THE DINNER.
"Very well, sir," replied the waiter; and so saying he bowed respectfully and retired.
A neatly-dressed young woman, in a very picturesque and pretty cap, had come into the room with the party, and while Mr. George had been ordering the fire and the dinner, she had shown Mrs. Parkman to her bedroom, which was a beautiful and richly furnished room with two single beds in it, opening out of the parlor. On the other side of the parlor was another bedroom, also with two beds in it, for Mr. George and Rollo.[5]
Mr. and Mrs. Parkman remained in their room for a time, and when they came out they found the table set for dinner, and a very pleasant fire burning in the grate.
"Mr. George," said she, "I wish we had you to make arrangements for us all the time."
"It would be a very pleasant duty," said Mr. George. "You are so easily satisfied."
Mrs. Parkman seemed much pleased with this compliment. She did not for a moment doubt that she fully deserved it.
About eight o'clock that evening, Mr. Georgeasked Mrs. Parkman at what time she would like to have breakfast the next morning.
"At any time you please," said she; "that is, if it is not too early."
"How would half past nine do?" asked Mr. George.
"I think that will do very well," said Mrs. Parkman.
"We will say ten, if you prefer," said Mr. George.
"O, no," said she, "half past nine will do very well."
So Mr. George rang the bell, and when the waiter came, he ordered a sumptuous breakfast, consisting of beefsteaks, hot rolls, coffee, omelet, and every thing else that he could think of that was good, and directed the waiter to have it ready at half past nine.
"I shall also want a carriage and a pair of horses to-morrow," continued Mr. George, "and a commissioner."
"Very well, sir," said the waiter; "and what time shall you wish for the carriage?"
"What time, Mrs. Parkman?" repeated Mr. George, turning to the lady. "Shall you be ready by half past ten to go out and see the town?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Parkman, "that will be a very good time."
"Very well, sir," said the waiter; and he bowed and retired.
The next morning, when the different members of the party came out into the breakfast room, they found the table set for breakfast. At half past nine all were ready except Mrs. Parkman. She sent word by her husband that she would come out in a few minutes.
"There is no hurry," said Mr. George. "It will be time enough to have breakfast when she comes."
In about fifteen minutes she came. Mr. George asked her very politely how she had spent the night; and after she had sat a few minutes talking by the fire, he said that they would have breakfast whenever she wished.
"Yes," said she, "I am ready any time. Indeed, I was afraid that I should be late, and keep you waiting. I am very glad that I am in season."
So Mr. George rang the bell; when the waiter came, he ordered breakfast to be brought up.
While the party were at breakfast, a very nicely-dressed waiter, with a white napkin over his arm, stood behind Mrs. Parkman's chair, and evinced a great deal of alertness and alacrity in offering her every thing that she required. Whenthe breakfast was nearly finished, Mr. George turned to him and said,—
"Is the commissioner ready, John, who is to go with us to-day?"
"Yes, sir," said the waiter.
"I wish you to go down and send him up," said Mr. George.
So the waiter went down stairs to find the commissioner, and while he was gone Mr. George took out a pencil and paper from his pocket.
"I am going to ask him," said Mr. George to Mrs. Parkman, "what there is to be seen here, and to make a list of the places; and then we will go and see them all, or you can make a selection, just as you please."
"Very well," said Mrs. Parkman. "I should like that."
Accordingly, when the commissioner came in, Mr. George asked him to name, in succession, the various objects of interest usually visited by travellers coming to the Hague; and as he named them, Mr. George questioned him respecting them, so as to enable Mrs. Parkman to obtain a somewhat definite idea of what they were. The commissioner enumerated a variety of places to be seen, such as the public museum of painting, several private museums, the old palace, the new palace, two or three churches,the town hall, and various other sights which tourists, arriving at the Hague, usually like to view. Mr. George made a list of all these, and opposite to each he marked the time which the commissioner said would be required to see it well. After completing this list, he said,—
"And there is a great watering place on the sea shore, not far from this, I believe."
"Yes, sir," said the commissioner, "about three miles."
"Is it a pleasant ride there?" asked Mr. George.
"Yes, sir," replied the commissioner. "It is averypleasant ride. You can go one way and return another. It is a very fashionable place. The queen and the princesses go there every summer."
"Very well; it takes about two hours and a half, I suppose, to go there and return," said Mr. George.
"Yes, sir," said the commissioner.
"Very well," said Mr. George. "Have the carriage ready in—— Shall we say half an hour, Mrs. Parkman? Shall you be ready in half an hour?"
Mrs. Parkman said that she should be ready in half an hour, and so Mr. George appointed that time, and then the commissioner went away.
