of them. This information I have gleaned from the hotel porters, the
boat captains, the chambermaids, and the clerks who speak English. I
imagine I have come nearer getting the facts than if I had sent in my
card at the royal palace.
The Pilgrims’ Start
DELFTSHAVEN, July 25.
This is the town from which the Pilgrims sailed on the trip which was
to make Plymouth Rock famous. Nearly a hundred of the congregation of
Rev. John Robinson at Leyden came to this little suburb of Rotterdam,
and embarked on the Speedwell. The night before the start was spent by
the congregation in exhortation and prayer in a little church which
still stands, and has the fact recorded on a big tablet. The Pilgrims
went to Southampton, discovered the Speedwell was not seaworthy, and
transferred to the Mayflower.
* * * * *
Those English Puritans who had emigrated from their own country to
Holland were considered “religious cranks” even in those days when
fighting and killing for religion was regarded the proper occupation of
a Christian. The Puritans in England were strong in numbers, and while
Queen Elizabeth had frowned upon them as dissenters from the church
of which she was the head, she was politician enough to restrain the
persecution of them, for they were useful citizens and loved to die
fighting Spaniards. But a few extremists who persisted in preaching
in public places were sentenced to jail, and some of these skipped to
Holland. Queen Elizabeth died and James became the King of England,
and he was a pinhead. He hated non-conformists as much as Catholics.
So, more of the Puritans who could not pretend to conform went to
Holland, and in Leyden and Amsterdam they founded little settlements.
Holland was a land of liberty, and the Puritans wanted the right to
disagree, non-conform, argue and debate over disputed questions. There
were several congregations of them, and they did not agree on important
doctrines, such as whether John the Baptist’s hair was parted on the
side or in the middle. Public debates were held and great enjoyment
therefrom resulted, although there is no record of anyone having his
opinion changed by the arguments, and the side whose story you are
reading always overcame the other.
The Puritans did not mix much with the Dutch, and naturally grew
lonesome in their exile. They conceived the plan of emigrating to the
New World and there establishing the right to worship God in accord
with their own conscience. Influential Puritans in England who had not
been so cranky as to leave home, helped with the king, and finally
they secured permission from James to settle in America and to own the
land they should develop. James remarked at the time he would prefer
that they go to Hell, where they belonged, but he was needing a loan
from the English Puritans, so he gave the permit. The Puritans in old
England also provided a good part of the money with which to fit out
the expedition. At the time there was a general movement among the
Puritans in England for a big migration to the New World. This was
to be a sort of experiment station. At the time, James was king, and
Charles, a dissolute prince, was to follow. The Puritans were sick
at heart and ready to leave their native land. But soon after the
Pilgrims had made their settlement in New England, the Puritans at
home developed leaders who put them into the fight for Old England.
Then along came Cromwell, and for many years English Puritans were
running the government, and the necessity for a safe place across the
sea and an asylum for religious liberty disappeared so far as they
were concerned, though their interest in the Colonists was maintained.
The sons of these Puritans who crossed the ocean rather than go to the
established church, refused to pay a tax on tea, about 150 years later,
and formed a new country with a new flag. That was part of the result
of the sailing of the little company from Rev. Mr. Robinson’s flock
after a night spent in prayer in this town of Delftshaven, just about
this time of the year in 1620.
* * * * *
The stay of the Puritans in Holland had no effect on the Dutch. They
let the Puritans shoot their mouths any way they pleased, and the
Puritan only prospers and proselytes on opposition. But the Dutch of
the present day are getting good returns for that investment of long
ago. There are a dozen places in Holland, here and at Amsterdam and
Leyden, visited by Americans every year because they are historic
spots in connection with the Pilgrims. At each and every place the
contribution-box is in sight, and the Dutch church or town which
owns the property gets a handsome revenue. New England churches give
liberally to the fixing up of the Dutch churches which can show a
record of having been just once the place where some Puritan preached.
* * * * *
Wooden shoes have not gone out of style in Holland. They are still
worn generally in the country, and by the poorer children and men
in the cities. They are cheap, which is a big recommendation to the
Dutch. They are warm, said to be much warmer than leather. It does not
hurt them to be wet, a very desirable feature in this water-soaked
country. These are all good reasons, and as soon as you get used to the
clatter and the apparent awkwardness you appreciate the fact that the
“klompen,” as the Dutch call them, are a reasonable style for Holland.
They are not worn in the house but dropped in the entryway, and house
shoes or stocking feet go within. The Dutch farmer is proud of his
clogs, paints them, carves them, and scrubs them. A man with idle time,
like a fisherman, will often spend months decorating a pair of wooden
shoes. They are considered a proper present from a young husband to
his bride, and she will use them when scrubbing, which is a good part
of the time. The shoes are generally made of poplar, and to the size
of the foot. When the foot grows you can hollow out a little more
shoe. Wooden shoes are as common here as overalls in America, and they
will not grow less popular unless Holland goes dry--of which I see no
indication.
