THE NATION THAT CONQUERS THE SEA--HOLLAND
We read in ancient history that Xerxes whipped the sea, but this chapter
will give a glimpse of a nation that conquers the sea. A million acres
of the best land in Holland have actually been rescued from the water,
and at this hour a large lake is being drained which means that hundreds
of thousands of acres will soon be rescued from the sea and be made to
blossom as the rose.
The country of Holland is about the size of the state of Maryland.
One-fourth of its entire area is below the sea level, and its great
dykes were they placed end to end, would make an immense dam more than
fifteen hundred miles long and in some places from thirty to sixty feet
high. Almost the entire country is a network of canals. A single one of
these canals cost more than fifteen million dollars and it is less than
fifty miles in length.
The faith of these Holland people in times of adversity is one of the
wonders of history. For a hundred years they struggled against powerful
Spain, but their faith saved them. It is said that at the siege of
Leyden they were reduced to such desperate straits that all they had to
eat was dogs and cats. In derision they were called "dog and cat
eaters." They replied to their enemies: "As long as you hear the bark of
a dog or the mew of a cat the city holds. When these are gone we will
devour out left arms, retaining the right to defend our homes and our
freedom. When all are gone we will set fire to the city and with our
wives and children perish rather than see our families destroyed and our
religion desecrated."
Think of it! A country one-half of which is below the level of the
water, some of it sixteen feet lower than the ocean, which is only a few
miles away! What watchfulness and anxiety bordering upon fear must
occupy every moment, both day and night! In a single century there were
thirty-five great inundations which literally swallowed up several
hundred thousand people. Instead of being disheartened, like ants, they
went to work at once to rebuild the dykes, and with the aid of hundreds
of gigantic windmills pumped the water back into the sea.
These windmills are not only used to pump water, but they saw wood,
grind corn, crush seeds, make paper, and do about everything else. While
they are imperilled all the time by water, they make the water serve
them in numerous ways. Their fences are ditches filled with water. How
their cattle and horses have been trained to stay in, a small lot
surrounded by narrow ditches filled with water which they could easily
jump over, is a mystery, but every visitor to Holland has seen it with
his own eyes.
These Dutch people are great farmers and stock raisers. As their country
has no minerals, the people depend upon agriculture more perhaps than in
any other part of the world. Supporting a population of four hundred and
seventy people to the square mile, every foot of the land of course is
tilled carefully. The main agricultural product is potatoes, of which
they raise about one hundred million bushels per annum. Then come oats,
twenty million bushels, rye, fifteen million and about a third as much
wheat.
The Hollanders build ships, refine sugar, dredge oysters, distill liquor
and brew beer. They manufacture carpets, leather and paper goods, make
chocolate, cut diamonds as well as produce gold and silver articles and
pottery. The farmer uses his cow like one of the family. He keeps her in
the house when the weather is cold, washes and combs her hair more often
than his own, and keeps her room as clean as the parlor. She chews her
cud contentedly and the only thing about her which is tied up is her
tail, which is generally fastened to a beam above to keep it from
getting soiled. Of course, milk, butter and cheese are not a small part
of the living of these people. Often in a Holland home the sitting room,
dining room and sleeping room are one and the same. People often sleep
in bunks one above the other like berths on a ship or sleeping car.
The great bird in Holland is the stork, which is kept and given a home
because of the service rendered in keeping down toads and frogs. The
people who live in the lowest ground make nests for the storks upon
posts erected for the purpose, and almost every Dutch city has a pet
colony of these birds. The Dutch folk-lore tells of the tragedy of the
stork colony away back in the fifteenth century which occurred during
the breeding season. The town of Delft caught fire and when the older
storks made ready for flight their offspring were too young to fly and
too heavy to be carried, and rather than leave their young, the old
birds went back to their nests and perished.
The two great recreation amusements that everybody engages in are
cycling and skating. Roads are good so that the former can be practiced
the year around, while the latter, of course, can only be indulged in
during the winter time. These people become so skilled on the ice that
they can beat an express train, and to skate a hundred miles in an
afternoon is an ordinary excursion. Some years ago a record of four
miles in five minutes was established which is "going some" on skates.
In the beginning of winter when the skating season opens, the young men
and maidens have a great time going to the city of Gouda. The young men
go to buy long pipes and bring them home safely in their mouths or
pockets. The fair maidens try to waylay them and break these pipes.
