counter, all around the four sides of the square.
Mr. George brought up his valise, and placed it on the counter. A custom house officer, who had just examined and marked some other parcels, turned to Mr. George's just as he had unlocked and opened it.
"Have you any thing to declare?" said the officer.
"Nothing, sir," said Mr. George.
The officer immediately shut the valise, and marked it on the back with a piece of chalk, and Mr. George locked it and took it away.
"Are you through?" asked Rollo.
"Yes," said Mr. George.
Mr. George then took the valise and followed a crowd of passengers, who were going through a door at the end of the room opposite to where they came in. There was an officer in uniform on each side of this door. These officers examined every bag, valise, or parcel that the passengers had in their hands, to see if they had been marked by the examiners, and as fast as they found that they were marked, they let them pass.
Following this company, Mr. George and Rollo came soon to another small room, where a man was sitting behind a desk, examining the passports of the passengers and stamping them. Mr. George waited a moment until it came his turn, and then handed his passport too. The officer looked at it, and then stamped an impression from a sort of seal on one corner of it. He also wrote Mr. George's and Rollo's name in a big book, copying them for this purpose from the passport.
He then handed the passport back again, and Mr. George and Rollo went out, passing by a soldier who guarded the door. They found themselves now on the railway platform.
"Now," said Rollo, "I suppose that we may go and take our seats again."
"Yes," said Mr. George. "We are fairly entered within the dominions of his majesty the king of Holland."
"And no duty to pay on my music box," said Rollo.
Rollo took a seat by a window where he could look out as the train went on, and see, as he said, how Holland looked. The country was one immense and boundless plain, and there were no fences or other close enclosures of any kind. And yet the face of it was so endlessly varied with rows of trees, groves, farm houses, gardens, wind mills, roads, and other elements of rural scenery, that Rollo found it extremely beautiful. The fields were very green where grass was growing, and the foliage of the trees, and of the little ornamental hedges that were seen here and there adorning the grounds of the farm houses, was very rich and full. As Rollo looked out at the window, a continued succession of the most bright and beautiful pictures passed rapidly before his eyes, like those of a gayly painted panorama, and they all called forth from him continually repeated exclamations of delight. Mr. George sat at his window enjoying the scene perhaps quite as much as Rollo did, though he was much less ardent in expressing his admiration.
"See these roads, uncle George," said Rollo; "they run along on the tops of the embankment like railroads. Are those dikes?"
"No," said Mr. George. "The dikes are built along the margin of the sea, and along the banks of rivers and canals, to take the water out. These are embankments for the roads, to raise them up and keep them dry."
There were rows of trees on the sides of these raised roads, which formed beautiful avenues to shelter the carriage way from the sun. These avenues could sometimes be seen stretching for miles across the country.
"Now, pretty soon," said Rollo, "we shall come to the water, and then we shall take a steamboat."
"Then we do not go all the way by the train," said Mr. George.
"No," said Rollo. "The railroad stops at a place called Moerdyk, and there we take a steamer and go along some of the rivers.
"But I can't find out by the map exactly how we are to go," he continued, "because there are so many rivers."
Rollo had found, by the map, that the country all about Rotterdam was intersected by a complete network of creeks and rivers. This system was connected on the land side with the waters of the Rhine, by the immense multitude of branches into which that river divides itself towards its mouth, and on the other side by innumerable creeks and inlets coming in from the sea. This network of channels is so extensive, and the water in the various branches of it is so deep, that ships and steamers can go at will all about the country. It would be as difficult to make a railroad over such a tract of mingled land and water as this, as it is easy to navigate a steamer through it; and, accordingly, the owners of the line had made arrangements for stopping the trains at Moerdyk, and then transferring the passengers to a steamer.
"I have great curiosity," said Rollo, "to see whether, when we come to the water, we shall go up to it, instead of down to it."
"Do you think that we shall go up to it?" asked Mr. George.
"I don't know," replied Rollo. "We do in some parts of Holland. In some places, according to what the guide book says, the land is twenty or thirty feet below the level of the water, and so when you come to the shore you go up an embankment, and there you find the water on the other side, nearly at the top of it."
When at length the train stopped at Moerdyk, the conductor called out from the platform that all the passengers would descend from the carriages to embark on board the steamer. Rollo was too much interested in making the change, and in hurrying Mr. George along so as to get a good seat in the steamer, to make any observation on the comparative level of the land and water. There was quite a little crowd of passengers to go on board; and as they walked along the pier towards the place where the steamer was lying, all loaded with as many bags, cloaks, umbrellas, or parcels of some sort, as they could carry, Rollo and Mr. George pressed on before them, Rollo leading the way. The steamer was a long and narrow boat, painted black, in the English fashion. There was no awning over the deck, and most of the passengers went below.
"I don't see what they are all going below for," said Rollo. "I should think that they would wish to stay on deck and see the scenery."
So Rollo chose a seat by the side of a small porch which was built upon the deck over the entrance to the cabin, and sat down immediately upon it, making room for Mr. George by his side. There was a little table before him, and he laid down his guide book and his great coat upon it.