G. Christopher Davies

“ On this old-world island on the Zuyder Zee, close as it is to Amsterdam, the people wear a costume which is comically picturesque.
The streets of Amsterdam are delightful, with their curious and variegated gables, and the angles at which the houses lean, supported as they are more by each other than by their rotting pile-foundations driven into peaty mud. ”

“ The weigh-house at Alkmaar is a well-known subject for a sketch; and the market on a fair-day is a sight, crammed as it is with piles of cheeses, brought by the craft which crowd the town canal; while country chariots, with their high poop canopies, bring the stout farmers and their silver-crowned wives to make the quaint old town gay with quaint dresses.
In a field on the other side of the canal, opposite the yacht, was a tall pole with a platform on the top, and on this obligingly placed coign of vantage a stork had built its nest. ”

“ Fresh and breezy and wide, it is a kaleidoscope of craft, from the great East India steamers and ocean-going ships which have come by the deep ship-canal from the new haven at Ymuiden, to the schuyts from the Zuyder Zee, long lighters from the Rhine, and tjalks and barges of many kinds from the inland canals. The small craft sail through rapidly opening bridges among the queer gables along the town canal, and other craft are disgorged as it were out of the houses, and scatter upon the Y.
Yachting is a pastime growing more into favor with the Dutch, especially within the last two years. ”

“ The North Holland Canal was the great highway for ships from the sea at Nieuwediep until the shorter canal from Ymuiden to Amsterdam took away all the heavy traffic. Now only the country craft and small steamers navigate it, and it is comparatively deserted, but it is broad and deep and kept in perfect order. The villages and houses on the banks are all of one type, the houses square with,, pyramidal roofs of great height, partly thatched and partly tiled in ornamental patterns, the tiles so highly glazed as to shine as if varnished. ”

“ At the latter place the canal was so narrow that we had to lower sail to prevent our boom from breaking the windows. Our advent created great excitement. People catching sight of us would bolt indoors, to reappear with the whole family.
In the bushes in the gardens, and on the trees, were hung gourd-shaped baskets, which served as nests for the numerous ducks. One sees these curious basket-purses hung up everywhere in Friesland, by and along, and always above the level of the water. Sometimes they are supported on a framework of sticks. ”

“ The river Yssel from Rotterdam to Gouda is somewhat tame and uninteresting. The chief impression was that everything was slowly gliding – ourselves, the craft we met or passed, the high banks, and the farmers' chariots (the word cart conveys no idea of the quaint shapes of these vehicles) , and the hazy clouds which made the day so soft and silvery. A storks' nest in a tall tree, with the old birds and young perched upon it, was the first excitement, and then we noticed many storks and herons in the bays or which, between breakwaters, are numerous. ”

“ It now took all our skill to dodge the break of the swell. “White horses” covered the sea all round, and we went sliding up one side of a steep wave and down another in a lively fashion, luffing to it if the wave came on the bow, or bearing away, so that her stern lifted to it first, if the wave came on the quarter. Every now and then there would be a sudden lull, then a gathering of a greater wave, which would come roaring along as if it meant to engulf us, but we would rise in what appeared to be a marvellous manner over its height ”

“ There is, however, one cruising-ground of fairly easy access, where there is plenty of room, plenty of variety, and which is markedly foreign in its appearance, and that is Holland and its great inland sea, the Zuyder Zee, bordered by its many ancient cities, each with a capital harbor, and with its islands, which are worlds of themselves, not satellites of the mainland. It is a favorite cruising-ground of mine, and the following is the log of a little yacht belonging to my wife and myself, which carried her joint owners a delightful cruise on Dutch waterways. ”

“ We soon engaged a pilot for the dangerous crossing to Harlingen, and were up in the morning at four o'clock, and by five were through the lock into the harbor. The tide had commenced to make, and raced up the long, narrow harbor at a speed of six or seven miles an hour, so that we could not, as we intended, slip out with the ebb, and it took all the strength of two men to tow the yacht against the tide. Half-way down the harbor a pilot cutter was moored alongside the quay, and we hung on outside of her and hoisted sail as a light air began to make off the land. ”

“ As far as the eye could reach stretched the perfectly flat meadows straightly cut, with numberless gleaming dykes, instead of the sea where once naval battles were fought between Dutch and Spaniard. The level was some twelve feet below the surrounding canal on which we were sailing, and into which by a series of easy steps, from dyke to little canal, and little canal along to big canal, the water was pumped by wind and steam mills. Holland is largely made out of such polders. ”

“ We revisited Enkhuisen, which we had remembered to have been the deadest of the dead cities, but where we now found a large new harbor with steamers to Friesland, running in connection with trains which entered a brand-new and sumptuous station. The harbors were crowded with fishing-craft, and the channels between the mainland and the sand were thronged with sailing-craft – great tjalks laden high with peat or hay, or the brushwood used for repairing dykes, unwieldy, floating stacks which yet managed to sail well. ”

