The Canals and Their Population
When Drusus a few years before the commencement of our era excavated the
Yssel canal, and thus gave a new arm to the Rhine, he began a process of
canalization in the Frisian and Batavian provinces which has been going on
more or less ever since. To the foreigner Holland or the Northern
Netherlands must always appear a land of dykes and canals, the one not
more important for protection than the other as an artery of
communication; spreading commerce and supporting national life. Napoleon,
with _naïve_ comprehensiveness, called Holland the alluvion of French
rivers. Dutch patriots declare with legitimate pride, 'God gave us the
sea, but we made the shore,' and no one who has seen the artificial
barrier that guards the mainland from the Hook to the Texel will disparage
their achievement or scoff at their pretensions.
[Illustration: A Sea-Going Canal.]
The sea-dyke saves Holland from the Northern Ocean, sombre and grey in its
most genial mood, menacing and stormy for the long winter of our northern
hemisphere; but it is to the inland dykes that protect the low-lying
polders that Holland owes her prosperity and the sources of wealth which
have made her inhabitants a nation. The original character of the country,
a marshland intersected by the numerous channels of the Rhine and the
Meuse, rendered it imperative that the System of dykes should be
accompanied by a brother system of canals. The over-abundant waters had
not merely to be arrested, they had to be confined and led off into
prepared channels. In this manner also they were made to serve the
purposes of man. High-roads across swamps were either impracticable or too
costly; but canals furnished a sure and convenient means of transport and
communication.
At the same time they did not imperil the security of the country. Roads
on causeways or reared on sunken piles would have opened the door to an
invader, but the canals provided an additional weapon of defence, for the
opening of the dykes sufficed to turn the country again into its primeval
state of marshland. The occasion on which this measure alone saved
Holland during the French invasion of 1670 is a well-known passage in
history, and the hopes of the Dutch in resisting the attack of any
powerful aggressor would centre in the same measure of defence, which is
the submerging of the country, practically speaking, under the waters of
the canals and rivers. There exists a popular belief that there is at
Amsterdam one master key, a turn of which would let loose the waters over
the land, but whether it is well founded or not no one except a very few
officials can say.
Pending any unfortunate necessity for breaking through the dykes and
letting loose the waters, it may be observed in passing that the effectual
maintenance of the dykes is a constant anxiety, and entails strenuous
exertions. They stand in need of repeated repairing, and it is computed
that they are completely reconstructed in the course of every four or five
years. A sum of nearly a million sterling is spent annually on the work.
A large and specially trained staff of engineers are in unceasing harness,
a numerous band of dyke watchers are constantly on the look-out, and when
they raise the shout, 'Come out! come out!' not a man, woman, or child
must hold back from the summons to strengthen the weak points through
which threatens to pass the flood that would overwhelm the land. It is a
constant struggle with nature, in which the victory rests with man. As the
dyke is the bulwark of Dutch prosperity in peace, it might be converted
into the ally of despairing patriotism in war.
There are marked differences among the canals. The two largest and best
known canals, the North Canal and the North Sea Canal, are passages to the
ocean for the largest ships, and specially intended to benefit the trade
of Amsterdam. The North Canal was made in 1819-25, soon after the
restoration of the House of Orange, with an outlet at Helder, near the
mouth of the Texel. It has a breadth of between 40 and 50 yards, a length
of 50 miles, and a depth of 20 feet, which was then thought ample. After
forty years' use this canal was found inadequate from every point of view.
It was accordingly decided to construct a new canal direct from Amsterdam
to Ymuiden across the narrowest strip of Holland. Although the Y was
utilized, the labour on this canal was immense, and occupied a period of
eleven years, being finally thrown open to navigation in 1877. In length
it is under 16 miles, but its average breadth is 100 yards, and the depth
varies from 23 to 27 feet. Consequently the largest ships from America or
the Indies can reach the wharves of Amsterdam as easily as if it were a
port on the sea-coast. Leaving aside the sea-passages that have been
canalized among the islands of Zeeland, the remaining canals are inland
waterways serving as the principal highways of the country, giving one
part of the country access to the other, and especially serving as
approaches or lanes to the great rivers Meuse and Rhine.
[Illustration: A Village in Dyke-Land.]
The interesting canal population of Holland is, of course, to be found on
these canals, which are traversed in unceasing flow from year's end to
year's end by the tjalks, or national barges. On these boats, which more
resemble a lugger than a barge, they navigate not only the canals of their
own country, but the Rhine up to Coblentz, and even above that place. It
has been computed that Germany imports half its food-supply through
Rotterdam, and much of this is borne to its destined markets on tjalks.
