Zeeland

“ In their mode of dressing, too, there is a great difference between the people of one province and of another, and in Zeeland every island has its own special costume. Just as they differ in dress, so they also differ in appearance and education, wealth, and civilization.
A North Holland farmer is well-to-do and independent. For centuries he has battled and disputed every inch of his land with the sea, and it has been pointed out by observant people that the effects of the strife are still marked in his harsh and rugged features and independent ways. ”

“ The surface of the territory to the eastward of the imaginary longitude is barely scratched by the searcher of the picturesque and historical. Many of its towns are as interesting as any of those in the west, but, as a general rule, their peoples have been more easily influenced by German and Belgian methods, and, therefore, their characteristics differ greatly from those of the natives of North and South Holland and Zeeland, for example. ”

“ As far as these things may be counted riches among them, this man was the wealthiest in all New Zeeland, being possessed of more hatchets, than there were in the whole country besides, before the second arrival of British vessels. The thin population in this part of the island makes it probable, that the few families in it lead a nomadic or wandering life, and remove according as the season, the conveniency of fishing, and other circumstances render it necessary. ”

“ The formation of new banks by the sea is constantly going on at points favorable for the deposit of sand and earth, and hence opportunity is continually afforded for enclosure of new land outside of that already diked in, the coast is fast advancing seaward, and every new embankment increases the security of former enclosures. The province of Zeeland consists of islands washed by the sea on their western coasts, and separated by the many channels through which the Schelde and some other rivers find their way to the ocean. ”

“ The Island of Walcheren It must be because the province of Zeeland seems too fearfully close to be interesting that the average traveler through Holland, if he enter by Flushing—one of the little country’s two principal sea gates—hurries from deck to dock like a somnambulist, and fights for his compartment in the four-something a.m. train, bound for Amsterdam or The Hague. Perhaps, after being wakened most unsympathetically, if not rudely, at three-thirty in the morning, he feels disagreeable enough to take the first train out, no matter whence it cometh nor whither it goeth. ”

“ With all its defects, Dusky Bay is one of the finest places in New Zeeland, for a set of people to touch at in our situation, exhausted with labours and hardships of long continuance, and deprived of the sight of land above four months. Nothing is more easy than to sail into it, there being no danger except what is visible above water, and so many harbours and coves existing in every part of it, that it is impossible to miss a convenient anchoring-place, where wood, water, fish, and wild-fowl are to be found in plenty. ”

“ On the peninsula, as well as in Zeeland, the land is generally undulating. There being as we have said no mountains or considerable elevations, consequently no waterfalls or rapids are to be met with; the rivers are smooth and the lakes mirror-like. The soil is sandy, often marshy, but produces good crops of grain and affords fine pasturage. The green fields were sprinkled far and near on the line of the railroad from Korsoer to Copenhagen with grazing cattle, sheep, and horses, forming a pleasing rural picture under a clear azure sky. The produce of the dairy is the great staple of Denmark. ”

“ A few of the mercantile settlements along the western coast of the Zuiderzee came in the Burgundian period to rank among the busiest towns of Holland-Hoorn as the chief market in the Netherlands for dairy produce and cattle, Enkhuizen as a centre of the herring-fishery. Friesland proper, on the north-eastern shore, over which Philip asserted his claims as Count of Holland and Zeeland, was not actually absorbed by him. ”

“ Hill took refuge at Leyden, and was soon appointed to the charge of the Scottish Church at Middleburg in Zeeland. But though a refugee, he remained English at heart, and in 1672 wrote a pamphlet, entitled 'The Interest of these United Provinces, being a Defence of the Zeelander's Choice.' It will be remembered that by the secret Treaty of Dover, concluded between Charles II. and the French king in 1670, Charles was to aid Louis against the Dutch, and receive as part of his reward the province of Zeeland. ”

“ What would be termed provinces to-day were the duchies of Gelderland, Brabant, Limburg, and Luxemburg, the counties of Holland, Zeeland, Flanders, Namur or Namen, Hainaut or Henegouwen, and Artois, and the lordships of Utrecht, Friesland, Groningen with Drenthe, Overyssel, and Mechlin or Malines. ”

“ Every person in our sloop experienced the good effects of this change of diet; nay every animal on board seemed to be benefited by it, except our sheep, which were not likely to fare so well as ourselves. The nature of the country accounts for this disegreeable circumstance. The whole southern extremity of Tavai-poe-namoo, or the southern island of New Zeeland, and especially the land about Dusky Bay consists entirely of steep rocky mountains, with craggy precipices, clad with thick forests, and either barren or covered with snow on their summits. ”

“ If future navigators mean to make such valuable presents, as cattle of any sort to the inhabitants of the South Sea, the only probable method of bringing them safely thither, would be to take the shortest route possible from the Cape to New Zeeland, in the middle latitudes, and in the best of seasons, when they may expect a quick passage, and no severe cold. ”

“ That is certainly true of Zeeland. The people living here are really of Frisian origin and have nothing in common with the population around Antwerp. In the post-war period of 1918-20 they were strongly opposed to an incorporation into Belgium. It could even be used as a pressure on the Netherlands to reach a currency and economy union if we demand the cession of Zeeland as the economic passage area for the port of Antwerp. The Dutch people will certainly be ready to agree to a far-reaching economic union if in return they can retain politically the province of Zeeland.
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“ What is coming from South Beveland towards the western arm of the Scheldt where river and sea meet up with each other and can no longer be told apart? What is gliding over the waves under cover of darkness? It is propelled by a hundred strange arms, flying swift as an arrow just like the ghost ship, the Flying Dutchman. A ship's mighty form cuts through the waves and others come after it, less powerful ones.
What do the men of Zeeland care about darkness? They can find their way over these waters for these waters are their native land. One dark shadow comes after another ”

