雙語+MP3|美國學生世界地理30 低于海平面的國家

     BELLS and Battle-fields don't seem to go together, but north of France is a land of Bells and Battle-fields, called Belgium.
     The bells are in the towers of churches, of town halls, and of other buildings. The bells in Belgium strike the hour, but they do more than that-they play a tune every hour or oftener. And on Sundays and holidays a bell-ringer, seated at a keyboard as at an organ, plays all sorts of hymns and tunes on the bells, so that every one in the town can enjoy the music without leaving his own home. The music is broadcast without a radio. Some of the bell sets have as many as fifty bells of different sizes and sounds-little bells that make high notes, and big bells, as big as a man, that make deep, low notes. The bells themselves don't move; the bell clapper moves instead. The clappers are fastened by wire to keys like those of a piano or organ, and as the player touches the keys the clappers strike the side of the bell. When a bell concert is being given, all noises in the streets near-by are forbidden-no honking of horns nor loud shouting allowed-so that nothing will spoil the music for those who are listening.
     Bells and Battle-fields! Belgium has been the battle-field of Europe-not battles fought by the Belgians themselves, but by other countries of Europe. In the two World Wars Belgium was a chief battle-ground of the French and German soldiers, and thousands of buildings were wrecked and an immense amount of damage done. A little over a hundred years ago a great French General named Napoleon, who I told you was buried in Paris, fought one of the greatest battles in history at a place in Belgium called Waterloo. Napoleon was beaten at Waterloo, and beaten so badly that we now use the word "Waterloo"to describe almost any big defeat, whether it is a defeat of an army in battle or of a team in a game. We say "A tennis champion has his Waterloo" or "A football team has its Waterloo."
     B. B. B. The capital of Belgium also begins with a "B."It is Brussels. Perhaps you have heard of Brussels lace, Brussels carpets, or Brussels sprouts. They all come from Brussels.
     Another city of Belgium beginning with a "B" is Bruges. Bruges has many streets of water with bridges crossing them, and boats instead of carts, although there are paved streets also. See how many things in Belgium begin with a "B:"
Belgium
Bells
Battle-fields
Brussels
Bruges
Bridges
Boats
     Belgium is hilly on the side near France, but on the opposite side it is very low. On this low side it joins the land of the Dutch people, which is called Holland. Holland means "hollow land," and it is so named because in many places it is even lower than the sea. Banks or walls called dikes had to be built to hold the water back, and windmills with big sprawling wings had to be built inside the dikes to pump the water out and keep it out. Water won't run off the ground in Holland, for there is no low place for it to run to; it would have to run uphill. So it has to be pumped off.
     The dikes that hold back the sea have to be very big and very strong to stand the pounding of the waves against them, for the slightest break or hole in the dike would soon burst open and the water would flood the country, and cover houses and drown the people, so they have men to watch the dikes all the time to mend any broken places as soon as they are made.
     But long, long ago-about seven hundred years ago-there was a terrible storm, and the North Sea did break through and it drowned thousands upon thousands of people and the villages and houses in which they lived. Ships now sail and fish now swim where these drowned villages lie, and this inland water is called the South Sea, which in Dutch is the Zuyder Zee. But the Dutch people are planning to build dikes and shut off the North Sea once again and pump the water out. This will make dry land where the Zuyder Zee now is; so some day, not many years from now, there will be no Zuyder Zee, no South Sea, and where fish now swim and ships now sail will be houses and farms.


     Where we have roads and streets, in Holland they have canals. In the summer, boats sail on the canals and in the winter the people skate on them. Children skate to school and men skate to work. What fun!
     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. Holstein cows 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. They have 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 and scrub 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, and hooks 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 the house. 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 they are 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 sparkling jewels 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 that will 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.