Gouda

“ In a town like Gouda, which none should fail to visit for the incomparable stained-glass in its church, I am content to be as placid and solitary as anybody, and I will follow a dancing bear and a Gipsy girl up and down the streets thereof with as much simplicity as anybody. ”

“ The town of Gouda is laid out in a fine open manner and, like other Dutch towns, is intersected by numerous canals. On its outskirts pleasant walks and fine trees have replaced the old fortifications. The Groote Markt is the largest market-square in Holland. ”

“ All the windows of the Gouda church are beautiful, but the Haarlem window would warm the coldest heart, and I was not surprised to find Miss Van Buren already gazing at it, a lovely light streaming through the old glass upon her uplifted face. She is a girl to find out the best things at once, by instinct. ”

“ The 11th of May, 1570, the Bailiff of Gouda brought to examination the hereinafter mentioned person; there being present, Gijsbert Jan Maertenss, and Gerraert Huygen, burgomasters, Dirck Andries, Mr. Heyndrick Jacobs, Mr. Cornelis Heyndricks, judges.
Faes Dircks, chair-maker, about thirty-one years of age, says that he is a native citizen of Gouda, and that on last Easter day he heard the pastor of Gouda preach; that those who go to the Lord’s table do not receive roasted, sodden or raw meat, but that they receive the roasted flesh of our Lord, roasted on Good Friday, on the tree of the cross. ”

“ Of the death of Henry of Gouda, a devout Priest, at Zwolle.
In the year of the Lord 1410, on the day of St. Gregory the Pope, Henry of Gouda died at Zwolle. He was a devout Priest and Confessor to the Sisters in that place, having been of old one of the disciples of Florentius, and he was born in Holland near Schoonhoven. Being learned in the Scriptures he was a mighty preacher, and one that did truly despise the world and its riches; he feared not to reprove the vices of sinners, and in his frequent preaching he strove for the salvation of his neighbours ”

“ When Nicholas de Gouda, the pope's legate, was engaged in a secret embassy to that country in 1561–2, all the ports were watched and guarded, and it was only by the extraordinary courage and ingenuity of John Hay and Crichton that de Gouda escaped unharmed. Crichton accompanied him to Antwerp and became a member of the Society of Jesus. He returned to Scotland in the beginning of Lent 1582, and was received into the house of Lord Seton, the only member of the royal council who remained constant to his religion. ”

“ Among the peasant classes of South Holland it is the custom, as soon as the ice will bear, to skate to Gouda, men and women together, there to buy long Gouda pipes for the men and 'Goudsche sprits' for the women, and then to skate home with these brittle objects without breaking them. ”

“ A famous Dutch traveler and founder of trade with the East Indies, born at Gouda in the middle of the sixteenth century. He went on a trading voyage with his brother, Frederik, to Lisbon in 1593, where he was thrown into a debtor's prison. ”

“ 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 ”

“ If anything should go wrong with the motor, brilliant "Lorelei" will instantly become a mere hulk at the mercy of wind and wave. However, as Starr remarked sagely, we can stop in port for wind and wave, and be very happy.
As we talked, down on a page of my note-book went a roughly sketched map of Holland, my idea being to begin with Gouda, going on to Leiden, slipping through the villages of South Holland, which seem strange to travelers, and skirting the great polder that was once the famed Haarlemmer-Meer. ”

“ Why should we not find this Suky Wood, whose birthplace and family we know, and who has no reason for concealment? Goudar has found very different people; and Goudar is on our side. And you may be sure he will not be asleep. I have held out to him a certain hope which will make him do miracles,—the hope of receiving as a reward, if he succeeds, the house in Vine Street. The stakes are too magnificent: he must win the game,—he who has won so many already. ”

“ She and Starr had developed a pleasant private understanding, which comprised jokes too subtle to be understood by outsiders; and as the Mariner and I were shoulder to shoulder for a moment on our way back to the boat, he gave me a look charged with meaning.
"Who laughs last, laughs best," he quoted; and inwardly I could not but agree, though I shrugged my shoulders.
Tibe attracted enormous attention in Gouda. As we walked along shady streets, lit by the clear shining of canals, children ran after us as at Hamlin they ran after the Pied Piper. ”

“ 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. ”

“ After my dinner, Goudar asked all the company to sup with him the next evening. The repast was a magnificent one, but when Medini sat down at the end of a long table behind a heap of gold and a pack of cards, no punters came forward. Madame Goudar tried in vain to make the gentlemen take a hand. The Englishmen and the Saxons said politely that they should be delighted to play if she or I would take the bank, but they feared the count’s extraordinary fortune. ”

“ The worthy and conscientious Goudar added that he did not care if he never saw him again, as he owed the fellow ten guineas for a watch, which his daughters had probably stolen, and which was well worth double.
Four days later I saw him again, and he informed me that the rascal had left London with a servant-maid, whom he had engaged at a registry office where any number of servants are always ready to take service with the first comer. The keeper of the office answers for their fidelity. ”

“ No one but a rascal like Goudar would have dared to take such a message.”
“Goudar a rascal, is he? Well, he is your best friend. You know he is in love with you, and that he only got you for the ambassador in the hope of enjoying you himself. The document in his possession proves that you have behaved badly towards him. You are in his debt, discharge it, and then call him a rascal if you have the conscience to do so. You need not trouble to weep, for I knew the source of those tears; it is defiled.” ”