Likewise the maidens purchase brittle cakes and attempt to carry them
home in bags without breaking them up, and the young men endeavor to
knock the bags from their hands and thus, "break the cake." They all
have a gay time.
Skating is ruled by a sort of a national society. The fee is so small
that everyone can join it. This society decides when skating is safe,
marks the routes and employs sweepers to keep these highways clear from
snow, etc. Everyone must obey the rules laid down by this society,
consequently accidents are rare. One week each year they have a great
festival called the "Kermis," which is not unlike the old-fashioned
carnival in this country. All kinds of amusements are engaged in and all
have a jolly time. St. Nicholas Day, which occurs on December fifth, is
also a great day in Holland, especially for the children.
The largest city in Holland is Amsterdam, which contains more than
one-half million people. This is a walled city, but the walls are water
in the shape of canals. There are four of them, the outermost being
called the Single or "Girdle." Across these canals are smaller canals
running diagonally and the city itself is as though built on a thousand
islands.
These larger canals are almost filled with ships of various sizes and
boats and barges fill the smaller ones. The city has the appearance of
being built on the water, canals serving the purposes of streets. The
ground used to be a great marsh and the entire city is practically built
on piles which are driven down sometimes eighty feet.
One great palace in the city stands upon fourteen thousand piles. One
would think the buildings would collapse in the course of time, and some
of them are all out of shape, but the people are so used to seeing the
buildings lean, almost like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, that they think
nothing about it. Once in awhile the road will give way under a heavily
loaded truck, but they pry the load out, repair the roadway, and go
ahead as though the highway were built upon solid rock.
That the people of Amsterdam are religious is shown by the fact that
there are many large churches in the city. The front of the great palace
called the Dam has a hundred windows and only one little insignificant
entrance. It has been called "the palace without a door." Just across
the square is the Exchange with a great portico supported by seventeen
columns. Some have called this "A door without a house."
Like New York, Amsterdam has its Ghetto, in which more than sixty
thousand Jews are packed almost like sardines in a box, and most of
these live in the direst poverty and misery imaginable. However, just
beside this Ghetto live wealthy Jewish families, and one of the great
synagogues is so magnificent that they claim it represents the Temple of
Solomon.
As noted above the gigantic task of draining the Zuyder Zee has already
been started. This great lake is a hundred miles long and half as wide,
and used to be a great forest. Between seven and eight hundred years
ago, this forest and some better lands consisting of farm lands and
cities, were destroyed by the River Chim. A writer in the Scientific
American, quoted in the Literary Digest, says:
"Then Neptune looked down with longing eyes for his own. About the
middle of the thirteenth century, the North Sea broke through the upper
sand dunes and swept over the land. Hundreds of villages with their
inhabitants were engulfed and destroyed. Geographical continuity was
obliterated, and Holland found herself cut in two by an ocean
eighty-five miles long from north to south, and from ten to forty-five
broad. It proved, moreover, quite as treacherously dangerous a sea as
that which divided her from Britain."
The capital city of Holland contains more than a quarter of a million
people. Perhaps the most outstanding building in The Hague is the Palace
of Peace. It was dedicated August 28, 1913. Something like twenty
countries contributed materials for this great building. The granite in
the base of the walls came from Norway and Sweden, the marble in the
great corridor is Italian; Holland supplied the steps in the great
stairway, and the group of statuary at the foot of this stairway came
from Argentina.
The stained glass in the windows of the Court of Law came from Great
Britain, and the rosewood in the paneling of the Council Chamber is
Brazil's contribution. Turkey and Roumania each supplied carpets,
Switzerland furnished the clock, and Belgium the iron work on the door
at the main entrance. Our own contribution was a group of statuary in
marble and bronze at the first landing of the great stairway. Russia and
China furnished vases, Japan sent silken curtains, and France furnished
a magnificent painting. Thus the nations builded together and we all
hope the dream for which this Palace of Peace stands will soon become a
reality. We are glad that the building is now open again.
For more than four years Holland occupied perhaps the most difficult
position in which any country was ever placed. Every day of that time
she was between the "devil and the deep sea." Compelled to be ready for
invasion every moment, yet trying to remain strictly neutral, she had
the job of feeding hundreds of thousands of refugees. These were anxious
months and years, but the Dutch did most remarkably well and kept their
heads above water all the time. No people were more happy to see peace
come although they were compelled to harbor the greatest enemy
civilization ever had.