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ROLLO IN HOLLAND,
BY
JACOB ABBOTT.
BOSTON: BROWN, TAGGARD & CHASE,
SUCCESSORS TO W. J. REYNOLDS & CO., 25 & 29 CORNHILL.
1857.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
JACOB ABBOTT,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
STEREOTYPED AT THE
BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. Damrell & Moore, Printers, Boston.
[Illustration: ROLLO IN HOLLAND.]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--PREPARATIONS, 11
II.--A BAD TRAVELLING COMPANION, 26
III.--THE MAIL STEAMER, 44
IV.--ENTERING HOLLAND, 67
V.--WALKS ABOUT ROTTERDAM, 86
VI.--DOING THE HAGUE, 109
VII.--CORRESPONDENCE, 138
VIII.--THE COMMISSIONER, 160
IX.--THE GREAT CANAL, 169
X.--THE DAIRY VILLAGE, 186
XI.--CONCLUSION, 200
ENGRAVINGS.
ROLLO IN HOLLAND.--(Frontispiece.) PAGE
VIEW IN HOLLAND, 10
THE HANSOM CAB, 33
LANDING FROM THE MAIL BOAT, 57
DORT, 83
THE FERRY BOAT, 101
THE DINNER, 124
THE BOAT FAMILY, 154
THE TREKSCHUYT, 181
THE DAIRY VILLAGE, 193
CABIN OF PETER THE GREAT, 204
ROLLO'S TOUR IN EUROPE.
ORDER OF THE VOLUMES.
ROLLO ON THE ATLANTIC.
ROLLO IN PARIS.
ROLLO IN SWITZERLAND.
ROLLO IN LONDON.
ROLLO ON THE RHINE.
ROLLO IN SCOTLAND.
ROLLO IN GENEVA.
ROLLO IN HOLLAND.
ROLLO IN NAPLES.
ROLLO IN ROME.
[Illustration: VIEW IN HOLLAND.]
ROLLO IN HOLLAND.
CHAPTER I.
PREPARATIONS.
Holland is one of the most remarkable countries on the globe. The
peculiarities which make it remarkable arise from the fact that it is
almost perfectly level throughout, and it lies so low. A very large
portion of it, in fact, lies below the level of the sea, the waters
being kept out, as every body knows, by immense dikes that have stood
for ages.
These dikes are so immense, and they are so concealed by the houses, and
trees, and mills, and even villages that cover and disguise them, that
when the traveller first sees them he can hardly believe that they are
dikes. Some of them are several hundred feet wide, and have a good broad
public road upon the top, with a canal perhaps by the side of it, and
avenues of trees, and road-side inns, and immense wind mills on the
other hand. When riding or walking along upon such a dike on one side,
down a long slope, they have a glimpse of water between the trees. On
the other, at an equal distance you see a green expanse of country, with
gardens, orchards, fields of corn and grain, and scattered farm houses
extending far and wide. At first you do not perceive that this beautiful
country that you see spreading in every direction on one side of the
road is below the level of the water that you see on the other side; but
on a careful comparison you find that it is so. When the tide is high
the difference is very great, and were it not for the dikes the people
would be inundated.[1]
[Footnote 1: See Frontispiece.]
Indeed, the dikes alone would not prevent the country from being
inundated; for it is not possible to make them perfectly tight, and even
if it were so, the soil beneath them is more or less pervious to water,
and thus the water of the sea and of the rivers would slowly press its
way through the lower strata, and oozing up into the land beyond, would
soon make it all a swamp.
Then, besides the interpercolation from the soil, there is the rain. In
upland countries, the surplus water that falls in rain flows off in
brooks and rivers to the sea; but in land that is below the level of
the sea, there can be no natural flow of either brooks or rivers. The
rain water, therefore, that falls on this low land would remain there
stagnant, except the comparatively small portion of it that would be
evaporated by the sun and wind.
Thus you see, that if the people of Holland were to rely on the dikes
alone to keep the land dry, the country would become in a very short
time one immense morass.
