Friesland: Stavoren to Leeuwarden
Enkhuisen to Stavoren--Draining the Zuyder
Zee--The widow and the sandbank--Frisian births and
courtships--Hindeloopen--Quaint rooms and houses--A
pious pun--Biers for all trades--Sneek--Barge life--Two
giants--Bolsward--The cow--A digression on the weed.
The traveller from Amsterdam enters Free Frisia at Stavoren, once
the home of kings and now a mere haven. A little steamer carries
the passengers from Enkhuisen, while the cattle trucks and vans of
merchandise cross the Zuyder Zee in a huge railway raft. The steamer
takes an hour or a little longer--time enough to have lunch on deck if
it is fine, and watch Enkhuisen fading into nothingness and Stavoren
rising from the sea.
Before the thirteenth century the Zuyder Zee consisted only of
Lake Flevo, south of Stavoren and Enkhuisen, so that our passage
then would have been made on land. But in 1282 came a great tempest
which drove the German ocean over the north-west shores of Holland,
insulating Texel and pouring over the low land between Holland and
Friesland. The scheme now in contemplation to drain the Zuyder Zee
proposes a dam from Enkhuisen to Piaam, thus reclaiming some 1,350,000
acres for meadow land. Since what man has done man can do, there is
little doubt but that the Dutch will carry through this great project.
Concerning Stavoren there is now but one thing to say, and no writer
on Holland has had the temerity to avoid saying it. That thing is the
story of the widow and the sandbank. It seems that at Stavoren in its
palmy days was a wealthy widow shipowner, who once gave instructions
to one of her captains, bound for a foreign port, that he should
bring back the most valuable and precious thing to be found there,
in exchange for the outward cargo. The widow expected I know not
what--ivory, perhaps, or peacocks, or chrysoprase--and when the
captain brought only grain, she was so incensed that, though the poor
of Stavoren implored her to give it them, she bade him forthwith throw
it overboard. This he did, and the corn being cursed there sprang up
on that spot a sandbank which gradually ruined the harbour and the
town. The bank is called The Widow's Corn to this day.
It was near Stavoren that M. Havard engaged in a pleasant and improving
conversation with a lock-keeper who had fought with France, and from
him learned some curious things about Friesland customs. I quote
a little: "When a wife has given birth to a boy and added a son to
Friesland, all her female friends come to see her and drink in her room
the _brandewyn_, which is handed round in a special cup or goblet. Each
woman brings with her a large tart, all of which are laid out in the
room--sometimes they number as many as thirty. The more there are
and the finer the cakes the better, because that proves the number of
friends. A few days later the new-born Frieslander is taken to church,
all the girls from twelve years old accompanying the child and carrying
it each in turn. As soon as they reach the church the child is handed
to the father, who presents it for baptism. Not a girl in the place
would renounce her right to take part in the little procession,
for it is a subject of boasting when she marries to be able to say,
'I have accompanied this and that child to its baptism'. Besides,
it is supposed to ensure happiness, and that she in her turn will
have a goodly number of little ones.
"'Well and how about betrothals?' 'Ah! ha! that's another thing. The
girl chooses the lad. You know the old proverb, 'There are only
two things a girl chooses herself--her potatoes and her lover'. You
can well imagine how such things begin. They see each other at the
_kermis_, or in the street, or fields. Then one fine day the lad
feels his heart beating louder than usual. In the evening he puts on
his best coat, and goes up to the house where the girl lives.
"The father and mother give him a welcome, which the girls smile at,
and nudge each other. No one refers to the reason for his visit, though
of course it is well known why he is there. At last, when bedtime
comes, the children retire--even the father and mother go to their
room--and the girl is left alone at the fireside with the young man.
"They speak of this and that, and everything, but not a word of love
is uttered. If the girl lets the fire go down, it is a sign she does
not care for the lad, and won't have him for a husband. If, on the
contrary, she heaps fuel on the fire, he knows that she loves him
and means to accept him for her affianced husband. In the first case,
all the poor lad has to do is to open the door and retire, and never
put his foot in the house again. But, in the other, he knows it is
all right, and from that day forward he is treated as if he belonged
to the family.'
"'And how long does the engagement last?'
"'Oh, about as long as everywhere else--two, three years, more or less,
and that is the happiest time of their lives. The lad takes his girl
about everywhere; they go to the _kermis_, skate, and amuse themselves,
and no one troubles or inquires about them. Even the girl's parents
allow her to go about with her lover without asking any questions.'"