Mr. George added up all the periods of time that the commissioner had said would be required for the several sights, and found that there would be time for them to see the whole, and yet be ready for the afternoon train for Amsterdam, where Mr. and Mrs. Parkman were going next. So Mrs. Parkman concluded not to omit any from the list, but to go and see the whole.
In half an hour the carriage was at the door, and in ten or fifteen minutes afterwards Mrs. Parkman was ready. Just before they went, Mr. George rang the bell again, and called for the bill, requesting the waiter to see that every thing was charged—carriage, servants, commissioner, and all. When it came, Mr. Parkman took out his purse, expecting to pay it himself, but Mr. George took out his purse too.
"The amount," said Mr. George, looking at the footing of the bill, "is forty-five guilders and some cents. Your share is, say twenty-two guilders and a half."
"No, indeed," said Mr. Parkman. "My share is the exact footing of the bill. You have nothing to do with this payment."
"Yes," said Mr. George. "I have just one half to pay for Rollo and me. We are four in all, and Rollo and I are two."
Mr. Parkman seemed extremely unwilling to allow Mr. George to pay any thing at all; but Mr. George insisted upon it, and so the bill was paid by a joint contribution.
All this time the carriage was ready at the door, and the gentlemen, attended by two or three waiters, conducted Mrs. Parkman down to the door. The party then drove, in succession, to the various places which the commissioner had enumerated. There were museums consisting of a great many rooms filled with paintings, and palaces, where they were shown up grand staircases, and through long corridors, and into suites of elegant apartments, and churches, and beautiful parks and gardens, and a bazaar filled with curiosities from China and Japan, and a great many other similar places. Mr. George paid very particular attention to Mrs. Parkman during the whole time, and made every effort to anticipate and comply with her wishes in all respects. In one case, indeed, I think he went too far in this compliance, and the result was to mortify her not a little. It was in one of the museums of paintings. Mrs. Parkman, like other ladies of a similar character to hers, always wanted to go where she could not go, and to see what she could not see. If, when she came into a town, she heard of any place to which, for any reason,it was difficult to obtain admission, that was the very place of all others that she wished most to see; and if, in any museum, or palace, or library that she went into, there were two doors open and one shut, she would neglect the open ones, and make directly to the one that was shut, and ask to know what there was there. I do not know as there was any thing particularly blameworthy in this. On the contrary, such a feeling may be considered, in some respects, a very natural one in a lady. But, nevertheless, when it manifests itself in a decided form, it makes the lady a very uncomfortable and vexatious companion to the gentleman who has her under his care.
In one of the rooms where our party went in the museum of paintings, there was a door near one corner that was shut. All the other doors—those which communicated with the several apartments where the pictures were hung—were open. As soon as Mrs. Parkman came in sight of the closed door, she pointed to it and said,—
"I wonder what there is in that room. I suppose it is something very choice. I wish we could get in."
Mr. Parkman paid, at first, no attention to this request, but continued to look at the pictures around him.
"I wish you would ask some of the attendants," she continued, "whether we cannot go into that room."
"O, no," replied her husband. "If it was any thing that it was intended we should see, the door would be open. The fact that the door is shut is notice enough that, we are not to go in there."
"I'm convinced there are some choice pictures in there," said Mrs. Parkman; "something that they do not show to every body. Mr. George, I wish you would see if you can't find out some way to get in."
"Certainly," said Mr. George, "I will try."
So Mr. George walked along towards one of the attendants, whom he saw in another part of the room,—putting his hand in his pocket as he went, to feel for a piece of money. He put the piece of money into the attendant's hand, and then began to talk with him, asking various indifferent questions about the building; and finally he asked him where that closed door led to.
"O, that is only a closet," said the attendant, "where we keep our brooms and dusters."
"I wish you would just let us look into it," said Mr. George. "Here's half a guilder for you."
The man looked a little surprised, but he took the half guilder, saying,—
"Certainly, if it will afford you any satisfaction."
Mr. George then went back to where he had left the rest of his party, and said to Mrs. Parkman,—
"This man is going to admit us to that room. Follow Him. I will come in a moment."
So Mr. George stopped to look at a large painting on the wall, while Mrs. Parkman, with high anticipations of the pleasure she was to enjoy in seeing what people in general were excluded from, walked in a proud and stately manner to the door, and when the man opened it, saw only a small, dark room, with nothing in it but brooms, dust pans, and lamp fillers. She was exceedingly abashed by this adventure, and for the rest of that day she did not once ask to see any thing that was not voluntarily shown to her.
After visiting all the places of note in the town, the coachman was ordered to drive to the watering place on the sea shore. It was a very pleasant drive of about three miles. Just before reaching the shore of the sea, the road came to a region of sand hills, calleddunes, formed by the drifting sands blown in from the beach by the winds. Among these dunes, and close to the sea shore, was an immense hotel, with long wings stretching a hundred feet on each side, and a rowof bath vans on the margin of the beach before it. The beach was low and shelving, and it could be traced for miles in either direction along the coast, whitened by the surf that was rolling in from the German Ocean.
