Holland - Thomas Colley Grattan
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The constitution of 1815, though more than once revised, remains
practically much the same as at first. The son of the monarch, the
heir-apparent, is called the Prince of Orange. The administration
of the Provinces is in the hands of the provincial states; these
meet but a few times in the year. The Communes have their communal
councils, under the control of the burgomasters. There is a high
court of justice, and numerous minor courts.
The population is divided between about two million two hundred
thousand Protestants, and half as many Roman Catholics, together
with others. There are four thousand schools, with six hundred
thousand pupils, and about fourteen thousand teachers. Not more
than ten per cent of the people are illiterate, and the women are
as carefully educated the men. There are four great universities:
Leyden, founded in 1575; Utrecht, founded in 1636; Groningen, in
1614; and Amsterdam, which has existed since 1877. These seats of
learning give instruction to from three hundred to seven hundred
students each. The total expenses of the universities average
about six hundred thousand dollars. There are also in Holland
excellent institutions of art, science, and industry.
Agriculture is generally pursued, but without the extreme science
and economy shown in Belgium. The cultivation and produce vary,
in part, according as the soil is sand or clay; but the same kind
of soil, in different parts of the country, produces different
results. Cattle are largely raised and are of first-rate quality;
Friesland produces the best, but there are also excellent stocks in
North Holland and South Holland. In Drenthe, owing to the extensive
pasturage, great numbers of sheep are raised. But perhaps the most
important industry of Holland is the fisheries, both those of the
deep sea, and those carried on in the great Zuyder Zee, which
occupies a vast area within the boundaries of the country. These
fisheries, however, are not in all years successful, owing to
the ungovernable vagaries of ocean currents, and other causes.
Holland has taken a prominent part in European thought since about
1820. The Dutch language, instead of yielding to the domination
of the German, has been cultivated and enriched. The writers who
have achieved distinction could hardly even be named in space
here available, and any approach to a critical estimate of them
would require volumes. One of the earlier but best-known names
is that of Jacobus Van Lennep, who is regarded as the leader
of the Dutch Romantic school. He was born in Amsterdam on the
24th of March, 1802, and died at Oosterbeek, near Arnheim, August
25, 1868. His father, David, was a professor and a poet; Jacobus
studied jurisprudence at Leyden, and afterward practiced law at
Amsterdam. For a while he took some part in politics as a member
of the second chamber; but his heart was bent on the pursuit
of literature, and he gradually abandoned all else for that.
His first volume of poems was published when he was but
four-and-twenty; and he was the author of several dramas. But
his strongest predilections were for romantic novel-writing;
and his works in this direction show signs of the influence of
Walter Scott, who dominated the romantic field in the first half
of this century, and was known in Holland as well as throughout
the rest of Europe. "The Foster Son" was published in 1829; the
"Rose of Dekama" in 1836; "The Adventures of Claus Sevenstars" in
1865. His complete works, in prose and poetry, fill six-and-thirty
volumes. A younger contemporary of Van Lennep was Nikolas Beets,
born at Haarlem in 1814; he also was both poet and prose writer,
and his "Camara Obscura," published in 1839, is accounted a
masterpiece of character and humor, though it was composed when
the author was barely twenty-four years of age. Van den Brink
was a leading critic of the Romanticists; Hasebrock, author of
a volume of essays called "Truth and Dream," has been likened
to the English Charles Lamb. Vosmaer is another eminent figure
in Dutch literature; he wrote a "Life of Rembrandt" which is a
masterpiece of biography. Kuenen, who died but ten years ago,
was a biblical critic of European celebrity. But the list of
contemporary Dutch writers is long and brilliant, and the time
to speak critically of them must be postponed.
Nothing impresses the visitor to Holland more than the vast dikes
or dams which restrain the sea from overwhelming the country.
They have to be constantly watched and renewed, and to those
unused to the idea of dwelling in the presence of such constant
peril, the phlegm of the Hollanders is remarkable. M. Havard, who
has made a careful study of the country and its people, and who
writes of them in a lively style, has left excellent descriptions
of these unique works. "We know," he says, "what the Zealand
soil is--how uncertain, changing, and mutable; nevertheless,
a construction is placed upon it, one hundred and twenty yards
long, sixteen yards wide at the entrance, and more than seven
and a half yards deep below high water. Add to this, that the
enormous basin (one thousand nine hundred square yards) is enclosed
within granite walls of extraordinary thickness, formed of solid
blocks of stone of tremendous weight. To what depth must the
daring workmen who undertook the Cyclopean task have gone in
search of a stable standpoint, on which to lay the foundation
of such a mass! In what subterranean layer could they have had
such confidence, in this country where the earth sinks in, all of
a sudden, where islands disappear without leaving a trace--that
they ventured to build upon it so mighty an edifice! And observe
that not only one dam is thus built; in the two islands of Zuid
Beveland and Walcheren a dozen have been constructed. There are
two at Wormeldingen. In the presence of these achievements, of
problems faced with such courage and solved with such success,
one is almost bewildered."
Elsewhere, in speaking of Kampveer, one of the towns which suffered
an inundation, he says, "Poor little port! once so famous, lively,
populous, and noisy, and now so solitary and still! Traces of
its former military and mercantile character are yet to be seen.