“ The day after our arrival I was unpleasantly surprised to see the notorious Chevalier Goudar, whom I had known at London. He called on Lord Baltimore.
This famous rout had a house at Pausilippo, and his wife was none other than the pretty Irish girl Sara, formerly a drawer in a London tavern. The reader has been already introduced to her. Goudar knew I had met her, so he told me who she was, inviting us all to dine with him the next day. ”

“ Naaldwyk, an ancient lordship; and 's Gravenza.nde, which possessed a palace of the counts of Holland in the 12th century, when it was a harbour on the Maas. The Hague, situated in the middle of this line of ancient villages, is the capital of the province. The market-gardening of the region called the Westland, between the Hague and the Hook of Holland, is remarkable, and large quantities of vegetables are exported to England. On the clay and low fen cattle-rearing and the making of the Gouda cheeses are the principal occupations. ”

“ Do not let her lack for anything; take that.”
With these words I gave her a bank note for ten guineas and went away, like the fool I was. On my way back I met Goudar, who was quite frightened at my aspect. I begged him to go and see how the Charpillon really was, and then to come and pass the rest of the day with me. ”

“ There was also a note from Goudar, saying that he wanted to speak to me, and that he would come at noon. I gave orders that he should be admitted.
This curious individual began by astonishing me; he told me the whole story of what had taken place, the mother having been his informant.
"The Charpillon," he added, "has not got a fever, but is covered with bruises. What grieves the old woman most is that she has not got the hundred guineas."
"She would have had them the next morning," I said, "if her daughter had been tractable." ”

“ Tramways connect it with Bodegraven (51⁄2 m. N.) on the old Rhine and with Oudewater (8 m. E.) on the Ysel, and there is a regular steamboat service in various directions, Amsterdam being reached by the canalized Gouwe ”

“ Never was there a city so unlike a city, or even the remains of one, as Old Goa, unless it were Palmyra. Goa is now, in fact, only a forest of palm-trees with patches of jungle here and there, made gay by tropical flowers, such as the scarlet coral-tree, the pimelia with its bright golden convolvulus-like flowers, and scarlet and apricot-yellow euphorbias. From this mass of vegetation the spire of a church rises or the tower of some ancient building occasionally peeps forth. ”

“ The ancient inhabitants of Guzarat are easily distinguished from the others by their colour, which is much more black, and by their being more stupid and barbarous.
Goa is the chief Portuguese settlement in the Indies, and though it may have lost much of its former splendor, it is still, however, a rich and a commercial city. Here, at one time, more slaves were sold than in any other part of the world; and where the most beautiful women and girls, from all parts of Asia, became the property of the highest bidder. ”

“ Goa is the name of this Portuguese colony, which embraces an area of 1,500 square miles, and has been ruled by Portugal since the fifteenth century. Half a million Portuguese subjects live in Goa, and from that place comes the Goanese. They consider themselves Europeans, dress like Europeans, but are as black as an Indian. Stewards on passenger steamships in the East are generally Goanese, as they make better servants than Indians. The passengers were returning from Africa, where they had earned from $20 to $30 a month, very good wages for them. ”

“ My own method was to attempt to blend in with the rhythms of the village in which I lived, Betim, which lies across the river Mandovi, opposite Panaji. The river is like a slow-moving artery that expresses Goa — the rusting, elderly ferries of the River Navigation Department chug across the gap with a ponderous regularity, and in doing so determine the schedules of legions of Goans who live within a short bus ride of the water — 'aparanta' tends not to respect time-pieces worn on one's wrist. ”

“ Men in whose veins the most aristocratic blood of Portugal ran gave to the local society a distinction uncommon in an Eastern settlement. On all hands were evidences of refinement and luxury, and of the splendours of a powerful seat of government. Even to-day, when Goa is little more than a heap of mouldering ruins, it is possible to realize in the survivals of the past something of the dignified life which was once lived in this the earliest scene of European colonization in India. ”

“ In 1560 the Inquisition with all its horrors was introduced into Goa. But Portugal was too small a country to keep up the struggle for long. The drain of men told upon her vitality, their quality deteriorated, and their bigotry and intolerance raised even a fiercer opposition to them within the bounds of India; and as the Dutch and British came into prominence the Portuguese gradually faded away. In 1603 and 1639 the Dutch blockaded Goa; during the first half of the 17th century they routed the Portuguese everywhere in India, Ceylon and Java. ”

“ The Portuguese, from the necessity of the case, traded sword in hand; and their intercourse with the nations of [Pg 12] the East was much more marked by the insolence of conquest, than by the complaisance of traders. Goa, some three hundred miles to the north of Calicut, which fell into their power in 1510, became a splendid city, the vice-royal and archiepiscopal seat, whence were governed a multitude of widespread dependencies. ”

“ Its grandeur was soon exhausted when the Dutch and the East India Company came into competition with the Portuguese. The Latin race has never been tenacious either in politics or commerce. Like the Spaniards, the Portuguese have no staying power, and after a struggle lasting seventy years, all of the wide Portuguese possessions in the East fell into the hands of the Dutch and the British, and nothing is now left but Goa, with its ruins and reminiscences and the beautiful shrine of marble and jasper, which the Grand Duke of Tuscany erected in honor of the first great missionary to the East. ”

“ The population apparently regards us with no friendly feeling, Moslem and Hindoo, all have scowls upon their faces, and every man, moreover, carries [175] a knife conveniently slung to his waistband. Those dark-faced gentlemen, in imitation European dresses, are familiar to our eyes: they are Portuguese, not, however, from Goa, but born, bred, and likely to be buried at Calicut. A little colony, of fifty or sixty families of the race is settled here; they employ themselves either in commerce, or as writers in the different government offices. ”