* * * * *
The farm-houses are usually built in connection with the barns, the
family living in front and the stock and feed occupying the rear.
This is rather customary in cold climates, and you must remember that
Holland is farther north than Quebec. The winters get very cold and the
canals and rivers freeze over. Skating is the great national sport.
There does not seem to be much summer sport except scrubbing. All
through the summer the people dig and weed and fertilize and prepare
for market. The dikes and canals must be maintained and the best
made of a short season. In the winter they can live with the pretty
black-and-white cattle, the sheep and the horses, and have a good time.
Amsterdam, and Others
AMSTERDAM, July 27
This is the largest and most important city of Holland. It has about
as much commerce as Rotterdam, and is longer on history, manufactures,
art, and society. It was the first large city built up on a canal
system, and its 600,000 population is a proof that something can be
built out of nothing. Along about 1300 and 1400 it was a small town
in a swamp. When the war for independence from Spain began, in 1656,
Amsterdam profited by its location on the Zuyder Zee. The Spaniards
ruined most of the rival towns and put an end to the commerce of
Antwerp for a while, and Amsterdam received the mechanics and merchants
fleeing from the soldiers of Alva. The name means a “dam,” or dike, on
the Amstel river. The swamp was reclaimed from the water by dikes and
drainage canals, but even now every house in the city must have its
foundation on piles. The word dam, or its inclusion in a name, means
just about what it does in English, provided you refer to the proper
dam, not the improper damn. As nearly all of the Dutch towns are built
on dam sites a great many of them are some-kind-of-a-dam. Amsterdam
is built below the level of the sea, which is just beside it, and the
water in the canals is pumped out by big engines and forced over the
dike into the sea. If this were not done the water would come over the
town site and Amsterdam would go back to swamp and not be worth a dam
site.
* * * * *
Amsterdam is the chief money market of Holland, and one of the
financial capitals of the world. It is the place an American promoter
makes for when he is out after the stuff with which to make the female
horse travel. A large part of its business men are Jews, and their
ability and wealth have maintained the credit of Dutch interests in
all parts of the globe. At a time when the Jews were being persecuted
nearly everywhere they were given liberty in Holland, and much of the
country’s progress is due to that fact and to the religious toleration
of all kinds of sects.
The canals run along nearly all the streets, and are filled with
freight-boats from the country and from other cities. Thousands of
these canal boats lie in the canals of Amsterdam and are the homes
of the boatmen, who are the commerce carriers of Holland. Under our
window is tied up a canal-boat which could carry as much freight as a
dozen American box cars. The power is a sail or a pole or a man or a
woman, whichever is most convenient. The boatman and his wife and ten
or fifteen children, with a dog and a cat, live comfortably in one end,
and we can watch them at their work and play. A dozen more such boats
are lying in this block, some with steam engines and some with gasoline
engines. The Standard Oil Company does a great business in Holland, and
as usual is a great help to the people. It is introducing cheap power
for canal-boats by means of proper engines, and in a short time will
probably free the boatman and his wife from the pull-and-push system
received from the good old days.
The canals are lined with big buildings, business and residence, mostly
from four to six stories high, with the narrow, peaked and picturesque
architecture made familiar to us by the pictures. All kinds of color
are used and ornamented fronts are common. Imagine a street such as
I describe and you have this one that is under our hotel window and
which is the universal street scene of Amsterdam. Some one called this
the Venice of the North, but to my mind it is prettier than Venice,
although it lacks some of the oriental architecture and smell.
* * * * *
Last night we went to the Rembrandt theatre to see “The Mikado,” in
Dutch. Of course we could follow the music of the old-time friend, and
the language made the play funnier than ever. The Dutch are not near so
strong on music as are their German or French neighbors. They utilize
compositions of other nations, and American airs are very common. The
window of a large fine music store is playing up “Has Anybody Here Seen
Kelly?” A few Americans were at the big garden Krasnapolsky, listening
to a really fine orchestra with an Austrian leader. We sent up a
request for the American national air and it came promptly: “Whistling
Rufus.” The Europeans think the cake-walk is something like a national
dance in our country, and whenever they try to please us they turn
loose one of our rag-time melodies. They do not mind chucking the
“Georgia Campmeeting” or “Rings on My Fingers and Bells on My Toes,”
into a program of Wagner and Tschudi and other composers whom we are
taught at home to consider sacred.