“ Rounding a white buoy, we turned a sharp corner and sailed back almost in the direction in which we had come with a fair wind and tide down the Blauwe Sleuk channel to the south-east, our destination, Harlingen on the Friesland shore of the Zuyder Zee, being in sight. A heavy thunderstorm killed the wind and it fell dead calm. Drifting away to the southward into shoaling water (where we poled along for some time) we had to anchor for an hour. ”

“ The land was literally invisible through the mist and spray torn from the short waves. Our decks were swept with fresh water almost as much as they had been with the North Sea waves. No other craft was moving, but many were anchored or drifted aground. I think the peculiar hue of the water made the scene more wildly grand. As we neared the lower end of the mere, we turned off to the right. Our pilot looked happier as the water deepened to six feet, and we shot into a canal where our swell washed the pike and eel fishers boats high on to the marsh ”

“ We might expect now to be alone on the circle of the sea until we fell in with the North Sea fishing-fleet in the early morning. The wind freshening and the sea increasing, too much water was coming aboard over the bows, so we lowered the stay foresail, which is a very pressing sail on a small craft, while the jib is a lifting sail. ”

“ Through the lock our steamer took us in tow again, along the most awful sewer, with chemical works, scavengers' heaps, manure-factories, and unnamable abominations on its banks – the lighter in front of us, being deeply laden, churning up the pestilential mud from the bottom. ”

“ They are probably the white-beaked dolphin, but there is much uncertainty as to the species of cetaceans inhabiting the North Sea, and several kinds are called by the fishermen by the common name of scoulter. They come inshore in rough weather, and are fond of following vessels, which perhaps they may take to be of a kindred species. We sailed into Harlingen at three in the afternoon, where our appearance attracted much attention. We pushed through the lock to a comfortable mooring-place in a very narrow canal, and made all snug, putting the awning up between us and the curious crowd on shore. ”

“ We were at once boarded by a civil harbor-master, who spoke English, and procured us a pilot over the Friesland meres for the next day but one.
Leeuwarden is a remarkably fine town, with modern and fashionable appearances fitting in better than usual with the picturesque characteristics of an ancient Dutch city. The gold helmet, with frontal bangles and pins, is commonly worn by the women, and when covered only by a rich lace cap is very taking; but when, as is too often the case, it is surmounted by a modern bonnet or hat, with artificial flowers and gay ribbons, the effect is incongruous. ”

“ There is plenty to see at and near Hoorn. The city itself is so delightfully ancient, with its pointed and ornate gables leaning this way and that in defiance of the laws of architectural gravity; its weigh-house, where the cheese-weighers attached to the huge scales wear different-colored hats as a distinctive mark for the cheese of each district ”

“ When we reached Purmerend, where there are locks, the wind had shifted to the westward, and, as the canal takes a sudden turn in that direction, we could not sail any further, but we arranged with a man and horse to tow us as far as Molenbuurt, where the canal again turns to the northward. Our steed went at a jog-trot, with the man sitting sideways on its back, and took us along faster than a man could walk. ”

“ We moved very slowly round the sharp curves of the canal out of Gouda, and at no time went faster than a man's quick walk. Thus it was easy for the numerous pedlar boats to hitch alongside the craft and sell their bread, cheese, butter, milk, and vegetables, being towed a mile or two in the process. We were fairly successful with our limited Dutch in asking them the names of places. “Who ate dat?” sounds niggerish, but is the proper way of pronouncing (not of spelling) “What place is that?” If one man only replied we understood, and could spot the place on the map ”

“ Many of these bays are utilized for setting the fishermen's nets. In others, men were digging up the deposited mud which supplies the material to the many brickyards along the river. In these yards are made the clinkers or narrow bricks with which so many of the streets and roads of Holland are paved, a neat and cleanly method, only available in a land where the heavy traffic goes by water.
It was afternoon when we arrived at Gouda, and casting loose from the steamer, we had to pole the yacht through the lock and into the narrow town canals. ”

“ Accounts of cruises in small yachts have a certain interest for all healthy Englishmen, whether their hobby be sailing or not; but small yachts that are under fifteen tons are necessarily limited in their choice of cruising-grounds. ”

“ It is a narrowly built pleasure-yacht, measuring from stem to stern, perhaps 30 feet at the largest; in her middle 6 feet. Her entire hold is as cabin enclosed in. This little ship is provided with two masts. Evidently she shall along the canals of our land a tournée make. She is at least ready to sail in the Leeuwarden canal.
Harlingen is busy on the arrival of the London steamers, but apparently at no other time. There are large and convenient docks, and every facility for trade. ”

“ One can see anything in a fog,` meaning that the strange shapes of the rolling mist are deceptive, and show untruthfully ship or buoy or land, while hiding the reality. After a couple of hours of this unpleasant and dangerous state of things, we hauled the log, and found that we had run the entire distance to Marken. ”

“ These foot-warmers are in general use all over Holland, and one sees in the churches great piles of them, set aside in the summer time. In the winter the fire-box is as essential an article of church-going as a Bible. ”