Note 13 — Chapter III · THE DUNES, OR SAND-HILLS.

“Dunes,” from dun, a hill. These sand-mounds also extend along the coast of the Netherlands, where they serve to protect the low country from tidal inundation. “In some places,” says a traveller, “they look like a series of irregular hills; and when seen from the top of the steeples, they are so huge as to shut out the view of the sea. The traveller, in visiting them from the fertile plains, all at once ascends into a region of desert barrenness. He walks on and on for miles in a wilderness such as might be expected to be seen in Africa, and at last emerges on the sea-shore, where the mode of creation of this singular kind of territory is at once conspicuous.”—W. Chambers, “Tour in Holland.”