Rollo in Holland

"When the dikes enclosing the lake were completed, the engineers set up three very powerful steam engines, and gave to each one ten or twelve enormous pumps to work. These pumping engines were made on such a grand scale that they lifted over sixty tuns of water at every stroke. But yet so large was the lake, and so vast the quantity of water to be drained, that though there were three of the engines working at this rate, and though they were kept at work night and day, it took them a year and a half to lay the ground dry. The work was, however, at last accomplished, and now, what was the bottom of the lake is all converted into pastures and green fields. But they still have to keep the pumps going all the time to lift out the surplus water that falls over the whole space in rain. You may judge that the amount is very large that falls on a district thirty miles round. They calculate that the quantity which they have to pump up now, every year, in order to keep the land from being overflowed again, is over fifty millions of tuns. And that is a quantity larger than you can ever conceive of.

"And yet the piece of ground is so large, that the cost of this pumping makes only about fifty cents for each acre of land, which is very little.

"Besides these great spreading inundations, which Holland has always been subject to from the lakes and rivers in the middle of the country, there has always been a greater danger still to be feared from the ice freshets of the Rhine, and other great rivers coming from the interior of the country. The Rhine, you know, flows from south to north, and often the ice, in the spring, breaks up in the middle of the course of the river, before it gets thawed in Holland. The broken ice, in coming down the stream towards the north, is kept within the banks of the stream where the banks are high; but when it reaches Holland it is not only no longer so confined, but it finds its flow obstructed by the ice which there still remains solid, and so it gets jammed and forms dams, and that makes the water rise very fast. At one time when such a dam was formed, the water rose seven feet in an hour. At such times the pressure becomes so prodigious that the dikes along the bank of the river are burst, and water, sand, gravel, and ice, all pour over together upon the surrounding country, and overwhelm and destroy every thing that comes in its way.

"Some of the inundations caused in Holland by these floods and freshets have been terrible. In ancient times they were worse than they are now; because now the dikes are stronger, and are better guarded. At one inundation that occurred about sixty years ago, eighty thousand persons were drowned. At another, three hundred years earlier, one hundred thousand perished. Think what awful floods there must have been.

"But I cannot write any more in this letter. I have taken up so much space and time in telling you about the inundations and freshets, that I have not time to describe a great many other things which I have seen, that are quite as curious and remarkable as they. But when I get home I can tell you all about them, in the winter evenings, and read to you about them from my journal.

"Your affectionate brother,"George."Rollo's Letter"Leyden, Tuesday, September 27.

"My Dear Mother:

"Uncle George and I are having a very fine time indeed in travelling about Holland; it is such a funny country, on account of there being so many canals. The water is all smooth and still in all the canals, (except when the wind blows,) and so there must be excellent skating every where in the winter.

"I wish it was winter here now, for one day, so that uncle George and I could have some Dutch skating.

"There must be good skating every where here in the winter, for there is water every where, and it is all good water for skating. In the fields, instead of brooks running in crooked ways and tumbling over rocks, there are only long and narrow channels of smooth water, just about wide enough to skate upon, and reaching as far as you can see.

"The people here speak Dutch, and they cannot understand me, and I cannot understand them. And that is not the worst of it; they can't understand that I can't understand them. Sometimes the woman that comes to make my bed tells me something in Dutch, and I tell her that I can't understand. I know the Dutch for 'I can't understand.' Then she says, 'O!' and goes on to tell me over again, only now she tries to speak plainer—as if it could make any difference to me whether she speaks plain or not. I shake my head, and tell her I can't understand any thing. I tell her in French, and in English, and in Dutch. But it does not do any good, for she immediately begins again, and tells me the whole story all over again, trying to speak plainer than ever. I suppose she thinks that any body can understand Dutch, if she only speaks it plain enough to them.

