Evening star., 1898-09-10

E vi tucked round a
NJ baby's crib. From
s. " Antwerp on to Rot
terdam is not three
hours by rail. but on
the little steamer that crawls through the
creeks, canals and lakes of iceland it is a
| full day. Wilhelmiua will not he crowned
till September g. and two days more will
| give US ample time to travel sixty miles to
| Amsterdam.
| The steamer starts at 3 am, in the cold
| half dawn, with all the Antwerp stretch of
river lights burning an orange yellow in the
| blue-gray air. After two hours of tonic
| shivering you say good morning to the sun
across fiat aud fertile land. big red
sun which you may look at without blink
ing There is mighty river flowing full
! and broad between low banks with scat
tered trees. You glide into canals lined 20
the waters edge with grass and buttercups.
| where groups of fishers of the Dutch Re
| formed persuasion in the strangest pants, .
stand chatting with the keepers of the
locks ana drinking healths in Schiedam
SCFnapps The pants" are boomers. full
| and flowing, but the humorists wear with
| them fiat Derby hats or high silk stove
| pipes Others. gayer wear bomb-shaped
! casquettes of saIin green embroidered with
black silk.
The captain promised breakfast in five
| minutes. 1t has been an hour and twenty
! minutes. The second cabin passengers are
drinking gin. The captain says the break
! fast only waits to have the milk come on
| at the next stop.
| Visions of Dutch Girls.
The boat is still in a canal between high
| banks, which give no landscape but thrust
on the view, without reserve, the ankles of
| the village girls who stand along the edge
! and look down thoughtfully while knitting.
! Their skirts are extremely bell-shaped. The
| village girls are silhouettes against the sky:
and then Il one-hOrSe gig. with yellow
wheels and a green box, fits by mysterious
ly and disappears beyond the ridge. And
| there is nothing more.
The steamer crawls through the canal,
| impeded by the locks and dams. There is
| another Dutch girl standing on the bank
above our heads, Dutch girl in white
starched percale cap. cream-colored ker-
| chief crossed upon her breasti with a
| black bodice, blue skirt, blue cotton stock
| iEgs ard cute wooden shoes. And there is
| nothing morei
The boat is in a narrow river once again,
| with scenery green and clean, with sweet
| erectS OF light in this peculiar air-impreS-
| sionistic haZes and impressionistic strips Of
| coor-Eear a comic-opera- village,
! trim and picturesque. There are more vii
lage girls, the milk and blush-rose blondes
OF iceland with their silky hair immacu-
| lately clean. They look so solid tight and
tidy, do these little Dutch-esses. in theiI
| stiff bodices.
Where Thousands Drowned.
Out in the open Ooester-skelt. three miles
across, the yeliow-brownsh water 81 . rceIy
marks itself against the banks of yellow
green low dykes, with long, long lines of
various trees whose roots help to hold he
soil together. Now there are continually
| these long lines of trees that stand like
| t1Gri inn en- tn .I.afE
croaching sea. 1t is the NerdrOnkcn and,
| where thousands Observation-Disclosures and
| towns and all the countryside-in 1882.
! when dyke burst. There is a short canal:
and then the little steamer quits the sub
! divisions of the Schelde, meanders through
the maZes of the Mas. comes through the
krammer and the Eoikerak to the wide
IfolIandsch dep, which has rough water
and looks almost like the sea. One time
this bay was land; but long ago, in f42I a
| TIDAL wave wiped out = hundred market
! towns and villages and upward of 10000
| people perished. Then soon ii is the little
Dorsche Xii, narrow river twhere the
| Prince of Orange drowned in lid which
| takes to the broad and lovely Merwefe
| where the windmills of the landscape and
| the busy villages proclaim the land oe Hol-
land one has read Of.
4 Religious Memory.
| bort, or Dortrecht is the first fine town.
! which ought to be held in peculiar rever-
| ence by the publishers of the Westminster
Lesson Leaf, which, being founded on the
| Westminster catechism, has its remote and
ultimate foundation in the decisions of the
| famous Dortreche synod, held in 1919
| 1t is the cleanest land in the whole world
| The very cows look TO have been scrubbed
| down with bath toweling till they shine,
| ne sloplng stone dykes seem TO have been
swept. Tiled roofs OF soft red rise nm like
flowers amid the foliage of the trees
Thatched roofs of a dove tint go sloping
| down close to the ground. as if they would
| slip off the cozy houses. like the dove-coI-
| ored shawl slips off the shoulders of a
| Quaker sirl-lf there be any left who wear
| dove-colored shawls. Here there are VIII
| lages that do not know the railway. and
| their daughters do not know the modern
| fashions, changing monthly. Here a VIII
! iase girl buys one fine gown, and it win
last her fifteen years!
| Yet these girls do not spare expense on
| their fine gowns They have real iinan and
J real lace and fine silk stockings IL they
| care to wear them, and each girl has a
$500. ''' -
Their Gold HemIets
This helmet is thin and supple shell Of
| gold, which snugly fits the head Some
| times 1t is scoop-shaped, to allow the back
hair to be coiled into knot. Sometimes
| the back hair hangs below the helmet in
| another kind of knot. Sometimes they
| plait their hack hair in two long p!gtails.
which hang down before the ears or eacb
1
always be there. though it be only seen to
simmer in the sunlight through the
| meshes OF a kind of nightcap, also fitting
| snugly, which may be of linen or Of Lace
having ruffies.
Each girl has her gold helmet, even those
VINO come to service up in Rotterdam;
though when they grow SOPHISTICATED ciii
ned and shamefaced, they first put CITY
bonnets over their gold helmets and white
nlshtcaps, and then, later on, lock up their
caps and helmets in their bureau drawers
and take to smart pink cotton prints for
gowns. and wear coquettish ruffles on their
heaos, pretended caps of gauzy tulle for
all the world like London chamberrnaids
These helmets, horned on each side of the
forehead with long twisted prongs of gold.
and dating in the history of costume down
to the times when the Germanic tribes
were struggling with the Romans, are, to-
gether with the bomb-shaped skirts and
their accessories. soon bound to disappear
and figure only, like the peasant costumes
of the north of France, in charity bazaars
on city girls instead of country girls. who