THE MAKING OF HOLLAND.
THE HAGUE, _October 22, 1902_.
There is an endless variety of interest in the different countries of
the Old World. Each has its own fascination for travellers. But, after
all, the strangest, quaintest, cleanest and most picturesque country
in Europe is Holland--little, wet, flat, energetic, heroic Holland. By
calling it picturesque I do not mean that nature has made it so. There
are no bold cliffs overlooking the sea, no heathery hills reflecting
themselves in placid lakes, no soaring mountains, forest-clad or
snow-capped, no waterfalls foaming and thundering among the rocks. It
is not what nature has done, but what man has done, that makes Holland
so picturesque. There is no country on the globe for which nature has
done so little and man has done so much. By an energy and industry
unsurpassed in the annals of the world, the Dutchman has wrested his
land from the ocean itself, walling out its wild waves with huge dykes,
and has converted this swamp into a blooming paradise, studded all over
with prosperous farms and opulent cities.
[Sidenote: A Land below Sea Level.]
As the two most common names of this country themselves suggest,
_Holland_ meaning Hollow Land, and _Netherlands_ meaning Lowlands, the
greater part of it is from twenty to thirty feet below the level of the
ocean; that is to say, the sea actually rolls some ten yards higher
than the ground on which the people live. Hence the common remark, in
which, however, there is some exaggeration, that the frog, croaking
among the bulrushes, looks down upon the swallow on the housetops, and
that the ships float high above the chimneys of the houses.
[Sidenote: Water as an Enemy.]
Of course, then, there is the ever-present danger that the ocean will
break in and again overspread all this fair territory where its waters
once rolled, and only by the most remarkable ingenuity, the most
incessant vigilance, and the most untiring industry can it be prevented
from doing so. Water is the immemorial enemy of the Dutch. They are
trained at college to fight against water, as in other lands soldiers
are trained to fight against the human foes of their country. They are
compelled to wage a perpetual battle for their very existence, for, as
some one has expressed it, as soon as they cease to pump they begin to
drown. It costs the Dutch people about six million dollars a year to
keep their country above water, or, to speak more accurately, to keep
the water above it. If one wishes to appreciate the imminence of this
danger, he has only to stand for a few minutes at the foot of one of
the great dykes on the coast, at high tide, and listen to the waves
dashing against the outer side of the barrier, twenty feet above his
head.
[Sidenote: Dykes as Protectors.]
Of course, the explanation of all this lies in the fact that Holland
is of alluvial formation. Like Lower Egypt and some other regions at
the mouths of great rivers, it is a delta land, the soil of which has
been carried down from the interior by the Rhine and deposited here,
little by little, in the course of the ages; so that Napoleon Bonaparte
is said to have laid claim to the country on the whimsical plea that
it was land robbed from other countries which were his by right of
conquest. Moreover this particular delta lies farther below sea level
than any other, Holland, as a whole, being the lowest country in the
world. These vast and costly embankments are therefore absolutely
necessary to shut the ocean out and keep it out. The Dutch proverb
says, "God made the sea, we made the shore."
But that is not all. In many places the dykes are no less necessary to
prevent the country from being overflowed by the rivers, the beds of
which have been gradually raised by alluvial deposits, so that now the
surface of the water is considerably above the level of the surrounding
country, as is the case in our own land with the Mississippi river at
New Orleans.
[Sidenote: How Dykes are made.]
These huge ramparts, by which the sea has been made to obey the command
of Canute, sometimes rise to a height of not less than thirty-six feet,
and rest upon massive foundations a hundred and fifty feet wide. They
are made of earth, sand and mud thoroughly consolidated so as to be
impervious to water, and the surface is covered with interwoven willow
twigs, the interstices being filled with clay, and the whole thus
bound into a solid mass. Many of the dykes are planted with trees, the
roots of which help to bind the materials of the structure more firmly
together. Others are protected by bulwarks of masonry or by stakes
driven along the sides, the surface being covered with turf.
[Sidenote: Sand Dunes.]
In addition to the directly aggressive action of the water, the sea has
made trouble for the Hollanders in another way. Along the coast, low
sand hills, from thirty to a hundred and fifty feet high, have been
thrown up by the action of the wind and the waves, and, as these dunes,
if left to themselves, are continually changing their shape, shifting
their position, and scattering their loose sand over the fertile land
adjacent, the people, in order to prevent this, sow them annually with
reed-grass and other plants which will sprout in such poor soil, and
the roots, spreading and intertwining in every direction, gradually
consolidate the sand, form a substratum of vegetable soil, and convert
the arid sand dunes into stable and productive agricultural regions.
[Sidenote: Canals.]