"When I want any thing of them, I always tell them by signs. The other evening, uncle George and I wanted some candles. So I rang the bell, and a woman came. I went to the door of the room, and made believe that I had two candlesticks in my hand, and that I was bringing them in. I made believe put them on the table, and then sat down and opened a book, and pretended that I was reading by the light of them. She understood me immediately. She laughed, and said, 'Ya, ya!' and went off out of the room to get the candles.

"Ya, ya, means yes, yes.

"Another time we wanted a fire. So when the woman came in, I shivered, and made believe that I was very cold, and then I went to the fireplace, and made believe warm myself. Then I pointed to the fireplace, and made a sign for her to go away and bring the fire to put there. But instead of going, she told me something in Dutch, and shook her head; and when I said I could not understand it, she told me over again; and finally she went away, and sent the landlady. The landlady could speak a little English. So she told me that we could not have any fire except in foot stoves, for the fireplace stoves were not put up.

"It is very curious to walk about the streets, and see the boats on the canals, and what the people are carrying back and forth in them. I watch them sometimes from the windows of the hotel, especially when it rains, and we cannot go out. They have every thing in these boats. They use some of them instead of houses; and the man who owns them lives in them with his wife and children, and sometimes with his ducks and chickens.

"I often see the little children playing on the decks of the boat. Once I saw one that had a dog, and he was trying to teach him to cipher on a slate. His mother and the other children were on the boat too.

"The people use their dogs here to draw carts. They have three or four sometimes harnessed in together. The dogs look pretty poor and lean, but they draw like good fellows. You would be surprised to see what great loads they draw. They draw loads of vegetables to market, and then, when the vegetables are sold, they draw the market women home in the empty carts.

"Only they don't mind very well, when they are told which way to go. I saw a boy yesterday riding along in a cart, with a good big dog to draw him, and when he came to a street where he wanted him to turn down, the dog would not turn. The boy hallooed out to him in Dutch a good many times, and finally the boy had to jump down out of the cart, and run and seize him by the collar, and pull him round.

"It is not a great deal that they use dog carts to bring things to market, for generally they bring them in boats. They take almost every thing to and fro along the canals in boats; and it is very curious to stand on a bridge and look down on the boats that pass under, and see how many different kinds of boats there are, and how many different kinds of things they have in them. This morning, I saw one that had the bottom of it divided into three pens for animals. In the first pen were two great cows, lying down on the straw; in the second pen were several sheep; and in the third there were as many as a dozen small pigs, just big enough to be roasted. I suppose it was a farmer bringing in his stock to market.

"Sometimes they row the boats along the canal, and sometimes they push them with setting poles. They have the longest setting poles in some of the boats that I ever saw. There is an iron pike at one end of the pole, and a wooden knob at the other. When they are pushing the boat by means of one of these poles, they run the ironed end of it down to the bottom, and then the man puts his shoulder to the little knob at the other end and pushes. As the boat goes on, he walks along the boat from the bow to the stern, pushing all the way as hard as he can push.

"When they are out of town the men pull the boats along the canals by means of a long cord, which is fastened to a strap over their shoulders. With this strap they walk along on the tow-path of the canal, pulling in this way—so that if the cord should break, I should think they would fall headlong on the ground.

"I saw a man and a woman the other day pulling a double boat, loaded with hay, along a canal. The hay was loaded across from one boat to the other. It made as much as five or six of the largest cart loads of hay that I ever saw. I was surprised to see that a man and a woman could draw so much. They drew it by long lines, and by straps over their shoulders. The woman's line was fastened to one of the boats, and the man's to the other.

"The people travel a great deal in boats in these parts of the country, where there are no railroads. Uncle George and I took a little journey in one, the other day. I wanted to go very much, but uncle George was afraid, he said, that they might take us somewhere where there would be nobody that could talk English, and so we might get into some serious difficulty. But he said that he would go with me a few miles, if I could find a canal boat going to some place that we knew. So I found one going to a town called Delft. We knew that place, because we had come through it, or close by it, by the railway.

"Uncle George said that it was an excellent plan to go there, for then, if we got tired of the canal boat in going, we could come home by a railroad train.