To prevent this result it is necessary to adopt some plan to raise the
water, as fast as it accumulates in the low grounds, and convey it away.
This is done by pumps and other such hydraulic engines, and these are
worked in general by wind mills.
They might be worked by steam engines; but steam engines are much more
expensive than wind mills. It not only costs much more to make them, but
the expense of working them from day to day is very great, on account of
the fuel which they require. The necessary attendance on a steam engine,
too, is very expensive. There must be engineers, with high pay, to watch
the engine and to keep it always in order, and firemen to feed the
fires, and ashmen to carry away the ashes and cinders. Whereas a wind
mill takes care of itself.
The wind makes the wind mills go, and the wind costs nothing. It is
true, that the head of the mill must be changed from time to time, so as
to present the sails always in proper direction to the wind. But even
this is done by the wind itself. There is a contrivance by which the
mill is made to turn itself so as to face always in the right direction
towards the wind; and not only so, but the mill is sometimes so
constructed that if the wind blows too hard, it takes in a part of the
sails by its own spontaneous action, and thus diminishes the strain
which might otherwise be injurious to the machinery.
Now, since the advantages of wind mills are so great over steam engines,
in respect especially to cheapness, perhaps you will ask why steam is
employed at all to turn machinery, instead of always using the wind. The
reason is, because the wind is so unsteady. Some days a wind mill will
work, and some days it will lie still; and thus in regard to the time
when it will do what is required of it, no reliance can be placed upon
it. This is of very little consequence in the work of pumping up water
from the sunken country in Holland; for, if for several days the mills
should not do their work, no great harm would come of it, since the
amount of water which would accumulate in that time would not do any
harm. The ground might become more wet, and the canals and reservoirs
get full,--just as brooks and rivers do on any upland country after a
long rain. But then, after the calm was over and the wind began to blow
again, the mills would all go industriously to work, and the surplus
water would soon be pumped up, and discharged over the dikes into the
sea again.
Thus the irregularity in the action of the wind mills in doing such work
as this, is of comparatively little consequence.
But in the case of some other kinds of work,--as for example the driving
of a cotton mill, or any other great manufactory in which a large number
of persons are employed,--it would be of the greatest possible
consequence; for when a calm time came, and the wind mill would not
work, all the hands would be thrown out of employ. They might sometimes
remain idle thus a number of days at a time, at a great expense to their
employers, or else at a great loss to themselves. Sometimes, for
example, there might be a fine breeze in the morning, and all the hands
would go to the mill and begin their work. In an hour the breeze might
entirely die away, and the spinners and weavers would all find their
jennies and looms going slower and slower, and finally stopping
altogether. And then, perhaps, two hours afterwards, when they had all
given up the day's work and gone away to their respective homes, the
breeze would spring up again, and the wind mill would go to work more
industriously than ever.
This would not answer at all for a cotton mill, but it does very well
for pumping up water from a great reservoir into which drains and canals
discharge themselves to keep a country dry.
And this reminds me of one great advantage which the people of Holland
enjoy on account of the low and level condition of their country; and
that is, it is extremely easy to make canals there. There are not only
no mountains or rocks in the way to impede the digging of them, but,
what is perhaps a still more important advantage, there is no difficulty
in filling them with water. In other countries, when a canal is to be
made, the very first question is, How is it to be filled? For this
purpose the engineer explores the whole country through which the canal
is to pass, to find rivers and streams that he can turn into it, when
the bed of it shall have been excavated; and sometimes he has to bring
these supplies of water for a great distance in artificial channels,
which often cross valleys by means of great aqueducts built up to hold
them. Sometimes a brook is in this way brought across a river,--the
river itself not being high enough to feed the canal.
The people of Holland have no such difficulties as these to encounter in
their canals. The whole country being so nearly on a level with the sea,
they have nothing to do, when they wish for a canal, but to extend it in
some part to the sea shore, and then open a sluice way and let the water
in.
It is true that sometimes they have to provide means to prevent the
ingress of too much water; but this is very easily done.
It is thus so easy to make canals in Holland, that the people have been
making them for hundreds of years, until now almost the whole country is
intersected every where with canals, as other countries are with roads.