After looking at this prospect for a time, and watching to see one or two of the bathing vans drive down into the surf, in order to allow ladies who had got into them to bathe, the party returned to the carriage, and the coachman drove them through the village, which was very quaint and queer, and inhabited by fishermen. The fishing boats were drawn up on the shore in great numbers, very near the houses. Rollo desired very much to go and see these boats and the fishermen, and learn, if he could, what kind of fish they caught in them, and how they caught them. But Mrs. Parkman thought that they had better not stop. They were nothing but common fishing boats, she said.
The carriage returned to the Hague by a different road from the one in which it came. It was a road that led through a beautiful wood, where there were many pleasant walks, with curious looking Dutch women going and coming. As the party approached the town, they passed through a region of parks, and palaces, and splendid mansions of all kinds. Mrs. Parkman wascurious to know who lived in each house, and Mr. George contrived to communicate her inquiries to the coachman, by making signs, and by asking questions partly in English and partly in German. But though the coachman understood the questions, Mrs. Parkman could not understand the answers that he gave, for they were Dutch names,—sometimes long and sometimes short; but whether they were long or short, the sounds were so uncouth and strange that Mrs. Parkman looked terribly distressed in trying to make them out.
At length the carriage arrived at the hotel again; and there the porters put on the baggage belonging both to Mr. and Mrs. Parkman, and to Mr. George and Rollo. It then proceeded to the station. Mr. George and Rollo waited there until the train for Amsterdam arrived, and then took leave of Mr. and Mrs. Parkman as they went to their seats in the carriage. Mrs. Parkman shook hands with Mr. George very cordially, and said,—
"We are very much obliged to you, Mr. George, for your company to-day. We have had a very pleasant time. I wish that we could have you to travel with us all the time."
"I think she ought to be obliged to you," said Rollo, as soon as the train had gone.
"Not at all," said Mr. George.
"Not at all?" repeated Rollo. "Why not? You have done a great deal for her to-day."
"No," said Mr. George. "All that I have done has not been for her sake, but for William's. William is an excellent good friend of mine, and I am very sorry that he has not got a more agreeable travelling companion."
One day, when Mr. George and Rollo were at the town of Leyden, it began to rain while they were eating their breakfast.
"Never mind," said Rollo. "We can walk about the town if it does rain."
"Yes," said Mr. George, "we can; but we shall get tired of walking about much sooner if it rains, than if it were pleasant weather. However, I am not very sorry, for I should like to write some letters."
"I've a great mind to write a letter, too," said Rollo. "I'll write to my mother. Don't you think that would be a good plan?"
"Why,—I don't know,"—said Mr. George, speaking in rather a doubtful tone. "It seems to me that it would be hardly worth while."
"Why not?" asked Rollo.
"Why, the postage is considerable," said Mr. George, "and I don't believe the letter would be worth what your father would have to pay for it;that is, if it is such a letter as I suppose you would write."
"Why, what sort of a letter do you suppose I should write?" asked Rollo.
"O, you would do as boys generally do in such cases," replied his uncle. "In the first place you would want to take the biggest sheet that you could find to write the letter upon. Then you would take up as much of the space as possible writing the date, andMy dear mother. Then you would go on for a few lines, saying things of no interest to any body, such as telling what day you came to this place, and what day to that. Perhaps you'd say that to-day is a rainy day, and that yesterday was pleasant—just as if your mother, when she gets your letter, would care any thing about knowing what particular days were rainy and what pleasant, in Holland, a week back. Then, after you had got about two thirds down the page, you would stop because you could not think of any thing more to say, and subscribe your name with ever so many scrawl flourishes, and as many affectionate and dutiful phrases as you could get to fill up the space.
"And that would be a letter that your father, like as not, would have to pay one and sixpence or two shillings sterling for, to the London postman."
Rollo laughed at this description of the probable result of his proposed attempt to write a letter; but he laughed rather faintly, for he well recollected how many times he had written letters in just such a way. He secretly resolved, however, that when they came in from their walk, and Mr. George sat down to his writing, he would write too, and would see whether he could not, for once, produce a letter that should be at least worth the postage.
After they came in from their walk, they asked the landlady to have a fire made in their room; but she said they could not have any fire, for the stoves were not put up. She said it was the custom in Holland not to put the stoves up until October; and so nobody could have a fire in any thing but foot stoves until that time. The foot stoves, she said, would make it very comfortable for them.
So she brought in two foot stoves. They consisted of small, square boxes, with holes bored in the top, and a little fire of peat in an earthen vessel within. Rollo asked Mr. George to give him two sheets of thin note paper, and he established himself at a window that looked out upon a canal. He intended to amuse himself in the intervals of his writing in watching the boats that were passing along the canal.
