Littell's Living Age/Volume 125/Issue 1613/Dead Dutch Cities
From The Spectator.
DEAD DUTCH CITIES.[1]
The belief which one hears constantly expressed in French society that Prince Bismarck means to "accaparer" Holland before long, so that the German Empire may possess the two things wanting to complete its supremacy and secure its future, — a fine seaboard and rich colonies, — and that the stream of German emigration may be no longer for the sole profit of the United States and our Colonial Empire, has led to an uprising of curiosity in France concerning the rich and quiet country which has had a pretty good spell of prosperous obscurity. Dutch linen, Dutch pictures, and Dutch pottery have always been appreciated in France, but with no more local interest or association than the Japanese bibelots, which, though immensely fashionable, do not inspire people with a desire to read about Kioto. The summary of Voltaire, when he wrote, "Adieu, canaux, canards, canaille!" has done very well for the French people until now, when Holland has become invested with the attraction of a neighbour who
feels a pain |
and M. Henry Havard’s "Voyage Pittoresque" is in great demand.
The Dutch themselves know very little of the silent cities on the Zuyderzee, an ignorance which M. Havard attributes partly to their "exclusivisme de clocher," or as we should call it, their parochialism, and partly to the deterrent difficulties of a voyage for which no regular provision exists, and whose primary requirements are troublesome. The traveller must hire a vessel and engage a crew. The vessel must be one which draws very little water, and yet large enough to live in, to cook in, and to carry sufficient provisions for twenty-five or thirty days; for, with the exception of bread and some fresh vegetables, which may be taken in occasionally during the voyage, he must not calculate upon the resources of the country. He must be especially careful to carry a plentiful supply of water; he will not find any in North Holland and Friesland which is not exceedingly unpleasant to the taste, and pernicious to the health of persons who are unaccustomed to it.
The question of a crew is not easily solved either, for the skippers of the Zuyderzee are accustomed to navigate its waters piecemeal, in consequence of certain regulations which expose them to new taxes if they stray out of their beat; hence, there are many ships’ crews who are born, who live, and who die on the Zuyderzee, without ever having sailed all around it. M. Havard and his friend Mynheer Van Heemskerck — who illustrates his book — procured a tjalk which drew only three feet of water, and whose skipper, an austere Réformé, who had never made the complete voyage, but much wished to do so, made very simple conditions with them. "With the help of God, and a good wind," said the Réformé, "we shall do well. I make two conditions. I am to be the judge of the weather; that is to say, in case of a storm, I am to have the right to refuse to put to sea; and I am not to work on Sundays." The bargain was made, and the travellers set sail from Amsterdam, with the conscientious skipper, his wife, his child, and a young sailor lad, on the newest of seas, whose shores were once crowned with wealthy and powerful cities, to visit those cities in their silent, grey old age; "to see Medemblik and Stavoren before the grass has grown over their walls, and their names are effaced from the map of the Low Countries."
This picturesque voyage is very interesting and pleasant to follow, described as it is, with frank enthusiastic admiration, frequently touched with comical vexation because the author finds so few to share it. The phlegmatic and positive Dutchmen try his temper severely; he flies for relief to the beauty of the scenes, which they do not understand, and revels in visions of the "Zee" when it was not a sea, but a vast plain covered with forests, in which "wolves and bears disputed the scanty resources of the chase with man;" and of the "Y" as it shall be in the not far distant future, when "in the place of this liquid plain shall be flowery pasture for droves of the fine black and white cattle of Holland; when a simple canal shall replace the little sea, dried up by modern industry." The great dams of Schellingwoude, through whose immense gates five ships may sail abreast, delight him, — he can compare them only with those of Trolhætta, in Sweden. The tjalk passes through the dykes together with the little fishing fleet returning to the island of Marken, having discharged their cargo of anchovies, and is fairly afloat on the gulf, which has no tameness or sameness in the eyes of M. Havard — feasted on its varying colour — and of whose shore he says: -
- That uninterrupted flat band of verdure, stretching itself out far beyond our sight, produces an impression full of tenderness, and rests one's mind. In the presence of that endless horizontal line, one feels no need of thought, no strength for action; a strange feeling comes over one, a sense of supreme tranquillity takes hold of one; the mind sinks into reverie, and one understands how it is that a race which has gazed on this spectacle for centuries has subsided from its original violence and impetuosity into a state of reflection and calm. In a short time we can distinguish the roofs of the houses, and the spire of the church of Marken; then the pretty villages perched upon slight eminences; lastly, the entire island, which looks like an immense green raft, adrift upon a grey sea. The houses become more distinct, their deep colour stands out strongly against the light blue of the sky; black, red, and green are the prevailing tones, and they lend strength, indeed almost violence, to the picture. What delight to the artist is this marvellous colouring of nature! In beholding such spectacles, we readily understand how it is that Holland has produced such great colourists.