The William Canal connects Bois le Duc with Limburg, and saves the great
bend of the Meuse. The Yssel connects with the Drenthe the Orange and the
Reitdiep canals, which convey to the Rhine the produce of remote Groningen
and Friesland. The Rhine represents the destination of the bulk of the
permanent canal population of Holland, whose floating habitations furnish
one of the most interesting sights to be met with on the waters of the
country, but which represent one of the secret phases of the people's
life, into which few tourists or visitors have the opportunity of peering.
The canal population of Holland is fixed on a moderate computation at
50,000 persons. For this number of persons the barge represents the only
fixed home, and the year passes in ceaseless movement across the inland
waters of the country or on the great German river, excepting for the
brief interval when the canals are frozen over in the depth of winter.
Even during these periods of enforced idleness the barge does not the less
continue to be their home, for the simple reason that the canal population
possesses no other. Their whole life for generations, the bringing up and
education of the children, the years of toil from youth to old age, are
passed on these barges, which, varying in size and still more in
condition, are as closely identified with the name of home in their
owners' minds as if they were built of brick and stone on firm land. The
ambition of the youth who tugs at the rope is to possess a tjalk of his
own, and he diligently looks out for the maiden whose dowry will assist
him, with his own savings, to make the purchase. This he may hope to
procure for five or six hundred gulden, if he will be content with one of
limited dimensions, and somewhat marked by time. When a family comes he
will want a larger and more commodious boat, but by that time the profits
which his first tjalk will have earned as a carrier will go far towards
buying a second.
The tjalks are all built in the same form and from a common model. They
carry a mast and sail, although for the greater part of their journeys
they are towed by their owners, or rather by the familles, wife and
children, of the owner. Mynheer, the barge-owner, is usually to be seen
smoking his pipe and taking his ease near the tiller. Formerly it was
otherwise, for the towing was done by dogs, under the personal direction
of, and no doubt with some assistance from, the barge-owner himself, while
his wife and children remained on the poop of the boat. But five and
twenty years ago the authorities of Amsterdam issued a law prohibiting the
employment of dogs in the work of towing, and gradually this law was
generally adopted and enforced throughout the country. When dogs were
emancipated from their servitude on the canal-bank the family had to take
their places, and by degrees the ease-loving head of the family has grown
content to look on and think towing a labour reflecting on his dignity.
There is nothing unusual in the sight of a barge being towed by an old
woman, her daughter or daughter-in-law, and several children. As they
strain at the rope the work seems extremely hard, but the people
themselves appear unconscious of any hardship or inequality in the
distribution of labour.
The barge is in the first place a conveyance. The whole of the front part
of the boat represents the hold in which the cargo is placed. This is
generally represented by cheese or vegetables, timber, peat, and stones,
the last-named being a return-cargo for the repairing of dykes and the
construction of quays. But in the second place it is a house or place of
residence, and the stern of the boat is given up for that purpose. The
living room is the raised deck or poop, on which is not only the tiller,
but the cooking-stove. The sleeping-room forms the one covered-in
apartment. It is easily divisible into two by a temporary or removable
partition, and it always possesses the two little windows, one on each
side of the tiller, which give it so great a resemblance to a doll's
house. This resemblance is certainly heightened by the custom of colouring
the barges, which are always painted a bright colour, red or green being
perhaps the most usual. As ornament there is usually a good deal of
brasswork; the handle of the tiller is generally bordered with the metal,
and the owner seems to take pride in nailing brass along the bulwarks of
his boat where it is not wanted and is even little seen. It has been
suggested that the polishing of these brass plates or bars provides a
pleasant change from the dull routine work of towing. The brightness of
the paint and the brasswork constitutes the pride of the barge-owners, and
supplies a standard of comparison among them.
To increase the homelike aspect of this water residence, birds and plants,
always in more or less quantity and variety, are to be seen either in the
windows or on the deck. The poorest bargee, which generally means the
youngest or the beginner, will have one song-bird in a gilt cage, and as
he accumulates money in his really profitable calling, he will add to his
collection of birds a row of flowers and bulbs in pots. Thus he says, with
a glow of satisfaction, 'I possess an aviary and a garden, like my cousin
Hans on the polders, although my home is on the moving waters.' To
strengthen the illusion what does he do but fix a toy gate on the poop
above his sleeping-cabin, and thus cherishes the belief that he is on his
own domain? In the evening, when the towing is over for the day, the women
bring out their sewing, the children play round the tiller, and the good
man smokes his immense pipe with complete and indolent satisfaction. And
so day passes on to day without a variation, and life runs by without a
ripple or a murmur for the canal population, while the mere landsmen look
on with envy at what seems to them an idyllic existence, and even ladies
of breeding and high station have been known to declare that they would
gladly change places with the mistress of the bargee's quarter-deck. That
was no doubt in the days before women had to take on themselves the brunt
and burden of the towing.