"So we went; and we had a very pleasant time, indeed. I found the canal boat by going to the place where the boats all were, and saying, Delft, Delft, to the people; and then they pointed me to the right boat. So we got in. When the captain came for the fare, I took out a handful of money, and said Delft, and also pointed to uncle George. So he took out enough to pay for uncle George and me to go to Delft. At least I suppose he thought it was enough, though I thought it was very little.

"We had a very pleasant sail to Delft. The banks of the canal are beautiful. They are green and pretty every where, and in some places there were beautiful gardens, and summer houses, and pavilions close upon the shore.

"But now I begin to be tired of writing. I should have been tired a great while ago, only I have stopped to rest pretty often, and to look out the window, and see what is going by on the canal.

"There is a boat coming now with a mast, and I don't see what they are going to do, for there is a bridge here, and it is not a draw bridge. Almost all the bridges are draw bridges, but this one is not. So I don't see how he is going to get by.

"Ah, I see how it is! The mast is on a hinge, so that it can turn down backward, and lie along flat on the deck of the boat. It is going down now.

"Now it is down, and the boat is going under the bridge.

"But good by, mother, for it is time for me to stop.

"Your affectionate and dutiful son,"Rollo.

"P. S. This is the longest letter that I ever wrote."

Chapter VIII.

The Commissioner

As may well be imagined, the best use to which the green fields of Holland can be put, is the raising of grass to feed cattle; for the wetness of the land, which makes it somewhat unsuitable to be ploughed, causes grass to grow upon it very luxuriantly. Accordingly, as you ride through the country along the great railway lines, you see, every where, herds of cattle and flocks of sheep feeding in the meadows that extend far and wide in every direction.

The cattle are kept partly for the purpose of being fatted and sent to market for beef, and partly for their milk, which the Dutch farmers make cheese of. Dutch cheeses are celebrated in every part of the world.

In the neighborhood of Amsterdam there are a number of dairy villages where cheeses are made, and some of them are almost always visited by travellers. They are great curiosities, in fact, on account of their singular and most extraordinary neatness. Cleanliness is, in all parts of the world, deemed a very essential requisite of a dairy, and the Dutch housewives in the dairy villages of Holland have carried the idea to the extreme. The village which is most commonly visited by strangers who go to Amsterdam, is one called Broek. It lies to the north of Amsterdam, and at a distance of about five or six miles from it.

One day when Mr. George and Rollo arrived in Amsterdam, Mr. George, just at sundown, looked out at the window of the hotel, and said,—

"Rollo, I think it is going to be a superb day to-morrow."

"So do I," said Rollo.

"At least," said Mr. George, "I should think so if I were in America. The wind has all gone down, and the western sky is full of golden clouds shining in roseate splendor."

Mr. George enunciated these high-sounding words in a pompous and theatrical manner, which made Rollo laugh very heartily.

"And, to descend from poetry to plain prose," said Mr. George, "I think we had better take advantage of the fine weather to go to Broek to-morrow."

"Very well," said Rollo, "that plan suits me exactly."

Rollo was always ready for any plan which involved the going away from the place where he was, to some new place which he had not seen before.

"But how are we going to find the way there?" said Rollo.

"I shall take a commissioner," said Mr. George. "I am going to Saandam, too, where Peter the Great learned ship carpentry."

"I have heard something about that," said Rollo, "but I don't know much about it."

"Why, Peter the Great was emperor of Russia," said Mr. George, "and he wished to introduce ship building into his dominions. So he came to Holland to learn about the construction of ships, in order that he might be better qualified to take the direction of the building of a fleet in Russia. Saandam was the place that he came to. While he was there he lived in a small, wooden house, near the place where the ship building was going on. That house is there now, and almost every body that comes to this part of the country goes to see it."

"How long ago was it that he was there?" asked Rollo.

"It was more than one hundred and fifty years ago," said Mr. George.

"I should not think a wooden house would have lasted so long," said Rollo.