A Dutch proverb says, "Take a Brabant sheep, a Guelderland ox,
a Flemish capon and a Frisian cow". The taking of the Frisian cow
certainly presents few difficulties, for the surface of Friesland
is speckled thickly with that gentle animal--ample in size and black
and white in hue. The only creatures that one sees from the carriage
windows on the railway journey are cows in the fields and plovers above
them. Now and then a man in his blue linen coat, now and then a heron;
but cows always and plovers always. Never a bullock. The meadows of
Holland are a female republic. Perkin Middlewick (in _Our Boys_)
had made so much money out of pork that whenever he met a pig he
was tempted to raise his hat; the Dutch, especially of North Holland
and Friesland, should do equal homage to their friend the cow. Edam
acknowledges the obligation in her municipal escutcheon.
Stavoren may be dull and unalluring, but not so Hindeloopen,
the third station on the railway to Leeuwarden, where we shall
stay. At Hindeloopen the journey should be broken for two or three
hours. Should, nay must. Hindeloopen (which means stag hunt) has been
called the Museum of Holland. All that is most picturesque in Dutch
furniture and costume comes from this little town--or professes to do
so, for the manufacture of spurious Hindeloopen cradles and stoofjes,
chairs and cupboards, is probably a recognised industry.
In the museum at Leeuwarden are two rooms arranged and furnished
exactly in the genuine Hindeloopen manner, and they are exceedingly
charming and gay. The smaller of the two has the ordinary blue and
white Dutch tiles, with scriptural or other subjects, around the
walls to the height of six feet; above them are pure white tiles, to
the ceiling, with an occasional delicate blue pattern. The floor is
of red and brown tiles. All the furniture is painted very gaily upon
a cream or white background--with a gaiety that has a touch of the
Orient in it. The bed is hidden behind painted woodwork in the wall,
like a berth, and is gained by a little flight of movable steps,
also radiant. I never saw so happy a room. On the wall is a cabinet
of curios and silver ornaments.
The larger room is similiar but more costly. On the wall are fine
Delft plates, and seated at the table are wax Hindeloopeners: a man
with a clay pipe and tobacco box, wearing a long flowered waistcoat,
a crossed white neckcloth and black coat and hat--not unlike a Quaker
in festival attire; and his neat and very picturesque women folk
are around him. In the cradle, enshrined in ornamentations, is a
Hindeloopen baby. More old silver and shining brass here and there,
and the same resolute cheerfulness of colouring everywhere. Some of
the houses in which such rooms were found still stand at Hindeloopen.
The Dutch once liked puns, and perhaps still do so. Again and again
in their old inscriptions one finds experiments in the punning art,
On the church of Hindeloopen, for example, are these lines:--
Des heeren woord
Met aandacht hoort
Komt daartoe met hoopen
Als hinden loopen.
The poet must have had a drop of Salvationist blood in his veins,
for only in General Booth's splendid followers do we look for such
spirited invitations. The verses call upon worshippers to run together
like deer to hear the word of God.
Within the great church, among other interesting things, are a large
number of biers. These also are decorated according to the pretty
Hindeloopen usage, one for the dead of each trade. Order even in
death. The Hindeloopen baker who has breathed his last must be carried
to the grave on the bakers' bier, or the proprieties will wince.
After Hindeloopen the first town of importance on the way to Leeuwarden
is Sneek; and Sneek is not important. But Sneek has a water-gate of
quaint symmetrical charm, with two little spires--the least little
bit like the infant child of the Amsterdam Gate at Haarlem. In common
with so many Frisian towns Sneek has suffered from flood. A disastrous
inundation overwhelmed her on the evening of All Saints' Day in 1825,
when the dykes were broken and the water rushed in to the height
of five feet. Such must be great times of triumph for the floating
population, who, like the sailor in the old ballad of the sea, may
well pity the unfortunate and insecure dwellers in houses. What the
number of Friesland's floating population is I do not know; but it
must be very large. Many barges and tjalcks are both the birthplace
and deathplace of their owners, who know no other home. The cabins
are not less intimately cared for and decorated than the sitting-rooms
of Volendam and Marken.
We saw at Edam certain odd characters formed in Nature's wayward
moods. Sneek also possessed a giant named Lange Jacob, who was eight
feet tall and the husband of Korte Jannetje (Little Jenny), who was
just half that height. People came from great distances to see this
couple. And at Sneek, in the church of St. Martin, is buried a giant
of more renown and prowess--Peter van Heemstra, or "Lange Pier" as he
was called from his inches, a sea ravener of notable ferocity, whose
two-handed sword is preserved at Leeuwarden--although, as M. Havard
says, what useful purpose a two-handed sword can serve to an admiral
on a small ship baffles reflection.