[Illustration: A Canal in Dordrecht.]
But even for the canal population of Holland the halcyon days are past.
The spirit of reform is in the air. It may not be long before the tjalk,
with its doll's house and its residential population, will finally
disappear, and leave the canals of Holland as dull and colourless as the
inland waters of any other country. The reform seems likely to come about
in this way. There are at least 30,000 children resident on the
canal-boats. How are they to be properly educated and brought up as useful
citizens if they are to continue to lead a migratory existence which never
leaves them for a fortnight in a single place? Formerly, nobody cared
whether they were educated or not. They were left undisturbed to live
their lives in their own simple and primitive way. As De Amicis wrote:
'The children are born and grow up on the water; the boat carries all
their small belongings, their domestic affections, their past, their
present, and their future. They labour and save, and after many years they
buy a larger boat, selling the old one to a family poorer than themselves,
or handing it over to the eldest son, who in his turn instals his wife,
taken from another boat, and seen for the first time in a chance meeting
on the canal.' But now the State has begun to interest itself in the
children, and its intervention threatens to put a rude and summary ending
to the system of heredity and exclusion which has kept the canal
population a class apart.
For some time past schools have been in existence, especially devoted to
the education of the barge children, and whenever the barges are moored in
harbour the children are expected to attend them. But these periods of
halting are very brief and uncertain. The stationary barge earns no money,
and it may even be that the parents evade the law as far as possible for
fear of seeing their children acquire a distaste for the life in which
they have been brought up. But the Government, having taken one step in
the matter, cannot afford to go back, and it must also have definite
satisfactory results to show for its legislation. The tentative measure of
temporary schools along the canals has not leavened the illiteracy of the
canal population. It will, therefore, become necessary at no great
interval to devise some fresh and drastic regulations. Compulsory
attendance at school for nine months of the year, which now applies to
children in normal circumstances, may not be the lot of the barge children
for some time, but when it comes, as it inevitably will one day, it will
of necessity mean the break-up of the home life on the canals, for the
children will have to be left behind during the almost unceasing voyages,
and a place of residence will have to be provided on land. Where the
children are the women will soon be, and gradually this place of residence
will become the home, displacing the barge in the associations and
affections of the canal population. Whether these changes will benefit
those most affected by them cannot be guaranteed, but at least they will
put an end to the separate existence of the canal population.
When this result has been compassed by the inexorable progress of
education and knowledge, the gradual disappearance of the canal
population, the class of hereditary bargees as we have known it, and as it
still exists, may be expected to follow at no remote date, for it was
based on the enforcement of the family principle, and on the devotion of a
whole community, from its youngest to its eldest member, to its
maintenance. As it is the tow-barge is something of an anachronism, but
the withdrawal of the youthful recruits, whose up-bringing alone rendered
it possible, will entail its inevitable extinction. The decay and break-up
of the guild of tjalk owners will be hastened by the introduction of steam
and electricity as means of locomotion. The canals will lose the
bright-coloured barges which are to-day their most striking feature, and
the population that has so long floated over their surface. Life will be
duller and more monotonous. The canal population, so long distinct, will
be merged in the rest of the community. The tug will displace the
tow-rope. The pullers will be housed on land, mastering the three R's
instead of learning to strain at the girth.
But there is still a brief period left during which the canal population
may be seen in its original primitive existence, devoted to the barge,
which is the only home known to six or seven thousand families, and
traversing the water roads of their country in unceasing and endless
progression. There is nothing like it in any other country of Europe.
Venice has its water routes, but the gondola is not a domicile. There was
a canal population in England, but, like much else in our modern life, it
has lost whatever picturesqueness it might once have claimed. For a true
canal population, bright and happy, living the same life from father to
son and generation to generation, we must go to Holland. There these
inland navigators ply their vocation with only one ambition, and that to
become the owner of a tjalk, and to rear thereon a family of towers. It is
said that the life is one that requires the consumption of unlimited
quantitics of 'schnapps,' and the humidity of the atmosphere is undoubted.
But even free libations do not diminish the prosperity of the bargees.
They are a thriving race, and it must also be noted to their credit that
they are well behaved, and not given to quarrels. Collisions on the
thickly-covered canals are rare; malicious collisions are unknown. The
barges pass and repass without hindrance, the tow-ropes never get
entangled, there is mutual forbearance, and the skill derived from long
experience in slipping the ropes uncler the barges does the rest. The
conditions under which the canal population exists and thrives are a
survival of an older order of things. When they disappear another of the
few picturesque heritages of mediæval life will have been removecl from
the hurly-burly and fierce competition of modern existence.