The island of Marken, where the men are never at home except on Sundays, where nobody is rich and nobody is poor, where everybody is healthy and all the children are handsome, where people habitually live to eighty years, where no foreign admixture of blood has ever taken place, and which has not for many years been invaded from the mainland except by the doctor, the preacher, and the schoolmaster, must be a strange place to see. The description of it, and indeed that of the other dead cities, remind the reader constantly of Mr. Morris's lines: —
No vain desire of unknown things |
There is nothing but the wonderful contrasts and contradictions which time has worked out to remind the traveller of the Dutch and of Mr. Motley. The study of those picturesque histories of his would be impressive here, where there is no trace of the historic past in the life of the people, except it be found in the unexpected stores of ancient objects of art, carefully kept indeed, but hardly comprehended, — Japanese porcelain and Delft vases, richly embroidered house-linen, of great age, and chests and wardrobes rich with the priceless carving of the artists of the grand old days. The present is very quaint and peaceful, secluded and unknown. Of the Markmaars, who even at Amsterdam are held to be a kind of savages, M. Havard gives an attractive account. He dwells particularly upon the respective costumes of the men and women, which are precisely similar to those worn three centuries ago, and are specially remarkable for their brilliant colouring. The people have simple, cordial manners, not lacking dignity. Here is a characteristic anecdote: —
- One day Van Heemskerck was sketching the little church of Marken and the adjacent houses. An old man drew near, and gazed long upon my friend's work. At length he said, "You are painting my house: I was born there, and my father before me, there also my children came into the world, and a little while ago my grandson. I think the house is beautiful, because it is full of remembrances, but I never should have thought that another person would think it beautiful and worthy of being painted. You do it honour."
The somnolence of Monnikendam equals its picturesqueness. The town is an assemblage of great trees and small houses, of red and green; the pavement is of yellow bricks, the façades, centuries old, look as if the sculptor had desisted from his task but yesterday. Only the once splendid but now deserted church is older than the year 1515, when the ancient city was destroyed by fire; its vacant vastness would be a world too wide for the dwellers in the present city, where the arrival of the two strangers was a great event. The streets are deserted and the canals devoid of traffic. "The trees and the houses, alike bending forward, are reflected in the slumbering water, and seem to share its slumber. The demeanour of the inhabitants is marked by a majestic calm. Young and old, men and women, all seem half asleep, as though they were economizing life by taking it slowly. Looking upon this quietude, so nearly death, it is difficult to believe that Monnikendam was one of the twenty-nine cities of Holland when the Hague was only a burgh, and that it enjoyed in that capacity privileges which were denied to the seat of the government." Of Vollendam and Edam we have similar pictures, but in both instances cheeses intrude, and lend at least some commercial vivacity to the sketch; of Hoorn, and its grand monumental Eastern Gate, and beautiful old houses, rich in carving and colour, a charming description, of its historic glories a vivid résumé, and of its actual condition some comical illustrations. Enkhuysen (Paul Potter's native place) is a spectacle of desolation, and its inhabitants forced the strangers to depart, because M. Havard was a Frenchman, and a fisherman from the town had once been imprisoned for six months at Havre for a proven offence! The once famous Medemblik is a mouldering tomb for the half-dead inhabitants, surrounded by monotonous, endless grasslands. The municipal council has recently sold the splendid wood- carvings of the Stadthuis to a collector at the Hague, and demolished the majestic towers of the antique castle which stands at the entrance of the port, and is one of the most ancient relics in the Low Countries.
From Medemblik the travellers made an excursion across North Holland by land, passing through numberless pretty villages, where not only the houses, but the threes and the brick-paved ground are all painted in bright colours, sky-blue being very fashionable for the trees. By this bit of information, the author clears up the mystery of the Dutch toys. The variegated trees and the tartan farmhouses are evidently copied from nature as seen in North Holland. During this portion of the book we find ourselves among rising, not decaying towns, and have an interesting account of the Dutch fleet and the naval system of Holland. The brief interval of animation is pleasant, but we take to the tjalk again as readily as did the travellers, and accompany them with ever-increasing interest in their visits to the dead cities of old Friesland. The most interesting and important chapter in the book is devoted to the most ancient of those cities, Stavoren, once so splendid that it is recorded that "the vestibules of its houses were gilded, and the pillars of its palaces were of massive gold." Its name was celebrated throughout Europe, and its jurisdiction extended to Nimeguen. Today it consists of about a hundred houses, "half of them falling into a ruinous condition, and not one among them which could recall even vaguely the palaces which once were crowded together within its walls. These mean dwellings border the two sides of a wide and deep canal, and the gaps in their ranks increase in number year after year. Stavoren is no longer even a village; it is a cemetery, and its five hundred inhabitants are like troubled spirits come back to mourn the extinct splendour of their country and the past greatness of their kings."
- ↑ Voyage Pittoresque aux Villes Mortes de Zuiderzée. Par M. Henry Haunt. Pans: E. Pion et Cie.