“ The same fishermen and fighting men, whom we have but lately seen sailing forth from Zeeland and Friesland to confront the dangers of either pole, were now contending in the Indian seas with the Portuguese monopolists of the tropics. ”

“ Flushing being avowedly cosmopolitan does not count, but at Middelburg, the capital of Zeeland, you may, although the only foreigner there, walk about in the oddest clothes and receive no embarrassing attentions.
It is not that the good people of Walcheren are quicker to see where their worldly advantage lies. They are not schemers or financiers. The reason resides in a native politeness, a heritage, some have conjectured, from their Spanish forefathers. One sees hints of Spanish blood also in the exceptional flexibility and good carriage of the Walcheren Page 286women. ”

“ The average cost of dyke-building was sixty florins the rod of twelve feet, or 84,000 florins the Dutch mile. The total cost of the Zeeland dykes was estimated at 3,360,000 florins, besides the annual repairs.
But it was on the sea that the Netherlanders were really at home, and they always felt it in their power—as their last resource against foreign tyranny—to bury their land for ever in the ocean, and to seek a new country at the ends of the earth. It has always been difficult to doom to political or personal slavery a nation accustomed to maritime pursuits. ”

“ This company was at first confined to the merchants of the Province of Holland, who had received their charter from the States-General, after the approval and endorsement of such a measure by the States of Holland. In 1617, the charter was renewed, but the merchants of Zeeland wished for the same privileges and the States-General granted a charter to a Zeeland “Northern Company” in May 28, 1622. ”

“ November 12.--I have made the nun's portrait. I gave the nun seven white pf. and three half-sheet engravings. My confirmation [45] from the Emperor came to my Lords of Nürnberg for me on Monday after Martin's, in the year 1520, after great trouble and labour.
ANTWERP, November %--December 3, 1520.
At Zierikzee, in Zeeland, a whale has been stranded by a high tide and a gale of wind. It is much more than 100 fathoms long, and no man living in Zeeland has seen one even a third as long as this is. The fish cannot get off the land ”

“ In the seven provinces which comprise the Netherlands there are considerable differences in scenery, race, dialect, pronunciation, and religion, and therefore in the features and character of the people. United provinces in the course of time effect a certain homogeneity of purpose and interest, yet there are certain fundamental differences in character. The Frisian differs from the Zeelander: one is fair and the other dark, and both differ from the Hollander. ”

“ Grain, flax, colza, madder, grow as in few other places. There are fine large cattle and colossal horses; bigger than the Flemish horses. The people are strong and well made, preserving their ancient customs and living contented in their prosperity and peace. Zealand is a hidden paradise."
Whilst the captain talked, the ship entered the canal of Keete, which divides the islands of Schonwen and Tholen, famous as having been forded by the Spaniards in 1575, as the eastern arm of the Scheldt is famous for the ford of 1572. All Zealand is full of memorials, of that war. ”

“ Zealand is a mystery even for the Hollanders themselves; very few of them have been there, and of these the greater part have only passed through it in a boat; consequently it is seldom spoken of, and always as a very distant country. The first words that reached my ears among the travellers who came on board the vessel with me, and who were almost all Belgians and Dutch, informed me that they also were about to visit that province for the first time ”

“ Three great provinces, South Holland, North Holland, and Zuiderzee-land, reclaimed at various times between the early tenth century and 1945 and all many feet below the level of the waves outside the dykes, spread out their lush polders to the northern sun and sustained a dense industrious population. An intricate web of laws and custom and tradition ensured a perpetual vigilance and a perpetual defence against the beleaguering sea. For more than two hundred and fifty miles from Walcheren to Friesland stretched a line of embankments and pumping stations that was the admiration of the world. ”

“ You are skirting the land inhabited by the ancient Saxons, the Veluwe, a sandy region extending between the Rhine, the Yssel, and the Zuyder Zee, here a few villages are scattered here and there over an undulating plain, like a tempestuous sea. Wherever the eye turns it sees nothing but arid hills, the most distant veiled in a blueish mist, the others in part darkened by a wild vegetation, in part white with the shifting sands which the wind spreads over the face of the country. There are no trees and no houses ”

“ At that point I found myself in the very heart of North Holland, at that little peninsula bathed by the North Sea, and the gulf of Zuyder Zee, which is almost all lower than the waters that surround it, and is defended on one side by the downs, and on the other by immense dykes, and intersected by an infinitude of canals, lakes, ,and ponds, which give it the aspect of a half-submerged territory destined some day to vanish under the waters. Over the entire space that can be embraced by the eye there are to be seen only a few groups of trees, some sails of vessels, and windmills. ”

“ Zealand, the largest island in the Danish Archipelago, situated between the Cattegat and the Baltic, being 81 m. long and 67 m. broad, with Copenhagen (q. v.) on the E. coast; the surface is nearly everywhere fiat, and agriculture and cattle-rearing the chief industries.
Zealand (213) , a province of the Netherlands, formed chiefly of islands, of which Walcheren (q. v.) is one, constituting a delta as if formed by the Maas and Scheldt; great part of it is reclaimed from the sea. ”

“ Upon the whole New Holland, tho in every respect the most barren countrey I have seen, is not so bad but that between the productions of sea and Land a company of People who should have the misfortune of being shipwreckd upon it might support themselves, even by the resources that we have seen. ”

“ A reference to the physical geography of Europe shows you that the great northern plain, containing nine times the area of France, or about one half the area of Europe, extends from the Ural Mountains to the German Ocean.
"Doubtless the whole region now included in the Netherlands was once a mere swamp, a wild and useless morass, unfit for the habitation of man. Three great rivers, you perceive on the map, have their course, in whole or in part, through Holland and Belgium—the Rhine, the Maas, or Meuse, and the Scheldt. ”