Having thus made his land by walling out the sea and the rivers, and by
anchoring those portions of it which were too much disposed to travel
about, the Dutchman's next task was to provide drains for removing the
superfluous water from the cultivated land, fences for enclosing the
portion belonging to each individual farmer and separating it from that
of his neighbor, and highways for communication and traffic between
the different parts of the country. By means of canals he made the
conquered water serve all three of these purposes. The whole country
is a network of canals, which stretch their shining lengths in every
direction, and which are of all sizes, from the main thoroughfares,
sixty feet wide and six feet deep, along which glide the great barges
laden with merchandise and drawn by sedate horses, down to the ditches
of five or six feet which mark the boundaries of separate farms or
divide the fields of each farmer from one another, canals being used in
this way as uniformly as hedges and fences are in other lands.
[Sidenote: Windmills.]
Remembering, as already stated, that not only the surface of the water,
but the beds of the larger canals are often considerably above the
level of the surrounding country, it will be seen that the problem of
drainage was not an easy one. The Dutch solved it by making the wind
work for them. On every hand are seen windmills, larger and stronger
here than in any other country, swinging their huge arms, and pumping
up the superfluous water from the low lying ground to the canals, which
carry it to the sea. These mills are used also for grinding grain,
cutting tobacco, sawing timber, manufacturing paper, and many other
things for which we use water mills or steam mills.
[Sidenote: Polders.]
Of late, however, windmills have been to a large extent superseded by
steam engines for purposes of drainage, especially in the making of
polders, as they call the marshes or lakes, the beds of which have
been reclaimed by draining. In this process, which is still actively
carried on by speculators, the morass or lake to be drained is first
enclosed with a dyke to prevent the entrance of any water from without.
Then the water within is removed by means of peculiarly constructed
water-wheels, driven by steam engines. Sometimes the lake is so deep
that the water cannot be lifted directly to the main canal, and thus be
carried off, and when this is the case a series of dykes and canals at
different levels has to be made, and the water transferred successively
from one to another. The land thus reclaimed is wonderfully fertile,
since in wet seasons superfluous water can always be quickly removed,
and in dry seasons thorough irrigation can be effected still more
easily and quickly.
If these polders could be looked down upon from a balloon, they
would have a very artificial appearance, something like gigantic
checker-boards, as they have been mapped out with mathematical
precision, divided into rectangular plots by straight canals and
straight rows of trees, and furnished with houses all built on exactly
the same pattern.
The most stupendous work of this kind ever projected is the proposed
construction of an embankment which would convert the Zuider Zee into
a vast lagoon, with an area of 1,400 square miles, two-thirds of which
could be made into a polder. It is estimated that the work would cost
$75,000,000.
It is evident, therefore, that this little nation, which has
accomplished such wonders in making its own land and in keeping it from
being swallowed up by the sea after it was made, and which has in the
past done such great things for liberty and learning, for manufactures
and commerce, is still capable of great enterprises.
[Sidenote: Entering Holland.]
No boy or girl who has read _Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates_ can
ever think of Holland with indifference. No man or woman who has read
Motley's stirring history of the heroic little republic in the Rhine
delta can ever enter the Netherlands without a feeling of the liveliest
interest. No lover of liberty who recalls the sufferings and services
of the Dutch Calvinists in the cause of freedom, and the glorious
victory they achieved against tremendous odds, can set foot on that
sacred soil without a thrill of reverent gratitude.
[Sidenote: The Scenery and the Scenes.]
Such were some of the memories with which our hearts were warmed as
our train from Brussels began to cross the bridges over the broad
estuaries that make in from the sea through the low, flat country, in
the neighborhood of Dordrecht and Rotterdam, and to run through an
unmistakably Dutch landscape, with bright green fields divided into
rectangular sections by hundreds of shining canals, and occupied by
innumerable herds of black and white Holstein cattle, not a few of them
actually wearing jackets, apparently made of burlaps or bagging, to
protect them from the dampness; with level roads running along the tops
of the dykes several yards above the surrounding country, and sedate
looking horses drawing old-fashioned wagons, and brisk looking dogs
drawing clattering milk carts, with their cargo of burnished cans; with
innumerable rows of willow trees, the twigs of which the people use to
make the covering of the dykes, and the wood of which they use to make
their heavy, pointed shoes, or sabots; with picturesque houses roofed
with red tiles, and broad-built peasants working in the fields, wearing
those same wooden sabots, and clean looking market women trudging
into the towns in their exceedingly picturesque head-dress of gold
helmets covered with lace caps; with stiff, symmetrical gardens, and
trees clipped into fantastic shapes; with quaint old church steeples
and gilded weather-cocks; and ever and anon a weather-beaten windmill
swinging its great arms between us and the low horizon. This was
Holland, beyond a doubt.
[Sidenote: Rotterdam.]
