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In Holland they don’t have many horses; they use dogs to haul and bicycles to carry. Dogs eat less than horses,they don’t have to have stables, and bicycles don’t have to have garages. Dogs can be trained like horses to haul small carts, large enough to carry milk cans. Sometimes, however, when a cat comes along, there is trouble.

Though there are few horses in Holland, there are many cows. They have black and white cows called Holsteins. Holsteincows give a great deal of milk, more milk than any other kind of cow. The milk is used for making cheese, for which Holland is famous. The cheese is made in big pieces and then varnished so that it will keep a long time. Theyhave markets in which nothing but cheese is sold—cheese markets.

The Dutch keep their houses very clean. The kitchen is usually the living-room and dining-room too. They scrub andscrub and scrub, outside as well as inside, even the sidewalks, and in some towns even the street. The cow sheds are often part of the house and are kept just as clean as the houses, with white curtains at the windows, andhooks to hold up the tails of the cows while they are being milked. People wear wooden shoes, because Holland is such a damp country, and they take them off and leave them at the door, as we do overshoes, before entering thehouse. In some places in Holland the men wear trousers as big as pillow-cases and the girls wear very big skirts and white bonnets. In the large cities, however, the people dress about the same as we do.

Dam means a dike, and as there are so many dikes in Holland there are many towns’ and cities’ names ending in“dam.” Amsterdam and Rotterdam are the two largest cities.

Amsterdam is a city of diamonds. The diamonds are not found in Holland but are brought there from Africa. When theyare taken out of the diamond mines in Africa they don’t look like diamonds but look like pebbles, and you would never guess they could be made into anything beautiful. But at Amsterdam they are made into the beautiful sparklingjewels that we know. A diamond is the hardest thing in the World. You cannot cut it with a steel tool nor grind it on a grindstone; you cannot scratch it with sandpaper nor make a mark on it with a file. The only thing thatwill cut a diamond or scratch a diamond is another diamond. So in Amsterdam they chip one diamond with another diamond and polish it into a many sided jewel with diamond dust.

参考译文

荷兰没有多少马；他们用狗拖运东西，用自行车搬运东西。狗比马吃得少，也不需要马厩，自行车不需要车库。狗可以像马一样经过训练来拉二轮运货车，这些运货车足以装得下一个个牛奶罐。然而，有时候猫出现了，这就有麻烦了。

荷兰几乎没有马，却有很多奶牛。他们的奶牛是黑白色的，叫做黑白花牛。黑白花牛产奶量很高，超过其他任何一种奶牛。牛奶可用来制作奶酪，荷兰的奶酪很有名。奶酪被做成一大块一大块的，然后涂上一层薄蜡，这样就能保存很长时间。他们还有专卖奶酪的市场——奶酪市场。

荷兰人把房子保持得特别干净。厨房通常也兼做客厅和餐厅。他们在屋内屋外一遍又一遍不厌其烦地擦洗，甚至包括人行道，有些镇上的人甚至把街道也擦洗干净。奶牛棚通常就是房子的一部分，也和房子一样打扫得很干净，窗户上挂着白色的窗帘，还有专门的挂钩，挤奶的时候用来挂奶牛尾巴。那里的人穿木头做的鞋子，因为荷兰非常潮湿，进屋前他们把木头鞋子脱在门口，就像我们进屋前脱掉罩靴一样。在荷兰一些地方，男人穿和枕套一样大的裤子，女孩穿很大的裙子，戴白色的帽子。然而，在大城市，人们的穿着和我们差不多。

在荷兰，“丹”的意思就是堤坝，由于荷兰有很多堤坝，很多城镇的名字都以“丹”结尾。阿姆斯特丹和鹿特丹是最大的两个城市。

阿姆斯特丹是个钻石之城。钻石并不产于荷兰，而是从非洲运来的。当它们从非洲钻石矿里刚开采出来时，看起来并不像钻石，而是像鹅卵石，你绝对想不到这些石头能被做成美丽的钻石。但是在阿姆斯特丹，这些矿石被制作成我们熟悉的闪闪发光的美丽宝石。钻石是世界上最硬的物质。钢做的工具切割不了它，砂轮也磨不动它；砂纸擦不动它，锉刀也不能在它上面留下任何痕迹。唯一能够切割或打磨钻石的东西就是另一块钻石。因此在阿姆斯特丹人们用一块钻石去凿另一块钻石，把它打磨成一块多面的宝石，刚成型的宝石浑身落满了钻石粉末。