"It would not have lasted so long," replied Mr. George, "if they had not taken special pains to preserve it. They have built a brick house around it and over it, to protect it from the weather, and so it has been preserved. Now I think we had better go to-morrow and see Broek, and also Saandam, and I am going to take a commissioner."

Mr. George had employed a commissioner once before, as the reader will perhaps recollect, namely, at the Hague; and perhaps I ought to stop here a moment to explain more fully what a commissioner is. He is a servant hired by the day to conduct strangers about the town where they reside, and about the environs, if necessary, to show them what there is that is curious and wonderful there. These men are called, sometimes commissioners and sometimes valets de place, and in their way they are very useful.

If a traveller arrives at a hotel in the morning, at any important town in Europe, before he has been in his room fifteen minutes he generally hears a knock at his door, and on bidding the person come in, a well-dressed looking servant man appears and asks,—

"Shall you wish for a commissioner, sir, to-day?"

Or if the gentleman, after remaining in his room a few minutes, takes his wife or his daughter, or whomever he may have travelling with him, and goes out from the door of the hotel, he is pretty sure to be met near the door by one or more of these men, who accost him earnestly, saying,—

"Do you want a commissioner, sir?" Or, "Shall I show you the way, sir?" Or, "Would you like to see the museum, sir?"

When a traveller intends to remain some days in a place, he has generally no occasion for a commissioner; since, in his rambles about the town, he usually finds all the places of interest himself, and in such a case the importunities of the commissioners seeking employment are sometimes annoying to him. But if his time is very short, or if he wishes to make excursions into the neighborhood of a town where he does not understand the language of the people, then such a servant is of very great advantage.

Mr. George thought that his proposed excursion to Broek and Saandam was an occasion on which a commissioner could be very advantageously employed. Accordingly, after he and Rollo had finished their dinner, which they took at a round table near a window in the coffee room, he asked Rollo to ring the bell.

Rollo did so, and a waiter came in.

"Send me in a commissioner, if you please," said Mr. George.

"Very well, sir," said the waiter, with a bow.

The waiter went out, and in a few minutes a well-dressed and very respectable looking young man came in, and advancing towards Mr. George, said,—

"Did you wish to see a commissioner, sir?"

"Yes," said Mr. George. "I want to make some inquiries about going to Broek and to Saandam, to-morrow. I want to know what the best way is to go, and what the expenses will be."

So saying, Mr. George took out a pencil and a piece of paper from his pocket, in order to make a memorandum of what the commissioner should say.

"In the first place," asked Mr. George, "what is your name? I shall want to know what to call you."

"My name is James," said the commissioner.

"Well, now, James," said Mr. George, "I want you to tell me what the best way is to go, and what all the expenses will be. I want to know every thing beforehand."

"Well, sir," said James, "we shall go first by the ferry boat across to the Y,6 and there we shall take the trekschuyt for a short distance on the canal."

"And how much will that cost?" asked Mr. George.

"For the three, forty-five cents," said James.

He meant, of course, Dutch cents. It takes two and a half Dutch cents to make one American cent.

"There," continued James, "we take a carriage."

"And how much will the carriage be?" asked Mr. George.

"To go to Broek and back, and then to Saandam, will be ten guilders."

Mr. George made memoranda of these sums on his paper, as James named them.

"And the tolls," continued James, "will be one guilder and twenty-five cents more."

"And the driver?" asked Mr. George.

In most of the countries of Europe, when you make a bargain for the carriage, the driver's services are not included in it. He expects a fee besides.

"The driver, fifty cents. Half a guilder," said James.

"Is that enough for him?" asked Mr. George.

"Yes, sir," said James, "that's enough."

"We will call it seventy-five cents," said Mr. George. So saying, he wrote seventy-five.

"Then there will be some fees to pay, I suppose," said Mr. George, "both at Broek and at Saandam."