* * * * *
The most entertaining feature of the Amsterdam landscape that I have
seen is a Dutch lady in a hobble skirt. The fashion is here all right,
and it would make an American hobble appear tame and common. In the
first place, the Dutch lady is not of the proper architecture, and in
the second place, she still wears a lot more underskirts, or whatever
they are, than are considered necessary in Paris or Hutchinson. But she
does not expand the hobble. The shopping street of Amsterdam is filled
with fashionably dressed Dutch ladies who look like tops, and who are
worth coming a long ways to see. Far be it from me to criticize the
freaks of female fashion. I never know what they are until after they
are past due. But if the Dutch hobble ever reaches the American side
of the Atlantic it will be time for the mere men to organize.
* * * * *
The greatest art gallery in Europe is here, The Rijks Museum. I went to
see it--once. I do not get the proper thrills from seeing a thousand
pictures in thirty minutes. They make me tired. But Rembrandt’s Night
Watch, or nearly anything a good Dutch artist has painted, is a real
pleasure. The Dutch are recognizing their own modern art, and in that
way they are going to distance the Italians. The Dutch artists are
good at portraying people and common things, such as cats and dogs and
ships. They are not strong in allegory or imaginative work, and you do
not have to be educated up to enjoy them. And they run a little fun
into their work occasionally, which would shock a Dago artist out of
his temperament.
* * * * *
Wages are higher in Holland than elsewhere in Europe. A street car
conductor gets a dollar a day. Ordinary labor is paid sixty to eighty
cents a day. Farm laborer about $15 per month, but boards himself. A
good all-around hired girl is a dollar a week. Mechanics receive from
one dollar to two dollars a day. The necessaries of life are not so
high as with us. Vegetables are cheaper. Tobacco is much less. Meats
are about as high. Clothing is cheaper, but our people wouldn’t wear
it. Beer is two cents a glass and lemonade is five cents. The ordinary
workingman lives on soup, vegetables, and very little meat; gets a new
suit of clothes about once in five years, and takes his family to a
garden for amusement, where they get all they want for ten cents. The
Dutch citizen on foot is plain, honest, a little rude, but of good
heart and very accommodating. I have not met the citizens in carriages
and on horseback, who make up a very small part of the procession in
Holland.
Cheeses and Bulbses
ALKMAAR, July 28.
Of course Holland is the greatest cheese country on earth, and Alkmaar
is the biggest cheese market in Holland. Every Friday the cheesemakers
of the district bring their product to the public market, and buyers,
local and foreign, bargain for and purchase the cheeses. That is
why we came to Alkmaar on Friday. The cheese market is certainly an
interesting and novel sight. All over the big public square are piled
little mounds of cheeses, shaped like large grape-fruit and colored in
various shades of red and yellow. Each wholesaler has his carriers in
uniform of white, and a straw hat and ribbons colored as a livery. When
a sale is made, two carriers take a barrow which they carry suspended
from their shoulders and with a sort of two-step and many cries to get
out of the way they bring their load to the public weigh-house, where
it is officially weighed. Then off the cheeses go to the store-rooms
or to the canal-boats which line one side of the square, waiting to
take their freight to the cities or to the sea. The farmers look over
each other’s cheeses as they do hogs at the Kansas State Fair, with
comments of praise or criticism. There is much chaffing and chaffering
between them and the buyers. In about two hours the cheeses are gone,
the square is empty and the beer-houses are full. The women-folks do
not take an active part in the market, but they are present and looking
things over, and I suspect they had been permitted to milk the cows and
make the cheese.
About $3,000,000 worth of cheese is sold annually in the Alkmaar
market. The country round about, North Holland, is all small farms,
with gardens and pastures and little herds of the black-and-white
cattle. The cheese wholesales at about 60 cents a cheese, and in
America we pay about twice that much for the same, or for the Edam,
which is like it. The farmers look prosperous, drive good horses and
very substantial gaily painted wagons.
Alkmaar has 18,000 population, and is therefore about the size of
Hutchinson. But it is a good deal older. Back in 1573 it successfully
defended itself against the Spaniards. The name means “all sea,”
because the country was originally covered with water. The land is
kept above the water now by pumping and pouring into canals which
are higher than the farms through which they flow. This is done very
systematically and by windmills. A district thus maintained is called
a “polder,” something like our irrigation district, and on one of them
near Alkmaar, about the size of a Kansas township, six miles square,
there are 51 windmills working all the time, pumping the water. These
are not little windmills like those in a Kansas pasture, but great
fellows with big arms fifty feet long, and they stand out over the
polder like so many giants. The picture of these mills in a most
fertile garden-spot, with canal streaks here and there and boats on the
canals looming up above the land, is certainly a striking one. And it
shows clearly what energy can do when properly applied.
The soil is as sandy as in South Hutchinson. But dirt and fertilizer
are brought from the back country and the soil is kept constantly
renewed. It seems to me that with comparatively little work the sandy
soil of the Arkansas valley can be made into a market garden, producing
many times its present value, whenever our people take it into their
heads to manufacture their own soil and apply water when needed and not
just when it rains. That time will come, but probably not until a dense
population forces a great increase in production.
