A Wanderer in Holland | Page 2

Maris--The Rotterdam
Zoo--The herons--The stork's mission--The ourang-outang--An
eighteenth-century miser--A successful merchant--The
Queen-Mother--Tom Hood in Rotterdam--Gouda.

It was once possible to sail all the way to Rotterdam by either of the
two lines of steamships from England--the Great Eastern, viâ Harwich,
and the Batavier, direct from London. But that is possible now only by
the Batavier, passengers by the better-known Harwich route being
landed now and henceforward at the Hook at five A.M. I am sorry for
this, because after a rough passage it was very pleasant to glide in the
early morning steadily up the Maas and gradually acquire a sense of
Dutch quietude and greyness. No longer, however, can this be done, as
the Batavier boats reach Rotterdam at night; and one therefore misses
the river, with the little villages on its banks, each with a tiny
canal-harbour of its own; the groups of trees in the early mist; the gulls
and herons; and the increasing traffic as one drew nearer Schiedam and
at last reached that forest of masts which is known as Rotterdam.
But now that the only road to Rotterdam by daylight is the road of iron
all that is past, and yet there is some compensation, for short as the
journey is one may in its progress ground oneself very thoroughly in
the characteristic scenery of Holland. No one who looks steadily out of
the windows between the Hook and Rotterdam has much to learn
thereafter. Only changing skies and atmospheric effects can provide
him with novelty, for most of Holland is like that. He has the formula.
Nor is it necessarily new to him if he knows England well, North
Holland being merely the Norfolk Broads, the Essex marshlands about
Burnham-on-Crouch, extended. Only in its peculiarity of light and in its
towns has Holland anything that we have not at home.
England has even its canal life too, if one cared to investigate it; the
Broads are populous with wherries and barges; cheese is manufactured
in England in a score of districts; cows range our meadows as they
range the meadows of the Dutch. We go to Holland to see the towns,
the pictures and the people. We go also because so many of us are so
constituted that we never use our eyes until we are on foreign soil. It is
as though a Cook's ticket performed an operation for cataract.
But because one can learn the character of Dutch scenery so
quickly--on a single railway journey--I do not wish to suggest that
henceforward it becomes monotonous and trite. One may learn the

character of a friend very quickly, and yet wish to be in his company
continually. Holland is one of the most delightful countries to move
about in: everything that happens in it is of interest. I have never quite
lost the sense of excitement in crossing a canal in the train and getting a
momentary glimpse of its receding straightness, perhaps broken by a
brown sail. In a country where, between the towns, so little happens,
even the slightest things make a heightened appeal to the observer;
while one's eyes are continually kept bright and one's mind stimulated
by the ever-present freshness and clearness of the land and its air.
Rotterdam, it should be said at once, is not a pleasant city. It must be
approached as a centre of commerce and maritime industry, or not at all;
if you do not like sailor men and sailor ways, noisy streets and hurrying
people, leave Rotterdam behind, and let the train carry you to The
Hague. It is not even particularly Dutch: it is cosmopolitan. The Dutch
are quieter than this, and cleaner. And yet Rotterdam is unique--its
church of St. Lawrence has a grey and sombre tower which has no
equal in the country; there is a windmill on the Cool Singel which is
essentially Holland; the Boymans Museum has a few admirable
pictures; there is a curiously fascinating stork in the Zoological
Gardens; and the river is a scene of romantic energy by day and night. I
think you must go to Rotterdam, though it be only for a few hours.
At Rotterdam we see what the Londoner misses by having a river that
is navigable in the larger sense only below his city. To see shipping at
home we must make our tortuous way to the Pool; Rotterdam has the
Pool in her midst. Great ships pass up and down all day. The Thames,
once its bustling mercantile life is cut short by London Bridge,
dwindles to a stream of pleasure; the Maas becomes the Rhine.
Walt Whitman is the only writer who has done justice to a great
harbour, and he only by that sheer force of enumeration which in this
connection rather stands for than is poetry. As