Vermont daily transcript. [volume] (St. Albans, Vt.) 1868-1870, 1868-05-23
General Miscellany.
HONDSBOSSCHE.
BY j. NJ. NEALE, DID.

BY j. NJ. NEALE, DID.
Open the map of Holland, and look
along its western coast. Those dark
lines which you see, dividing the sea
from the land, are the Dunes.
And what are the Dunes? The great
er part of Holland lies lower than the
sea. On the great rivers the keels of
the ships float above the chimneys of
the houses; and the frog, in his bed of
rushes, can look down upon the swal-
low as she skins through the air be-
meath. Therefore, if there were not u
strong wall all along the sea coast, the
whole country, at high tide, would be
swallowed up by the waters. And God
has so ordered it that two of the things
most unlikely to resist any great force,
should form this wall-sand and grass.
Stretching along almost the whole coast,
are the Dunes, or sandhills, whence
Dunlirk, that is, the Church among the
Dunes, takes its name. They are about
thirty or forty feet high ; and the wind
and the waves, if they were left to them
selves, would sweep them away in an
hour But there is a kind of coarse fl
brous grass, called seabent, which dear
ly loves the sand; and it is regularly
sown on the Dunes every year. There
it grows, and knots and mats the loose
sand together; till all that long line of
coast from the Hague to the Helder is
one large piece of basket-wOrk. The
sea might dash to pieces a wall of wood
OF of stone such a barrier as this is
scarcely to be moved. And very pretty
little valleys there are among these
same Dunes, and in the spring they
are bright with the harebell and the
heartsease that grow in the mould of the
dead seabent.
coiI thot fhoco nunoe, r.; rJ1 oJ -, tl,o
west of Holland. But there are one or
two gaps in the dam; and there the hand
of man is left to itself. OF those the
worst is at place called the HOndsbos-
sche, near the Helder. Here an enOr-
nous embankment is raised it's foun-
dation is of Norwegian granite !; its
sea-face is clay, wattled down with will
low twigs. | was told when l was there
that, if the whole of this huge dyke had
been at first made of gold, it would have
cost less than the repairs have cost from
that time to this.
Now, look at the map of Europe; or
you will not understand my story
The summer of the year 1887 was wet
and stormy. The wind, day after day.
was from the southwest. 1t seemed as
if the weathercocks would never shift
from the southwest. From May till
September, every hour, the clouds and
the waves poured in from the southwest.
Now, understand what happened from
this. The water from the Atlantic
Ocean was driven up, past the coast of
Spain, past the bay of Biscay, past Ire
land, between Iceland and Scotland
and so, in the Arctic Ocean, and off the
coast Of Norway, il stood many feet
higher than it did in the Mid Atlantic.
Ships, in coming from Portugal to Eng
lane, were, so to speak, sailing up hill.
This was the case all summer but, on
the 23d of September the wind suddenly
veered round to the north. All this
mass of water, then, was driven down
into the German Ocean, which thus be-
came too full; for the enormous waves
came rolling in from the north, far more
swiftly than they could race out through
the straits of Calais. Therefore, as you
must see for yourselves, when, at three
o'clock on the afternoon of September
the 25th, the wind again suddenly chop
ped round from the north to the north
west, and rose to hurricane, all this
weight of ocean was driven on to the
dykes of Holland.
Close to the HOndsbossche there was
then, and there is now, little village
called KNAPP. Let us see what was hap
pening there when the wind, on that
18th of September, had shifted for about
three hours, and all men began to say
that it would be an awful night. Doors
were barred, windows shattered, fires
went roaring up the yawning chimneys,
and every now and then cast a bright,
cheerful CLEAN into the village street.
The clouds drove over head like pack
of wild horses the wind grappled with
a roof here, dashed through a tree there
shook the well-fastened door with a
giants hand, reared like a wild beast
down the chimney, and then went riot
ing along over what is now the Zuyder
Zee, but was then one long fruitful pas
ture meadow.
A poor old man entered the village at
nightfall. "Friend," he said to a stout
hearted laborer, trudging courageously
homewards, sis there any one here who
will give me lodging tonight for the
love of Christ ?"
CRY at Jan Maarsen's, up yOnder,
fathern he answered. Gle is rich
enough, Our Lady knows but he loves
his own, too"
"Yonder farm ?" inquired the beggar.
Given So" said the laborer. "God
be with you!n And he went on.
A pleasant place was that same farm
house towards the close of fine sum-
mer day. Its huge gables, its thick
thatch, and white walls, the three or
four elms that sang quiet song, as the
evening breeze sprang up the orchard,
with its rich promise of fruit; the lit
tie garden, with its trim plots of tulips
and roses the two Vows, one cut into
a peacock, the other formed into lion
4 II.