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