He took two sheets of note paper instead of one sheet of letter paper, in order that, if he should get tired after filling one of them, he could stop, and so send what he had written, without causing his father to pay postage on any useless paper.
"Then," thought he, "if I donotget tired, I will go on and fill the second sheet, and my mother will have a double small letter. A double small letter will be just as good as a single large one."
This was an excellent plan.
Rollo also took great pains to guard against another fault which boys often fall into in writing their letters; that is, the fault of growing careless about the writing as they go on with the work, by which means a letter is produced which looks very neat and pretty at the beginning, but becomes an ill-looking and almost illegible scrawl at the end.
"I'll begin," said he, "as I think I shall be able to hold out; and I'll hold out to the end just as I begin."
Rollo remained over his letter more than three hours. He would have become exceedingly tired with the work if he had written continuously all this time; but he stopped to rest very often, and to amuse himself with observing what was passing before him in the street and on the canal.
Mr. George was occupied all this time in writinghisletter, and each read what he had written to the other that same evening, after dinner. The two letters were as follows:—
Mr. George's Letter.
"Leyden, Holland, September 27.
"My Dear Edward:[6]
"We have been travelling now for several days in Holland, and it is one of the most curious and amusing countries to travel in that I have ever seen.
"We all know from the books of geography which we study at school, that Holland is a very low country—lower in many places than the ocean; and that the water of the ocean is kept from overflowing it by dikes, which the people built ages ago, along the shores. I always used to suppose that it was only from the sea that people had any danger to fear of inundations; but I find now that it is not so.
"The people have to defend themselves from inundations, not only on the side towards the sea, but also quite as much, if not more, on the side towards the land, from the waters of the RiverRhine. The River Rhine rises in Switzerland, and flows through various countries of Europe until it comes to the borders of Holland, and there it spreads out into innumerable branches, and runs every where, all over the country. It would often overflow the country entirely, were it not that the banks are guarded by dikes, like the dikes of the sea. The various branches of the rivers are connected together by canals, which are also higher than the land on each side of them. Thus the whole country is covered with a great network of canals, rivers, and inlets from the sea, with water in them higher than the land. When the tide is low in the sea, the surplus water from these rivers and canals flows off through immense sluices at the mouth of them. When the tide comes up, it is kept from flowing in by immense gates, with which the sluices are closed. They call the tracts of land that lie lower than the channels of water around them,polders. That is rather a queer name. I suppose it is a Dutch name.
"The polders all have drains and canals cut in them. As we ride along in the railway carriages we overlook these polders. They look like immense green fields, extending as far as you can see, with straight canals running through them in every direction, and crossing each other at right angles. These canals, in the bottom of the polders, are about six feet wide. They are wide enough to prevent the cattle from jumping across them, and so they serve for fences to divide the fields from each other. They also serve for roads, for the Dutchmen use boats on their farms to get in their hay and produce, instead of carts.
"The water that collects in these low canals and drains, which run across the polders, cannot flow out into the large canals, which are higher than they are, and so they have to pump it out. They pump it out generally by means of wind mills. So wherever you go, throughout all Holland, you find an immense number of wind mills. These wind mills are very curious indeed. Some of them are immensely large. They look like lighthouses. The large ones are generally built of brick, and some of them are several hundred years old. The sails of the big ones are often fifty feet long, and sometimes eighty feet. This makes a wheel one hundred and sixty feet in diameter. When you stand under one of these mills, and look up, and see these immense sails revolving so high in the air that the lowest point, when the sail comes round, is higher than the tops of the four story houses, the effect is quite sublime.
"With these wind mills they pump the water up from one drain or canal to another, till theyget it high enough to run off into the sea. In some places, however, it is very difficult to get the water into the sea even in this way, even at low tides. The River Amstel, for instance, which comes out at Amsterdam, and into which a great many canals and channels are pumped, is so low at its mouth that the sea is never, at the lowest tides, more than a foot and a half below it. At high tides the sea is a great deal above it. The average is about a foot above. Of course it requires a great deal of management to get the waters of the river out, and avoid letting the water of the sea in. They do it by immense sluices, which are generally kept shut, and only opened when the tide is low.
"In the mean time, if it should ever so happen that they could not succeed in letting the water out fast enough, it would, of course, accumulate, and rise in the rivers, and press against the dikes that run along the banks of it, till at last it would break through in some weak place; and then, unless the people could stop the breach, the whole polder on that side would be gradually overflowed. The inundation would extend until it came to some other dike to stop it. The polder that would first be filled would become a lake. The lake would be many miles in extent, perhaps, but the water in it would not usually be very deep—not more than eight or ten feet, perhaps; though in some cases the polders are so low, that an inundation from the rivers and canals around it would make the lake twenty or thirty feet deep.
