Читать книгу: «Rollo in Holland», страница 6

"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 that I can't understand them. 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 her in 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 could speak 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.

"It is very curious to walk about the streets, and see the boats on the canals, 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 yesterday riding 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, and pull him 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 the other. 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 very much, 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 said Delft, 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."

Chapter VIII.
The Commissioner

As may 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 sometimes valets 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 took at 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 first by the ferry boat across to the Y,⁶ and there we shall take the trekschuyt for 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."

Chapter IX.
The Great Canal

The commissioner knocked at Mr. George's door at the time appointed. Mr. George and Rollo were both ready. Mr. George counted out the fifteen guilders on the table, and James put them in his pocket. The party then set out.

Mr. George wished to stop by the way to put a letter in the post office, and to pay the postage of it. He desired to do this personally, for he wished to inquire whether the letter would go direct. So James led them by the way of the post office, and conducted Mr. George into the office where foreign letters were received, and the payment of postage taken for them. Here James served as interpreter. Indeed, it is one of the most important duties of a commissioner to serve as an interpreter to his employer, whenever his services are required in this capacity.

When the letter was put in, the party resumed their walk. The commissioner went on before, carrying Mr. George's travelling shawl and the umbrella, and Mr. George and Rollo followed. The way lay along a narrow street, by the side of a canal. There were a thousand curious sights to be seen, both among the boats on the canal and along the road; but Rollo could not stop to examine them, for the commissioner walked pretty fast.

"I wish he would not walk so fast," said Rollo.

"Ah, yes," said Mr. George, "he is right this morning, for we want to get to the pier in time for the boat. But in walking about the town to see it, it would be a great trouble to us."

"To-morrow we will go about by ourselves," said Rollo, "and stop when and where we please."

"We will," said Mr. George.

At last the party came out to what may be called the front of the city, where they could look off upon the harbor. This harbor is a sheet of water called the Y, which has been before referred to. The morning was bright and beautiful, and the water was covered with ships, steamers, barges, boats, and vessels of every form and size, going to and fro. The steamers passed swiftly, but the sailing vessels scarcely moved, so calm and still was the morning air. The sun was shining, and the whole scene presented to Mr. George's and Rollo's view, as they looked out over the water, was extremely brilliant and beautiful.

The commissioner led the way out over a long pier supported by piles, to a sort of landing platform at a distance from the shore. This place was quite large. It had a tavern upon it, and a great many different offices belonging to the different lines of steamers, and piers projecting in different directions for the different boats and steamers to land at. It stood at some distance from the shore, and the whole had the appearance of a little village on an island. It would have been an island indeed, if there had been any land about it; but there was not. It was built wholly on piles.

Here were crowds of people going and coming on this stage, some having just landed from the different steamers that had just arrived, and some about to embark in others that were going away. Small boats were coming, too, over the water, with passengers in them, among whom were many peasant girls, whose foreheads and temples were adorned with a profusion of golden ornaments, such as are worn by the ladies of North Holland. Rollo looked this way and that as he passed along the stage, and he wished for time to stop and examine what he saw; but the commissioner walked rapidly on, and led the way to the ferry boat.

"You will walk on board," said James, "while I get the tickets."

So Mr. George and Rollo went over the plank on board the boat, while James turned to a little office that stood near to get the tickets.

There was a man standing at the end of the plank to collect the tickets as the passengers came on board. Mr. George, as he passed, pointed back to the office where James had gone. The man bowed, and he and Rollo passed on.

"How independent we are!" said Mr. George. "I shall have nothing to do with making any payments all day to-day, and it will seem as if we were travelling free."

The ferry boat was of a very singular construction, and most singular looking people they were who were on board of it. It had a great flat deck, which was of an oval form, and was spreading out very wide at the sides. There were seats here and there in different places, but no awning or shelter of any kind overhead. Rollo was glad of this, for the morning was so fine, and the view on every side was so magnificent, that he was very much pleased to have it so wholly unobstructed.

As soon as the chimes of the city clocks began to strike for nine, the various steamboats began to shoot out in different directions from the piers of the landing, and soon the ferry boat began to move, too. She moved, however, very slowly.

"What a slow and clumsy boat!" said Rollo.

"I'm glad she is slow," replied Mr. George, "for I want to look about. I should be willing to be an hour in going across this ferry."

The prospect on every side was, indeed, very fine. On looking back they could see the buildings of the town extending far and wide for miles, with domes, and towers, and spires, and tops of trees, and masts of ships rising together every where above the tops of the houses. The water of the harbor was covered with ships and steamers passing to and fro—those near glittering in the sun, while the distant ones were half lost in a smoky haze that every where softened and concealed the horizon. Mr. George and Rollo gazed earnestly on this scene, looking now in this direction, and now in that, but not speaking a word.

When they were about half across the Y, James came to Mr. George, and said,—

"This ferry boat connects with a steamer on the canal, which goes to the Helder, and also with various trekschuyts. We shall take a trekschuyt to go for a short distance?—as far as to the place where we shall get a carriage."

"Very well," said Mr. George. "Arrange it as you think best. Then we shall go a short distance on the great canal."

"Yes, sir," said James. "You will like to see a little of the canal."

"I shall, indeed," said Mr. George.