Almost all the traffic, and, until lately, almost all the travel of the
country, has been upon the canals. There are private canals, too, as
well as public. A farmer brings home his hay and grain from his fields
by water, and when he buys a new piece of land he makes a canal to it,
as a Vermont farmer would make a road to a new pasture or wood lot that
he had been buying.
Rollo wished very much to see all these things--but there was one
question which it puzzled him very much to decide, and that was whether
he would rather go to Holland in the summer or in the winter.
"I am not certain," said he to his mother one day, "whether it would not
be better for me to go in the winter."
"It is very cold there in the winter," said his mother; "so I am told."
"That is the very thing," said Rollo. "They have such excellent skating
on the canals. I want to see the boats go on the canals, and I want to
see the skating, and I don't know which I want to see most."
"Yes," said his mother, "I recollect to have often seen pictures of
skating on the Dutch canals."
"And I read, when I was a boy," continued Rollo, "that the women skate
to market in Holland."
Rollo here observed that his mother was endeavoring to suppress a smile.
She seemed to try very hard, but she could not succeed in keeping
perfectly sober.
"What are you laughing at, mother?" asked Rollo.
Here Mrs. Holiday could no longer restrain herself, but laughed
outright.
"Is it about the Dutch women skating to market?" asked Rollo.
"I think they must look quite funny, at any rate," said Mrs. Holiday.
What Mrs. Holiday was really laughing at was to hear Rollo talk about
"when he was a boy." But the fact was, that Rollo had now travelled
about so much, and taken care of himself in so many exigencies, that he
began to feel quite like a man. And indeed I do not think it at all
surprising that he felt so.
"Which would you do, mother," said Rollo, "if you were I? Would you
rather go in the summer or in the winter?"
"I would ask uncle George," said Mrs. Holiday.
So Rollo went to find his uncle George.
Rollo was at this time at Morley's Hotel, in London, and he expected to
find his uncle George in what is called the coffee room. The coffee room
in Morley's Hotel is a very pleasant place. It fronts on one side upon a
very busy and brilliant street, and on another upon a large open square,
adorned with monuments and fountains. On the side towards the square is
a bay window, and near this bay window were two or three small tables,
with gentlemen sitting at them, engaged in writing. There were other
tables along the sides of the room and at the other windows, where
gentlemen were taking breakfast. Mr. George was at one of the tables
near the bay window, and was busy writing.
Rollo went to the place, and standing by Mr. George's side, he said in
an under tone,--
"Uncle George."
Every body speaks in an under tone in an English coffee room. They do
this in order not to interrupt the conversation, or the reading, or the
writing of other gentlemen that may be in the room.
"Wait a moment," said Mr. George, "till I finish this letter."
So Rollo turned to the bay window and looked out, in order to amuse
himself with what he might observe in the street, till his uncle George
should be ready to talk with him.
He saw the fountains in the square, and a great many children playing
about the basins. He saw a poor boy at a crossing brushing the pavement
industriously with an old broom, and then holding out his hand to the
people passing by, in hopes that some of them would give him a
halfpenny. He saw a policeman walking slowly up and down on the
sidewalk, wearing a glazed hat, and a uniform of blue broadcloth, with
his letter and number embroidered on the collar. He saw an elegant
carriage drive by, with a postilion riding upon one of the horses, and
two footmen in very splendid liveries behind. There was a lady in the
carriage, but she appeared old, and though she was splendidly dressed,
her face was very plain.
"I wonder," said Rollo to himself, "how much she would give of her
riches and finery if she could be as young and as pretty as my cousin
Lucy."
"Now, Rollo," said Mr. George, interrupting Rollo's reflections, "what
is the question?"
"Why, I want to know," said Rollo, "whether you think we had better go
to Holland in the winter or in the summer."
"Is it left to you to decide?" asked Mr. George.
"Why, no," said Rollo, "not exactly. But mother asked me to consider
which I thought was best, and so I want to know your opinion."
"Very well," said Mr. George, "go on and argue the case. After I have
heard it argued I will decide."