"Of course, in ancient times, when a portion of the country became thus submerged, it was for the people to consider whether they would abandon it or try to pump all that water out again, by means of the wind mills. They would think that if they pumped it out it would be some years before the land would be good again; for the salt in the water would tend to make it barren. So they would sometimes abandon it, and put all their energy into requisition to strengthen the dikes around it, in order to prevent the inundation from spreading any farther. For water, in Holland, tends to spread and to destroy life and property, just as fire does in other countries. The lakes and rivers, where they are higher than the land, are liable to burst their barriers after heavy rains falling in the country, or great floods coming down the rivers, or high tides rise from the sea, and so run into each other; and the people have continually to contend against this danger, just as in other countries they do against spreading conflagrations.
"In the case of spreading fire, water is the great friend and helper of man; and in the caseof these spreading inundations of water, it is wind that he relies upon. The only mode that the Dutch had to pump out the water in former times was the wind mills. When the rains or the tides inundated the land, they called upon the wind to help them lift the water out to where it could flow away again.
"There was a time, two or three hundred years ago, when all the wind mills that the people could make, seem not to have been enough to do the work; and there was one place, in the centre of the country, where the water continued to spread more and more—breaking through as it spread from one polder to another—until, at last, it swallowed up such an extent of country as to form a lake thirty miles in circumference. This lake at last extended very near to the gates of Haarlem, and it was called the Holland Lake. You will find it laid down on all the maps of Holland, except those which have been printed within a few years. The reason why it is not laid down now is, because a few years ago, finding that the wind mills were not strong enough to pump it out, the government concluded to try what virtue there might be in steam. So they first repaired and strengthened the range of dikes that extended round the lake. In fact, they made them double all around, leaving a space between for a canal.They made both the inner and outer of these dikes water-tight; so that the water should neither soak back into the lake again, after it was pumped out, nor ooze out into the polders beyond. The way they made them water-tight was by lining them on both sides with a good thick coating of clay.
"When the dikes enclosing the lake were completed, the engineers set up three very powerful steam engines, and gave to each one ten or twelve enormous pumps to work. These pumping engines were made on such a grand scale that they lifted over sixty tuns of water at every stroke. But yet so large was the lake, and so vast the quantity of water to be drained, that though there were three of the engines working at this rate, and though they were kept at work night and day, it took them a year and a half to lay the ground dry. The work was, however, at last accomplished, and now, what was the bottom of the lake is all converted into pastures and green fields. But they still have to keep the pumps going all the time to lift out the surplus water that falls over the whole space in rain. You may judge that the amount is very large that falls on a district thirty miles round. They calculate that the quantity which they have to pump up now, every year, in order to keep the land frombeing overflowed again, is over fifty millions of tuns. And that is a quantity larger than you can ever conceive of.
"And yet the piece of ground is so large, that the cost of this pumping makes only about fifty cents for each acre of land, which is very little.
"Besides these great spreading inundations, which Holland has always been subject to from the lakes and rivers in the middle of the country, there has always been a greater danger still to be feared from the ice freshets of the Rhine, and other great rivers coming from the interior of the country. The Rhine, you know, flows from south to north, and often the ice, in the spring, breaks up in the middle of the course of the river, before it gets thawed in Holland. The broken ice, in coming down the stream towards the north, is kept within the banks of the stream where the banks are high; but when it reaches Holland it is not only no longer so confined, but it finds its flow obstructed by the ice which there still remains solid, and so it gets jammed and forms dams, and that makes the water rise very fast. At one time when such a dam was formed, the water rose seven feet in an hour. At such times the pressure becomes so prodigious that the dikes along the bank of the river are burst, and water, sand, gravel, and ice, all pour over together uponthe surrounding country, and overwhelm and destroy every thing that comes in its way.
"Some of the inundations caused in Holland by these floods and freshets have been terrible. In ancient times they were worse than they are now; because now the dikes are stronger, and are better guarded. At one inundation that occurred about sixty years ago, eighty thousand persons were drowned. At another, three hundred years earlier, one hundred thousand perished. Think what awful floods there must have been.
"But I cannot write any more in this letter. I have taken up so much space and time in telling you about the inundations and freshets, that I have not time to describe a great many other things which I have seen, that are quite as curious and remarkable as they. But when I get home I can tell you all about them, in the winter evenings, and read to you about them from my journal.
"Your affectionate brother,"George."
Rollo's Letter.
"Leyden, Tuesday, September 27.
"My Dear Mother:
"Uncle George and I are having a very fine time indeed in travelling about Holland; it issuch a funny country, on account of there being so many canals. The water is all smooth and still in all the canals, (except when the wind blows,) and so there must be excellent skating every where in the winter.
