"The most outstanding feature of Amsterdam is the water. In Holland, the marriage of water and land differs from its Venetian and Swedish counterparts because in Amsterdam the water is the mistress and the land the vassal. The earth is a mere grass cloak placed upon the city's mighty liquid torso. You constantly have the impression that the land is there by courtesy of the sea, wrested from it by sheer force, for throughout the city there are as many canals and drawbridges as bracelets on a gypsy's bronzed arms."