* * * * *
I have another idea. Along the coast of Holland are the “sand dunes,”
which are exactly like our sand hills. What we should do is to change
the name from sand hills to “dunes,” brag about them and charge
people for visiting them. The city of Amsterdam gets its supply of
drinking-water from the dunes. This was important news to me, for it
confirmed my theory as to the similarity of the dunes and the sand
hills, and also suggested that somebody in Amsterdam used water for
drinking purposes, a fact I had not noticed while there.
* * * * *
We spent part of a day in Haarlem, where the tulips come from. The
soil conditions are like those at Alkmaar, but the country is a mass
of nurseries, flower gardens, and beautiful growing plants. We are
out of season for tulips, but this is the time when the bulbs are
being collected and dried to be shipped in all directions. Not only
tulips but crocuses, hyacinths, lilies, anemones, etc., are raised
for the market,--cut flowers to the cities, bulbs to all parts of the
world. Just now the gardens are filled with phlox, dahlias, larkspurs,
nasturtiums,--by the acre. The flowers are about the same as at
home. Out of this thin, scraggly, sandy soil the gardeners of North
Holland are taking money for flowers and bulbs faster than miners in
gold-fields. With flowers and cheeses these Dutch catch about all kinds
of people.
* * * * *
Haarlem is the capital of the province of North Holland, and is full
of quaint houses of ancient architecture. It was one of the hot towns
for independence when the war with Spain began. The Spaniards besieged
it, and after a seven months gallant defense, in which even the women
fought as soldiers, the town surrendered under promise of clemency.
The Spaniards broke their promise and put to death the entire garrison
and nearly all the townspeople. This outrage so incensed the Dutch in
other places that the war was fought more bitterly than before, and
the crime--for such it was--really aided in the final expulsion of the
Spaniards.
* * * * *
Along in the seventeenth century was the big boom in Haarlem. The tulip
mania developed and bulbs sold for thousands of dollars. Capitalists
engaged in the speculation and the trade went into big figures.
Millions of dollars were spent for the bulbs, and so long as the
demand and the market continued every tulip-raiser was rich. Finally
the reaction came, as it always does to a boom, and everybody went
broke. A bulb which sold for $5,000 one year was not worth 50 cents
the next. The government added to the confusion by decreeing that all
contracts for future deliveries were illegal. The usual phenomenon of
a panic followed, everybody losing and nobody gaining. A hundred years
later there was about the same kind of a boom in hyacinths, and the
same result. It will be observed that the Dutch are not so much unlike
Americans when it comes to booms, only it takes longer for them to
forget and calls for more experience.
* * * * *
Frans Hals, a great Dutch painter, almost next to Rembrandt, was born
in Haarlem, and a number of his pictures are in the city building. It
was customary in those days for the mayor and city council to have a
group picture painted and hung in the town hall. This was the way most
of the Dutch artists got their start, for the officials were always
wealthy citizens who were willing to pay more for their own pictures
than for studies of nature or allegory. I wonder if the officials paid
their own money or did they voucher it through the city treasury and
charge it to sprinkling or street work?
Both Alkmaar and Haarlem are interesting because they are intensely
Dutch. Their principal occupations, cheesemaking and flower-raising,
have been their principal occupations for centuries. They had nothing
to start with and had to fight for that. Now they are loaning money to
the world. If the people of Kansas worked as hard as do the Dutch and
were as economical and saving, in one generation they would have all
the money in the world. But they wouldn’t have much fun.
The American way of economizing may be illustrated by a story. Once
upon a time in a certain town--which I want to say was not in Kansas,
for I have no desire to be summoned before the attorney-general to tell
all about it--a man and his wife were in the habit of sending out every
night and getting a quart of beer for 10 cents. They drank this before
retiring, and were reasonably comfortable. Prosperity came to them,
and the man bought a keg of beer. That night he drew off a quart, and
as he sat in his stocking-feet he philosophized to his wife and said:
“See how we are saving money. By buying a keg of beer at a time this
quart we are drinking costs only 6 cents. So we are saving 4 cents.”
She looked at him with admiration, and replied: “How fine! Let’s have
another quart and save 4 cents more.”
Historic Leyden
LEYDEN, July 31.
We came to Leyden to spend the night, and have stayed three days. This
was partly because it is necessary to sometimes rest your neck and
feet, and partly because the Hotel Levedag is one of those delightful
places where the beds are soft, the eats good and the help around the
hotel does its best to make you comfortable. Leyden itself is worth
while, but ordinarily it would be disposed of in two walks and a
carriage-ride. It is a college town, and this is vacation; so everybody
in the place has had the time to wait on wandering Americans and make
the process of extracting their money as sweet and as long drawn out as
possible.
* * * * *