"I wish it was winter here now, for one day, so that uncle George and I could have some Dutch skating.
"There must be good skating every where here in the winter, for there is water every where, and it is all good water for skating. In the fields, instead of brooks running in crooked ways and tumbling over rocks, there are only long and narrow channels of smooth water, just about wide enough to skate upon, and reaching as far as you can see.
"The people here speak Dutch, and they cannot understand me, and I cannot understand them. And that is not the worst of it; they can't understand thatI can't understandthem. Sometimes the woman that comes to make my bed tells me something in Dutch, and I tell her that I can't understand. I know the Dutch for 'I can't understand.' Then she says, 'O!' and goes on to tell me over again, only now she tries to speak plainer—as if it could make any difference to me whether she speaks plain or not. I shake my head, and tell her I can't understand any thing. I tell herin French, and in English, and in Dutch. But it does not do any good, for she immediately begins again, and tells me the whole story all over again, trying to speak plainer than ever. I suppose she thinks that any body can understand Dutch, if she only speaks it plain enough to them.
"When I want any thing of them, I always tell them by signs. The other evening, uncle George and I wanted some candles. So I rang the bell, and a woman came. I went to the door of the room, and made believe that I had two candlesticks in my hand, and that I was bringing them in. I made believe put them on the table, and then sat down and opened a book, and pretended that I was reading by the light of them. She understood me immediately. She laughed, and said, 'Ya, ya!' and went off out of the room to get the candles.
"Ya, ya, means yes, yes.
"Another time we wanted a fire. So when the woman came in, I shivered, and made believe that I was very cold, and then I went to the fireplace, and made believe warm myself. Then I pointed to the fireplace, and made a sign for her to go away and bring the fire to put there. But instead of going, she told me something in Dutch, and shook her head; and when I said I could not understand it, she told me over again; and finally she went away, and sent the landlady. The landlady couldspeak a little English. So she told me that we could not have any fire except in foot stoves, for the fireplace stoves were not put up.
THE BOAT FAMILY.
"It is very curious to walk about the streets, and see the boats on thecanals, and what the people are carrying back and forth in them. I watch them sometimes from the windows of the hotel, especially when it rains, and we cannot go out. They have every thing in these boats. They use some of them instead of houses; and the man who owns them lives in them with his wife and children, and sometimes with his ducks and chickens.
"I often see the little children playing on the decks of the boat. Once I saw one that had a dog, and he was trying to teach him to cipher on a slate. His mother and the other children were on the boat too.
"The people use their dogs here to draw carts. They have three or four sometimes harnessed in together. The dogs look pretty poor and lean, but they draw like good fellows. You would be surprised to see what great loads they draw. They draw loads of vegetables to market, and then, when the vegetables are sold, they draw the market women home in the empty carts.
"Only they don't mind very well, when they are told which way to go. I saw a boy yesterdayriding along in a cart, with a good big dog to draw him, and when he came to a street where he wanted him to turn down, the dog would not turn. The boy hallooed out to him in Dutch a good many times, and finally the boy had to jump down out of the cart, and run and seize him by the collar, andpullhim round.
"It is not a great deal that they use dog carts to bring things to market, for generally they bring them in boats. They take almost every thing to and fro along the canals in boats; and it is very curious to stand on a bridge and look down on the boats that pass under, and see how many different kinds of boats there are, and how many different kinds of things they have in them. This morning, I saw one that had the bottom of it divided into three pens for animals. In the first pen were two great cows, lying down on the straw; in the second pen were several sheep; and in the third there were as many as a dozen small pigs, just big enough to be roasted. I suppose it was a farmer bringing in his stock to market.
"Sometimes they row the boats along the canal, and sometimes they push them with setting poles. They have the longest setting poles in some of the boats that I ever saw. There is an iron pike at one end of the pole, and a wooden knob at theother. When they are pushing the boat by means of one of these poles, they run the ironed end of it down to the bottom, and then the man puts his shoulder to the little knob at the other end and pushes. As the boat goes on, he walks along the boat from the bow to the stern, pushing all the way as hard as he can push.
"When they are out of town the men pull the boats along the canals by means of a long cord, which is fastened to a strap over their shoulders. With this strap they walk along on the tow-path of the canal, pulling in this way—so that if the cord should break, I should think they would fall headlong on the ground.
"I saw a man and a woman the other day pulling a double boat, loaded with hay, along a canal. The hay was loaded across from one boat to the other. It made as much as five or six of the largest cart loads of hay that I ever saw. I was surprised to see that a man and a woman could draw so much. They drew it by long lines, and by straps over their shoulders. The woman's line was fastened to one of the boats, and the man's to the other.
