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We had a few whiffs from brickfields and other ugly industries that scar the banks, but the windings of the Issel bore us swiftly to regions of grassy meadows, and waving reeds, threatening sometimes to lose us in strange no-thoroughfares of water more like separate lakes and round ponds, than the flowing reaches of a river. Here the despised Albatross was worth his weight in gold.

We'd passed the busy, crowded water-thoroughfares, as thickly lined with barges and lighters as streets with houses, and were nearing the point where the river, disguised as the Issel, turns with many curves toward Gouda.

The country was divided into nine departments Bouches de l'Escaut, Bouches de la Meuse, Bouches du Rhin, Zuiderzee, Issel supérieur, Bouches de Issel, Frise, Ems Occidental and Ems Oriental. Over the departments, as in France, were placed préfets and under them sous-préfets and maires.

His fitness for this high office was soon demonstrated by the vigor and the wisdom of his measures. Maestricht was strongly garrisoned; the prince of Orange, with a large army, advanced to the banks of the Issel; the Dutch fleet cruised off the mouth of the Thames, to prevent the naval forces of England and France from joining.

Passing within distant sight of her as she lay in harbor, Brederode gaily put on speed; for we had got beyond the "legal limit" obstructions of the Drenthe canal, into the freedom of the Ober Issel, a wide glitter of water, noble as the Frisian meers we had left.

"It mak's me go all of a shake," the good woman added. "Eh, I cannot tell ye! It seems onnatural-like. Yer Feyther's noan like 'issel'. To think of his takkin' on that gate about owd Martin Tyrer; mony a one 'ud be fain enough as he were out o' the road!" Meanwhile Robert himself certainly did not say much, as the neighbours observed; in fact, he said nothing at all.

And as Gwenda made no sign, Mrs. Gale, still more oppressed by that extraordinary silence, gave her own feelings way. "Mebbe wae sall navver see 'im in t' Daale again. It'll goa 'ard, look yo, wi' a girt man like 'im, what's navver saaved 'isself. Naw, 'e's navver saaved 'issel." She ceased. She gazed upon both the sisters now.

In Italy, says Issel, the cave men buried their dead in the caves they lived in, a thin layer of earth alone separating them from the living; the bodies, adds Pigorini, generally lay on the left side, the head rested on the left hand, and the knees were bent.

Of course Holland was unable to resist such an overwhelming tide of enemies, such vast and disproportionate forces. City after city and fortress after fortress was compelled to surrender to the generals of the French King. "They were taken almost as soon as they were invested." All the strongholds on the Rhine and Issel fell. The Prince of Orange could not even take the field.