An interesting indication of the important part played by the dykes in
the development of Holland is the number of towns which have been named
from the dyke or dam originally built on a site, such as Rotterdam,
Schiedam, Amsterdam, and so on. The first important place we passed
was Rotterdam, the most active seaport of Holland, with a population
of three hundred and twenty thousand, and from the high railway bridge
on which we crossed the Maas we had a good view of the boompjes, as
they call the magnificent quays, which, with their graceful fringe
of trees and their tangled forest of shipping, line the banks of the
river for a mile and a half. We caught a glimpse also of the bronze
statue of Erasmus, the Dutch scholar, who, as some say, "laid the
egg which Luther hatched." On a former visit to Rotterdam I had seen
the birthplace of this illustrious man, bearing on its front the
inscription, "_Haec est parva domus, magnus qua natus Erasmus_" (_this
is the little house in which great Erasmus was born_.)
[Sidenote: The Hague.]
Leaving Rotterdam, we pass on our left Delftshaven, from which a party
of the Pilgrim Fathers sailed to America in 1620; then Schiedam,
noted for its "schnapps," of which there are more than two hundred
distilleries; then Delft, where William the Silent, the immortal
founder of Dutch independence, was assassinated by a Jesuit whom the
Roman Catholic persecutors of the Netherlands had hired to rid them
of their great foeman, but which, I fear, is better known to some of
my readers as the place where a certain blue-glazed earthenware used
to be made in imitation of Chinese porcelain; and then, fifteen miles
from Rotterdam, The Hague, one of the handsomest towns in Holland,
with the Royal Palace, and in a lovely park outside the city the
royal villa, called The House in the Wood, and two miles away on the
sea the fashionable watering-place of Scheveningen, and in the city
itself scrupulously clean and bright houses on every hand, where its
two hundred thousand people live, and, above all, the picture gallery,
with its two world-renowned paintings by Rembrandt and Potter, to say
nothing of others scarcely inferior, if at all so, such as Vermeer's
"View of Delft," with its red and blue roofs partly lit up with
yellow sunlight, a simple view which "is perhaps unmatched by any
other landscape in the world for the truthfulness of its atmospheric
and light effects and for the vigor and brilliance of its coloring."
Paul Potter's "Young Bull" is a marvellous picture, but the one
which demands and repays the longest study is Rembrandt's "School of
Anatomy," which shows us the celebrated Nicolaas Tulp, in black coat,
lace collar and broad-brimmed soft hat, explaining the anatomy of
the arm of a corpse to a body of surgeons, who listen to the lecture
with the most life-like expressions, and which has been happily
characterized as the truest and most life-like representation of the
"working of intellect" ever produced.
[Sidenote: A Presbyterian Government.]
As we had reminded ourselves when visiting the royal residences that
the young and beloved Queen Wilhelmina is the only Presbyterian Queen
in the world, so we reminded ourselves when visiting the Chambers of
the States General that Holland is the only country in the world which
has the good fortune to have a Presbyterian preacher for its Prime
Minister. Of course, other countries have Presbyterian laymen for prime
ministers, Mr. Balfour of Great Britain, for example, but Holland is
the only one that has placed the helm of the state in the hands of a
preacher. His name is the Rev. Dr. Abraham Kuyper, and he is one of
the ablest and most versatile men in the world. His recent book on
_The Holy Spirit_ is the greatest monograph on that subject that has
appeared since the work of John Owen. He has rendered a great service
to the cause of vital religion in checking the rationalistic views of
such men as Professor Kuenen, and strongly reasserting the evangelical
doctrines to which Holland has been so deeply indebted in the past
for the heroic character of her people, and the glorious position she
holds in the history of human freedom. Though the Chambers were not
in session when we visited the Binnenhof, we took special pleasure in
having even the chair of Dr. Kuyper pointed out to us.
[Sidenote: Unpresbyterian Church Buildings.]
By the way, the cathedrals and other great churches of Holland erected
before the Reformation strikingly illustrate how unfit such structures
are for Christian worship, according to the simple New Testament model,
especially for preaching the gospel. They are adapted only to the
spectacular ceremonies of the Roman Catholics and other ritualists.
Therefore, any Protestant community which has had the misfortune to
inherit a cathedral from the unreformed period has an elephant on its
hands. The Dutch people, being mostly Presbyterians, have had this
experience, and, finding themselves unable to make the most effective
use of these great buildings erected for Romish rites, have allowed
them to assume a very unattractive, dreary and barn-like appearance on
the inside.
The question may shock our æsthetic friends, but, notwithstanding
the incalculable loss to art, would it not have been better for the
world if the Protestant countries at the time of the Reformation had
macadamized all their cathedrals? And if any one hesitates to answer
in the affirmative, let him consider carefully the connection between
the modes of worship, and the character of the worshipper, and let him
explain to himself clearly why it is that the countries which have
adopted the Protestant model, with its steady appeal to the reason,
and its earnest insistence upon intelligent apprehension of the
truth, are the cleanest, safest, thriftiest and strongest countries
in the world, while those which have adopted the Romish model, with
its constant appeal to the æsthetic sensibilities, and its millinery,
music, processions, incense, and "vain repetitions," are precisely
the countries which have suffered the greatest material and moral
deterioration, and which were not long ago contemptuously characterized
by Lord Salisbury, the late Premier of Great Britain, as "decaying
nations."