"The people travel a great deal in boats in these parts of the country, where there are no railroads. Uncle George and I took a little journey in one, the other day. I wanted to go verymuch, but uncle George was afraid, he said, that they might take us somewhere where there would be nobody that could talk English, and so we might get into some serious difficulty. But he said that he would go with me a few miles, if I could find a canal boat going to some place that we knew. So I found one going to a town called Delft. We knew that place, because we had come through it, or close by it, by the railway.
"Uncle George said that it was an excellent plan to go there, for then, if we got tired of the canal boat in going, we could come home by a railroad train.
"So we went; and we had a very pleasant time, indeed. I found the canal boat by going to the place where the boats all were, and saying,Delft, Delft, to the people; and then they pointed me to the right boat. So we got in. When the captain came for the fare, I took out a handful of money, and saidDelft, and also pointed to uncle George. So he took out enough to pay for uncle George and me to go to Delft. At least I suppose he thought it was enough, though I thought it was very little.
"We had a very pleasant sail to Delft. The banks of the canal are beautiful. They are green and pretty every where, and in some places there were beautiful gardens, and summer houses, and pavilions close upon the shore.
"But now I begin to be tired of writing. I should have been tired a great while ago, only I have stopped to rest pretty often, and to look out the window, and see what is going by on the canal.
"There is a boat coming now with a mast, and I don't see what they are going to do, for there is a bridge here, and it is not a draw bridge. Almost all the bridges are draw bridges, but this one is not. So I don't see how he is going to get by.
"Ah, I see how it is! The mast is on a hinge, so that it can turn down backward, and lie along flat on the deck of the boat. It is going down now.
"Now it is down, and the boat is going under the bridge.
"But good by, mother, for it is time for me to stop.
"Your affectionate and dutiful son,"Rollo.
"P. S. This is the longest letter that I ever wrote."
Asmay well be imagined, the best use to which the green fields of Holland can be put, is the raising of grass to feed cattle; for the wetness of the land, which makes it somewhat unsuitable to be ploughed, causes grass to grow upon it very luxuriantly. Accordingly, as you ride through the country along the great railway lines, you see, every where, herds of cattle and flocks of sheep feeding in the meadows that extend far and wide in every direction.
The cattle are kept partly for the purpose of being fatted and sent to market for beef, and partly for their milk, which the Dutch farmers make cheese of. Dutch cheeses are celebrated in every part of the world.
In the neighborhood of Amsterdam there are a number of dairy villages where cheeses are made, and some of them are almost always visited by travellers. They are great curiosities, in fact, on account of their singular and most extraordinary neatness. Cleanliness is, in all parts of the world, deemed a very essential requisite of a dairy, and the Dutch housewives in the dairy villages of Holland have carried the idea to the extreme. The village which is most commonly visited by strangers who go to Amsterdam, is one called Broek. It lies to the north of Amsterdam, and at a distance of about five or six miles from it.
One day when Mr. George and Rollo arrived in Amsterdam, Mr. George, just at sundown, looked out at the window of the hotel, and said,—
"Rollo, I think it is going to be a superb day to-morrow."
"So do I," said Rollo.
"At least," said Mr. George, "I should think so if I were in America. The wind has all gone down, and the western sky is full of golden clouds shining in roseate splendor."
Mr. George enunciated these high-sounding words in a pompous and theatrical manner, which made Rollo laugh very heartily.
"And, to descend from poetry to plain prose," said Mr. George, "I think we had better take advantage of the fine weather to go to Broek to-morrow."
"Very well," said Rollo, "that plan suits me exactly."
Rollo was always ready for any plan which involved the going away from the place where he was, to some new place which he had not seen before.
"But how are we going to find the way there?" said Rollo.
"I shall take a commissioner," said Mr. George. "I am going to Saandam, too, where Peter the Great learned ship carpentry."
"I have heard something about that," said Rollo, "but I don't know much about it."
"Why, Peter the Great was emperor of Russia," said Mr. George, "and he wished to introduce ship building into his dominions. So he came to Holland to learn about the construction of ships, in order that he might be better qualified to take the direction of the building of a fleet in Russia. Saandam was the place that he came to. While he was there he lived in a small, wooden house, near the place where the ship building was going on. That house is there now, and almost every body that comes to this part of the country goes to see it."
"How long ago was it that he was there?" asked Rollo.
"It was more than one hundred and fifty years ago," said Mr. George.
"I should not think a wooden house would have lasted so long," said Rollo.
"It would not have lasted so long," replied Mr. George, "if they had not taken special pains to preserve it. They have built a brick house around it and over it, to protect it from the weather, and so it has been preserved. Now I think we had better go to-morrow and see Broek, and also Saandam, and I am going to take a commissioner."
Mr. George had employed a commissioner once before, as the reader will perhaps recollect, namely, at the Hague; and perhaps I ought to stop here a moment to explain more fully what a commissioner is. He is a servant hired by the day to conduct strangers about the town where they reside, and about the environs, if necessary, to show them what there is that is curious and wonderful there. These men are called, sometimes commissioners and sometimesvalets de place, and in their way they are very useful.