Rollo then proceeded to explain to his uncle the advantages,
respectively, of going in the summer and in the winter. After hearing
him, Mr. George thought it would be decidedly better to go in the
summer.
"You see," said he, "that the only advantage of going in the winter is
to see the skating. That is very important, I know. I should like to
see the Dutch women skating to market myself, very much. But then, in
the winter you could see very little of the canals, and the wind mills,
and all the other hydraulic operations of the country. Every thing would
be frozen up solid."
"Father says that he can't go now very well," continued Rollo, "but that
I may go with you if you would like to go."
Mr. George was just in the act of sealing his letter as Rollo spoke
these words; but he paused in the operation, holding the stick of
sealing wax in one hand and the letter in the other, as if he was
reflecting on what Rollo had said.
"If we only had some one else to go with us," said Mr. George.
"Should not we two be enough?" asked Rollo.
"Why, you see," said Mr. George, "when we get into Holland we shall not
understand one word of the language."
"What language do they speak?" asked Rollo.
"Dutch," said Mr. George, "and I do not know any Dutch."
"Not a word?" asked Rollo.
"No," said Mr. George, "not a word. Ah, yes! I know one word. I know
that _dampschiff_ means steamboat. _Damp_, I suppose, means steam."
Then Rollo laughed outright. Dampskiff, he said, was the funniest name
for steamboat that he ever heard.
"Now, when we don't know a word of the language," added Mr. George, "we
cannot have any communication with the people of the country, but shall
be confined entirely to each other. Now, do you think that you could get
along with having nobody but me to talk to you for a whole fortnight?"
"Yes, indeed!" said Rollo. "But then, uncle George," he continued, "how
are you going to get along at the hotels without knowing how to speak to
the people at all?"
"By signs and gestures," said Mr. George, laughing. "Could not you make
a sign for something to eat?"
"O, yes," said Rollo; and he immediately began to make believe eat,
moving his hands as if he had a knife and fork in them.
"And what sign would you make for going to bed?" asked Mr. George.
Here Rollo laid his head down to one side, and placed his hand under it,
as if it were a pillow, and then shut his eyes.
"That is the sign for going to bed," said Rollo. "A deaf and dumb boy
taught it to me."
"I wish he had taught you some more signs," said Mr. George. "Or I wish
we had a deaf and dumb boy here to go with us. Deaf and dumb people can
get along excellently well where they do not understand the language,
because they know how to make so many signs."
"O, we can make up the signs as we go along," said Rollo.
"Yes," said Mr. George. "I don't think that we shall have any great
difficulty about that. But then it would be pleasanter to go in a little
larger party. Two people are apt to get tired of each other, when there
is nobody else that they can speak a single word to for a whole
fortnight. I don't think that I should get tired of you. What I am
afraid of is, that you would get tired of me."
There was a lurking smile on Mr. George's face as he said this.
"O, uncle George!" said Rollo, "that is only your politeness. But then
if you really think that we ought to have some more company, perhaps the
Parkmans are going to Holland, and we might go with them."
"I would not make a journey with the Parkmans," said Mr. George, "if
they would pay all my expenses, and give me five sovereigns a day."
"Why, uncle George!" exclaimed Rollo; "I thought you liked Mr. Parkman
very much."
"So I do," said Mr. George. "It is his wife that I would not go with."
"O, uncle George!" exclaimed Rollo again.
Rollo was very much surprised at hearing this declaration; and it was
very natural that he should be surprised, for Mrs. Parkman was a young
and beautiful lady, and she was very kindhearted and very amiable in
her disposition. Mr. Parkman, too, was very young. He had been one of
Mr. George's college classmates. He had been married only a short time
before he left America, and he was now making his bridal tour.
Mr. George thought that Mrs. Parkman was very beautiful and very
intelligent, but he considered her a very uncomfortable travelling
companion. I think he judged her somewhat too harshly. But this was one
of Mr. George's faults. He did not like the ladies very much, and the
faults which he observed in them, from time to time, he was prone to
condemn much too harshly.
[Illustration]