On the left stands a majestic building with thick walls and few
apertures, terminating on the sea in a crenelated round tower;
and these elegant houses, with their arched and trefoiled windows,
and their decorated gables, on the right, once formed the ancient
Scotschhuis. Every detail of the building recalls the great trade
in wool done by the city at that period. Far off, at the entrance
of the port, stands a tower, the last remnant of the ramparts,
formerly a fortification; it is now a tavern. In vain do we look
for the companion tower; it has disappeared with the earth on
which its foundations stood deep and strong for ages. If, from
the summit of the surviving tower, you search for that mysterious
town upon the opposite bank, you will look for it in vain where
it formerly stood and mirrored its houses and steeples in the
limpid waters. Kampen also has been swallowed up forever, leaving
no trace that it ever existed in this world. The land that stretches
out before us is all affected by that subtle, cancerous disease,
the _val_, whose ravages are so terrible. Two centuries ago this
great bay was so filled up with sand that it was expected the
two islands would in a short time be reunited and thenceforth
form but one. Then, on a sudden, the gulf yawned anew. That huge
rent, the Veer Gat, opened once again, more deeply than before;
whole towns were buried, and their inhabitants drowned. Then the
water retired, the earth rose, shaking off its humid winding
sheet, and the old task was resumed; man began once more to dispute
the soil with the invading waves. A portion of the land, which
seemed to have been forever lost, was regained; but at the cost
of what determined strife, after how many battles, with what
dire alternations! Within a century, three entire polders on
the north coast of Noordbeveland have again vanished, and in
the place where they were there flows a stream forty yards deep.
In 1873, the polder of Borselen, thirty-one acres in extent, sank
into the waters. Each year the terrible _val_ devours some space
or other, carrying away the land in strips. The Sophia polder is
now attacked by the _val_. Every possible means is being employed
for its defence; no sacrifice is spared. The game is almost up;
already one dike has been swallowed, and a portion of the conquered
ground has had to be abandoned. The dams are being strengthened
in the rear, while every effort is being made to fix the soil so
as to prevent the slipping away of the reclaimed land. To effect
this, not only are the dams, reinforced and complicated by an
inextricable network of stones and interlaced tree-branches; but
_Zinkstukken_ are sunk far off in the sea, which by squeezing down
the shifting bottom avert those sudden displacements which bring
about such disasters. The Zinkstukken--enormous constructions in
wicker work--are square rafts, made of reeds and boughs twisted
together, sometimes two or three hundred feet long on a side.
They are made on the edge of the coast and pushed into the sea;
and no sooner is one afloat than it is surrounded by a crowd of
barges and boats, big and little, laden with stones and clods
of earth. The boats are then attached to the Zinkstuk, and this
combined flotilla is so disposed along shore that the current
carries it to the place where the Zinkstuk is to be sunk. When
the current begins to make itself felt, the raft is loaded by
the simple process of heaping the contents of the barges upon
the middle of it. The men form in line from the four corners
to the centre, and the loads of stone and earth are passed on to
the centre of the raft, on which they are flung; then the middle
of the Zinkstuk begins to sink gently, and to disappear under the
water. As it goes down, the operators withdraw; the stones and
clods are then flung upon it from boats. At this stage of the
proceedings the Zinkstuk is so heavy that all the vessels, dragged
by its weight, lean over, and their masts bend above it. But now
the decisive moment approaches, and the foreman, standing on
the poop of the largest boat, in the middle of the flotilla, on
the side furthest from the shore, awaits the instant when the
Zinkstuk shall come into precisely the foreordained position.
At that instant he utters a shout and makes a signal; the ropes
are cut, the raft plunges downward, and disappears forever, while
the boats recover their proper position."
M. Havard merits the space we have given him; for he describes
a work the like of which has never been seen elsewhere in the
world, any more than have the conditions which necessitated it.
But the picturesqueness of the actual scene can hardly be conveyed
in words. Under an azure sky we behold outstretched a sparkling
sea, its waters shading from green to blue and from yellow to
violet, harmoniously blending. In the distance, as though marking
the horizon, stretches a long, green strip of land, with the
spires of the churches standing out in strong relief against the
sky. At our feet is the Zinkstuk, surrounded by its flotilla.
The great red sails furled upon the masts, the green poops, the
rudders sheathed with burnished copper, the red streaks along
the sides of the boats, the colored shirts, brown vests, and
blue girdles of the men, touched by the warm rays of the sun,
compose a striking picture. On all sides the men are in motion,
and five hundred brawny arms are flinging the contents of the
boats upon the great raft; a truly Titanic stoning! Projectiles
rain from all sides without pause, until the moment comes when
the decisive command is to be given. Then silence, absolute and
impressive, falls upon the multitude. Suddenly the signal is
given; a creaking noise is heard; the fifty boats right themselves
at the same instant, and turn toward the point where the great
raft which had separated them has just disappeared. They bump
against one another, they get entangled, they group themselves in
numberless different ways. The swarming men, stooping and raising
up, the uplifted arms, the flying stones, the spurting water
covering the boats with foam; and in the midst of the confusion the
polder-jungens flinging the clods of earth with giant strength and
swiftness upon the raft. At certain points the tumult declines;
flags are hoisted from the tops of masts, the large sails are
shaken out, and aided by the breeze some vessels get loose, sail
out, and desert the field of battle. These are they whose task
is done, and which are empty. They retire one by one upon the
great expanse of water, which, save in one spot, was a little
while ago deserted, and is now overspread with the vessels making
their various ways toward that green line on the horizon.
This is a conflict not of days, nor of years, nor of generations,
but of all time; and what the end will be none can foretell.
It is the concrete symbol of the everlasting fight of man with
nature, which means civilization. The day may come when, where
once Holland was, will be outspread the serene waters of the
sea, hiding beneath them the records of the stupendous struggle
of so many centuries. Or, perhaps, some mysterious shifting of
the ocean bottom may not only lift Holland out of peril, but
uncover mighty tracts of land which, in the prehistoric past,
belonged to Europe. Meanwhile it is easy to understand that the
people who can wage this ceaseless war for their homes and lives,
are the sons of those heroes who curbed the might of Spain, and
taught the world the lessons of freedom and independence.
THE END