If a traveller arrives at a hotel in the morning, at any important town in Europe, before he has been in his room fifteen minutes he generally hears a knock at his door, and on bidding the person come in, a well-dressed looking servant man appears and asks,—
"Shall you wish for a commissioner, sir, to-day?"
Or if the gentleman, after remaining in his room a few minutes, takes his wife or his daughter, or whomever he may have travelling with him, and goes out from the door of the hotel, he is pretty sure to be met near the door by one or more of these men, who accost him earnestly, saying,—
"Do you want a commissioner, sir?" Or, "Shall I show you the way, sir?" Or, "Would you like to see the museum, sir?"
When a traveller intends to remain some days in a place, he has generally no occasion for a commissioner; since, in his rambles about the town, he usually finds all the places of interest himself, and in such a case the importunities of the commissioners seeking employment are sometimes annoying to him. But if his time is very short, or if he wishes to make excursions into the neighborhood of a town where he does not understand the language of the people, then such a servant is of very great advantage.
Mr. George thought that his proposed excursion to Broek and Saandam was an occasion on which a commissioner could be very advantageously employed. Accordingly, after he and Rollo had finished their dinner, which they tookat a round table near a window in the coffee room, he asked Rollo to ring the bell.
Rollo did so, and a waiter came in.
"Send me in a commissioner, if you please," said Mr. George.
"Very well, sir," said the waiter, with a bow.
The waiter went out, and in a few minutes a well-dressed and very respectable looking young man came in, and advancing towards Mr. George, said,—
"Did you wish to see a commissioner, sir?"
"Yes," said Mr. George. "I want to make some inquiries about going to Broek and to Saandam, to-morrow. I want to know what the best way is to go, and what the expenses will be."
So saying, Mr. George took out a pencil and a piece of paper from his pocket, in order to make a memorandum of what the commissioner should say.
"In the first place," asked Mr. George, "what is your name? I shall want to know what to call you."
"My name is James," said the commissioner.
"Well, now, James," said Mr. George, "I want you to tell me what the best way is to go, and what all the expenses will be. I want to know every thing beforehand."
"Well, sir," said James, "we shall go firstby the ferry boat across to the Y,[7]and there we shall take thetrekschuytfor a short distance on the canal."
"And how much will that cost?" asked Mr. George.
"For the three, forty-five cents," said James.
He meant, of course, Dutch cents. It takes two and a half Dutch cents to make one American cent.
"There," continued James, "we take a carriage."
"And how much will the carriage be?" asked Mr. George.
"To go to Broek and back, and then to Saandam, will be ten guilders."
Mr. George made memoranda of these sums on his paper, as James named them.
"And the tolls," continued James, "will be one guilder and twenty-five cents more."
"And the driver?" asked Mr. George.
In most of the countries of Europe, when you make a bargain for the carriage, the driver's services are not included in it. He expects a fee besides.
"The driver, fifty cents. Half a guilder," said James.
"Is that enough for him?" asked Mr. George.
"Yes, sir," said James, "that's enough."
"We will call it seventy-five cents," said Mr. George. So saying, he wrote seventy-five.
"Then there will be some fees to pay, I suppose," said Mr. George, "both at Broek and at Saandam."
"Yes, sir," said James. "We pay twenty-five cents at the dairy, twenty-five cents at the garden, and twenty-five to the hostler. That makes seventy-five. And the same at Saandam, to see the hut of Peter the Great, and the house. That makes one guilder fifty centimes."
"Is that all?" asked Mr. George.
"There will be forty-five cents for the ferry, coming back," said James.
Mr. George added this sum to the column, and then footed it up. The amount was nearly fifteen guilders.
"We will call it fifteen guilders," said he. "To-morrow I will give you fifteen guilders, and you will pay all expenses. And then what shall I have to pay you for your services?"
"My charge is four guilders for the day," said James.
"Very well," said Mr. George. "And at what time in the morning will it be best to set out?"
"There is a boat at nine o'clock," said James.
"Then we will leave here at half past eight. We will have breakfast, Rollo, at eight. Or perhaps we can have breakfast at Broek. Is there a hotel there, James?"
"Yes, sir," said James. "There is a hotel there."
"Very well. Then we will wait till we get there before we take breakfast, and we will expect you at half past eight. Our room is number eleven."
The arrangement being thus fully made, the commissioner, promising to be punctual, bowed and retired.
"Now, Rollo," said Mr. George, "to-morrow we will have a good time. After I give the commissioner the fifteen guilders, I shall have no further care or responsibility, but shall be taken along over the whole ground as if I were a child under the care of his father."