Bolsward, Sneek's neighbour, is another amphibious town, with a very
charming stadhuis in red and white, crowned by an Oriental bell
tower completely out of keeping with the modern Frisian who hears
its voice. This constant occurrence of Oriental freakishness in
the architecture of Dutch towns, in contrast with Dutch occidental
four-square simplicity and plainness of character, is an effect to
which one never quite grows accustomed.
Bolsward's church, which is paved with tomb-stones, among them
some very rich ones in high relief--too high for the comfort of the
desecrating foot--has a fine carved pulpit, some oak stalls of great
antiquity and an imposing bell tower.
It is claimed that the Frisians were the first Europeans to smoke
pipes. Whether or not that is the case, the Dutch are now the greatest
smokers. Recent statistics show that whereas the annual consumption of
tobacco by every inhabitant of Great Britain and Ireland is 1.34 lb.,
and of Germany 3 lb., that of the Dutch is 7 lb. Putting the smoking
population at 30 per cent. of the total--allowing thus for women,
children and non-smokers--this means that every Dutch smoker consumes
about eight ounces of tobacco a week, or a little more than an ounce
a day.
I excepted women and children, but that is wrong. The boys smoke
too--sometimes pipes, oftenest cigars. At a music hall at The Hague I
watched a contest in generosity between two friends in a family party
as to which should supply a small boy in sailor suit, evidently the
son of the host, with a cigar. Both won.
Fell, writing in 1801, says that the Dutch, although smoke dried, were
not then smoking so much as they had done twenty years before. The
Dutchmen, he says, "of the lower classes of society, and not a few in
the higher walks of life, carry in their pockets the whole apparatus
which is necessary for smoking:--a box of enormous size, which
frequently contains half a pound of tobacco; a pipe of clay or ivory,
according to the fancy or wealth of the possessor; if the latter,
instruments to clean it; a pricker to remove obstructions from the tube
of the pipe; a cover of brass wire for the bowl, to prevent the ashes
or sparks of the tobacco from flying out; and sometimes a tinderbox,
or bottle of phosphorus, to procure fire, in case none is at hand.
"The excuse of the Dutch for their lavish attachment to tobacco, in
the most offensive form in which it can be exhibited, is, that the
smoke of this transatlantic weed preserves them from many disorders
to which they are liable from the moisture of the atmosphere of their
country, and enables them to bear cold and wet without inconvenience."
Fell supports this curious theory by relating that when, soaked by a
storm, he arrived at an inn at Overschie, the landlord offered him
a pipe of tobacco to prevent any bad consequences. Fell, however,
having none of his friend Charles Lamb's affection for the friendly
traitress, declined it with asperity.
Ireland has an ingenious theory to account for the addiction of the
Dutch to tobacco. It is, he says, the succedaneum to purify the
unwholesome exhalations of the canals. "A Dutchman's taciturnity
forbids his complaining; so that all his waking hours are silently
employed in casting forth the filthy puff of the weed, to dispel the
more filthy stench of the canal."
Ireland's view was probably an invention; but this I know, that the
Dutch cigar and the Dutch atmosphere are singularly well adapted to
each other. I brought home a box of a brand which was agreeable in
Holland, and they were unendurable in the sweet air of Kent.
The cigar is the national medium for consuming tobacco, cigarettes
being practically unknown, and pipes rare in the streets. My experience
of the Dutch cigar is that it is a very harmless luxury and a very
persuasive one. After a little while it becomes second nature to
drop into a tobacconist's and slip a dozen cigars into one's pocket,
at a cost of a few pence; and the cigars being there, it is another
case of second nature to smoke them practically continuously. Of these
cigars, which range in price from one or two cents to a few pence each,
there are hundreds if not thousands of varieties.
The number of tobacconists in Holland must be very great, and the
trade is probably strong enough to resist effectually the impost on
the weed which was recently threatened by a daring Minister, if ever
it is attempted. The pretty French custom of giving tobacco licences
to the widows of soldiers is not adopted here; indeed I do not see
that it could be, for the army is only 100,000 strong. In times of
stress it might perhaps be advisable to send the tobacconists out to
fight, and keep the soldiers to mind as many of their shops as could
be managed, shutting up the rest.