"Yes, sir," said James. "We pay twenty-five cents at the dairy, twenty-five cents at the garden, and twenty-five to the hostler. That makes seventy-five. And the same at Saandam, to see the hut of Peter the Great, and the house. That makes one guilder fifty centimes."

"Is that all?" asked Mr. George.

"There will be forty-five cents for the ferry, coming back," said James.

Mr. George added this sum to the column, and then footed it up. The amount was nearly fifteen guilders.

"We will call it fifteen guilders," said he. "To-morrow I will give you fifteen guilders, and you will pay all expenses. And then what shall I have to pay you for your services?"

"My charge is four guilders for the day," said James.

"Very well," said Mr. George. "And at what time in the morning will it be best to set out?"

"There is a boat at nine o'clock," said James.

"Then we will leave here at half past eight. We will have breakfast, Rollo, at eight. Or perhaps we can have breakfast at Broek. Is there a hotel there, James?"

"Yes, sir," said James. "There is a hotel there."

"Very well. Then we will wait till we get there before we take breakfast, and we will expect you at half past eight. Our room is number eleven."

The arrangement being thus fully made, the commissioner, promising to be punctual, bowed and retired.

"Now, Rollo," said Mr. George, "to-morrow we will have a good time. After I give the commissioner the fifteen guilders, I shall have no further care or responsibility, but shall be taken along over the whole ground as if I were a child under the care of his father."

Chapter IX.

The Great Canal

The commissioner knocked at Mr. George's door at the time appointed. Mr. George and Rollo were both ready. Mr. George counted out the fifteen guilders on the table, and James put them in his pocket. The party then set out.

Mr. George wished to stop by the way to put a letter in the post office, and to pay the postage of it. He desired to do this personally, for he wished to inquire whether the letter would go direct. So James led them by the way of the post office, and conducted Mr. George into the office where foreign letters were received, and the payment of postage taken for them. Here James served as interpreter. Indeed, it is one of the most important duties of a commissioner to serve as an interpreter to his employer, whenever his services are required in this capacity.

When the letter was put in, the party resumed their walk. The commissioner went on before, carrying Mr. George's travelling shawl and the umbrella, and Mr. George and Rollo followed. The way lay along a narrow street, by the side of a canal. There were a thousand curious sights to be seen, both among the boats on the canal and along the road; but Rollo could not stop to examine them, for the commissioner walked pretty fast.

"I wish he would not walk so fast," said Rollo.

"Ah, yes," said Mr. George, "he is right this morning, for we want to get to the pier in time for the boat. But in walking about the town to see it, it would be a great trouble to us."

"To-morrow we will go about by ourselves," said Rollo, "and stop when and where we please."

"We will," said Mr. George.

At last the party came out to what may be called the front of the city, where they could look off upon the harbor. This harbor is a sheet of water called the Y, which has been before referred to. The morning was bright and beautiful, and the water was covered with ships, steamers, barges, boats, and vessels of every form and size, going to and fro. The steamers passed swiftly, but the sailing vessels scarcely moved, so calm and still was the morning air. The sun was shining, and the whole scene presented to Mr. George's and Rollo's view, as they looked out over the water, was extremely brilliant and beautiful.

The commissioner led the way out over a long pier supported by piles, to a sort of landing platform at a distance from the shore. This place was quite large. It had a tavern upon it, and a great many different offices belonging to the different lines of steamers, and piers projecting in different directions for the different boats and steamers to land at. It stood at some distance from the shore, and the whole had the appearance of a little village on an island. It would have been an island indeed, if there had been any land about it; but there was not. It was built wholly on piles.

Here were crowds of people going and coming on this stage, some having just landed from the different steamers that had just arrived, and some about to embark in others that were going away. Small boats were coming, too, over the water, with passengers in them, among whom were many peasant girls, whose foreheads and temples were adorned with a profusion of golden ornaments, such as are worn by the ladies of North Holland. Rollo looked this way and that as he passed along the stage, and he wished for time to stop and examine what he saw; but the commissioner walked rapidly on, and led the way to the ferry boat.