3-011-995 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Winter in Holland: the Emperor's Canal, Amsterdam, 1864. 'Throughout its whole extent [Holland] is intersected by rivers and canals, which form the high road for the multifarious commerce and intercommunication going on between its numerous cities and villages. In winter all these "water-roads," as the Dutch appropriately call them, are rendered impassable...Then King Frost claims those water-roads as his own domain and territory, and throws over their surface a thick coating of ice on which tens of thousands of skaters - men and women, boys and girls, of all stations and all ranks - give themselves up to the winter enjoyments of skating and sledging. From north to south - over every ditch and pond, over every rivulet and canal - skaters and sledgers may be seen skimming and dashing over the frozen waters. In the larger towns fairs and promenades, skating and sledge races take place, so that the Meuse and the Amstel, the Rhine and the Yssel, the Wye and the Vecht, are crowded with throngs of winter pleasure-seekers, on skates and in sledges, in ice-boats or on foot, the rich in warm furs, the poor in improvised clothing of every description, but all making the most of the holiday which King Frost gives them'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.