The great canal of which James here spoke is the grandest work of the kind in Holland, and perhaps in the world. If you look at the map you will see that Amsterdam stands somewhat in the interior of the country, and that the only approach to it, by sea, is through a great gulf called the Zuyder Zee. Now, the water in the Zuyder Zee is shallow. There are channels, it is true, that are tolerably deep; but they are very winding and intricate, and they are so surrounded with shoals and sand banks as to make the navigation very difficult, especially for ships of large size.

The people, accordingly, conceived the plan of digging a canal across the country; from Amsterdam to the nearest place where there was deep water on the sea. This was at a point of land called the Helder.

The reason why there was deep water there, was, that that was the outlet for the Zuyder Zee, and the water rushing in there when the tide is rising, and out again when it goes down, keeps the channel deep and clear.

So it was determined to make a canal from the Helder to Amsterdam. But the land was lower, almost all the way, than the sea. This rendered it impossible to construct the canal so as to make it of the same level with the sea, without building up the banks of it to an inconvenient height. Besides, it was just as well to make the canal lower than the sea, and then to build gates at each end of it, to prevent the sea water from coming in.

"Then how were the ships to get in?" asked Rollo, when Mr. George explained this to him.

"Why, there were two ways," replied Mr. George, "by which ships might get in. You see, although the canal is lower than the sea is generally, there is an hour or two every day when the tide goes down, in which the two are about on a level. Accordingly, by opening the gates when the tide is low, a communication would be made by which the vessels could sail in and out."

"But that would be inconvenient, I should think," said Rollo, "not to have the gates open but twice a day."

"Yes," said Mr. George; "and so, to enable them to admit ships at any time, they have built locks at each end."

"Like the locks in a common canal in America?" said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George; "and by means of these locks, ships can be taken in and out at any time."

"I don't exactly understand how they do it," said Rollo.

"Let me explain it to you, then," replied Mr. George. "Listen attentively, and picture to your mind precisely what I describe, and see if you understand.

"First," continued Mr. George, "imagine that you are down by the sea shore, where the canal ends. The water in the sea is higher than it is in the canal, and there are two sets of gates, at a little distance from each other, near the mouth of the canal, which keep the water of the sea from flowing in."

"Yes," said Rollo, "I can picture that to my mind. But how far apart are the two sets of gates?"

"A little farther apart," said Mr. George, "than the length of the longest ship. Of course one pair of these locks is towards the sea, and the other towards the canal. I will call the first the sea gates, and the other the canal gates. The space between the two gates is called the lock."

"Yes," said Rollo, "I understand all that."

"Now," continued Mr. George, "a ship comes in, we will suppose, and is to be taken into the canal. First, the men open the sea gates. The sea can now flow into the lock, but it cannot get into the canal, because the canal gates are still shut."

"Yes," said Rollo.

"And, now you see," continued Mr. George, "that as the water in the lock is high, and on a level with the sea, the ship can sail into the lock."

"But it can't get down into the canal," said Rollo.

"No," replied Mr. George, "not yet. But now the men shut the sea gates, and thus shut the ship in. They then open the passages through the canal gates, and this lets the water out of the lock until it subsides to the level of that in the canal, and the ship settles down with it. But the sea cannot come in, for the sea gates, that are now behind the ship, are shut. When the water in the lock has gone down to the canal level, then they can open the gates, and the ship can sail along out of the lock into the canal.

"Thus they lock the ship down into the canal at one end, and when she has passed through the canal, they lock her up into the Y again at the other."

"Yes," said Rollo. "I understand it now. And shall we go into the canal through the locks in this way?"

"I don't know," said Mr. George. "I'll ask James."

So Mr. George beckoned to James to come to him, and asked him whether they should enter the canal through the lock.

"No," said James. "The ferry boat does not go into the canal at all. We go into a little dock or harbor by the side of it, and the passengers walk over the dike, and down to the canal, where they find the boats ready for them that they are to take."

"Why don't they pass from those boats through the locks, and let them come across to Amsterdam?" asked Rollo, "and then we might get on board them there, and so not have to change from one boat to the other."

"Because it takes some time, and some trouble," said James, "to pass any thing through the locks, and it is not worth while to do it, except in case of large and valuable ships. So the boats and steamers that ply along the canal are left inside the lock, and the passengers are taken to and from them by the ferry boat."

The ferry boat, by this time, began to approach the shore. It entered into a little opening in the land, which formed a sort of harbor. Here the passengers were landed at a wharf, which was surrounded by small buildings. Thence they ascended what was evidently a large dike. When they reached the top of the dike they saw below them, on the other side of it, the beginning of the canal. It lay several feet lower than the water of the harbor in which they had left the ferry boat; but it was quite wide, and it was bordered by broad dikes with avenues of trees upon them, on either side. On one side, under the trees, was a tow path, and on the other a broad and smoothly gravelled road.

Two boats were lying moored to the wharves at the side of the canal. One was a long, sharp, and narrow steamer, which was going through the whole length of the canal to the Helder. The other was a trekschuyt, or canal boat, which was going only a short way, to the nearest village.

The passengers that came in the ferry boat divided into two parties, as they came down the dike. One party went to the steamer, the other to the trekschuyt. Mr. George and Rollo, of course, went with the last.