Dutch cities seem, at first sight, to be a bewildering jumble of
houses, bridges, churches, and ships, sprouting into masts, steeples,
and trees. In some cities boats are hitched, like horses, to their
owners’ door-posts, and receive their freight from the upper windows.
Mothers scream to their children not to swing on the garden gate for
fear they may be drowned. Water roads are more frequent in Holland than
common roads and railroads; water fences, in the form of lazy green
ditches, enclose pleasure-ground, farm, and garden.
Sometimes fine green hedges are seen; but wooden fences, such as we
have, are rarely met with in Holland. As for stone fences, a Hollander
would lift his hands with astonishment at the very idea. There is no
stone there, excepting those great, masses of rock that have been
brought from other lands, to strengthen and protect the coast. All the
small stones or pebbles, if there ever were any, seem to be imprisoned
in pavements or quite melted away. Boys, with strong, quick arms, may
grow from aprons to full beards, without ever finding one to start the
water-rings, or set the rabbits flying.
The water-roads are nothing less than canals crossing the country in
every direction. These are of all sizes, from the great North Holland
Ship Canal, which is the wonder of the world, to those which a boy can
leap. Water-omnibuses constantly ply up and down these roads for the
conveyance of passengers; and water-drays are used for carrying fuel
and merchandise.
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Instead of green country lanes, green canals stretch from field to
barn, and from barn to garden; and the farms are merely great lakes
pumped dry. Some of the busiest streets are water, while many of the
country roads are paved with brick. The city boats, with their rounded
sterns, gilded bows, and gayly-painted sides, are unlike any others
under the sun; a Dutch waggon, with its funny little crooked pole, is a
perfect mystery of mysteries.
One thing is clear, you may think that the inhabitants need never be
thirsty. But no, Odd-land is true to itself still. With the sea pushing
to get in, and the lakes struggling to get out, and the overflowing
canals, rivers, and ditches, in many districts there is no water that
is fit to swallow. Our poor Hollanders must go dry, or send far inland
for that precious fluid, older than Adam, yet young as the morning dew.
Sometimes, indeed, the inhabitants can swallow a shower, when they are
provided with any means of catching it; but generally they are like the
sailors told of in a famous poem, who saw
“Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink!”
Great flapping windmills all over the country make it look as if flocks
of huge sea-birds were just settling upon it. Everywhere one sees the
funniest trees, bobbed into all sorts of odd shapes, with their trunks
painted a dazzling white, yellow, or red.
Horses are often yoked three abreast. Men, women and children go
clattering about in wooden shoes with loose heels.
Husbands and wives lovingly harness themselves side by side on the bank
of the canal and drag their produce to market.