The San Francisco call., 1906-04-01

dustry in saving their land from the sea
and now they are busy burning IL up
fast as they can. That's because the
peaty soil is fine fuel and much cheaper
than coal Sometimes a big peat PED
accidentally takes fire, and then there
comes lake where the land was. Ii
ever there were a whole nation living
permanently in the predicament known
as being betwixt the devil and the oeep
blue sea that condition is the Dutch-
mans Part of his country is. subject
to disastrous inundation every seven
years. Once in history a hundred thou
sand Dutchmen were drowned at one
fell swoop of the. sea. The waters stili
roll where the villages were.
In most of the country the canals are
higher than the soil the people Guilt
vate and build their houses upon. The
land is Enthusiastically so unstable
that the inhabitant has to stick pine
trees in it to make it firm enough to
hold his house up. Much of the very
ground is SO infammable that II 1t takes
fire that much of semi-solid Holland
burns up and the Dutchman has that
much less to stand on. Talk of the
power of environment to mold char
acter-ought not the Dutchman's sur
roundings to result in a nervy race?
Possessing the most placid of all tenn
peraments, the Dutch look calmly upon
their dikes and say to the sea: Thus
far shalt thou come and no farther!f
The Dutch is the nearest to nation
ally incarnate audacity that exists
Moreover the Dutch is the boldest and
closest imitation of creative power that
the world knows. Give us but a created
country, say the other ambitious peo-
pies of the earth to benehcent heaven,
and we will make the utmost of the
opportunity; but the Netherlanders go
that one better and say-it is enough,
most bountiful heaven, IL you merely
make us Dutchmen, with industry in
defatigable and audacity perdurable,
and we'll do the rest-create the very
land under our feet and hold it down
despite the devil and the deep blue sea.
Consider that stupendous fact and you
will realize how absurd it is to ever
talk about beating the Dutch" They
are unique, and you cannot call them
down from that unassailable position.
Quite a number of the books illus
trations show the picturesque wind
mills which are so characteristic of
scenes in Holland. When in operation
these are said to look very odd to one
accustomed to the motion of American
mills for the Dutch ones seem to twiz-
zle backward. Another peculiar view
to foreigners is the sight of the sail
boats on the canals. These waterways
are higher than the land and are hid
by dikes and so the boats seem to be
sailing across the green grass of the
pastures and in and out among the
grazing cattle. 1t must be bewildering
enough to make the beholder feel be-
witched Many of the pictures show
the handsome houses built UP close to
the edges of the broad canals, and
sometimes there is walk bordered
with beautiful trees and an arched
stone bridge, and all this combination
is reflected in the clear water so as to
make most eye-delighting suggestion
of Hollands loveliness. Tower build
ing beautiful seems to be an art in
which their architects excel.
The picture reproduced on this page is
of the famous "House In the Wood" or
'Huis Ten Bosch" the meeting place of
The Hague Peace Conference for the SET.
tlement Of international disputes It is
said to be charming place. "prettily
situated, rather plain outside from an
architectural point of view, but beautiful
ly decorated by Dutch masters inside"
which, 1 suppose, means the same thing
as If the author had said it was beauti-
fully decorated inside by great Dutch
masters. Here is a description of the en-
vironment: Beneath the beeches there
is a carpet of familiar things, such as
wild parsley and q tall short grass like
oats, but the color is much more vivid
than with US; indeed, Holland out
emeralds the Emerald Isle in the trans
lucent greenness which the damp soil
gives, not only to the actual vegetation
but to the stems of the trees"
It Is not only In summer that the
canals give picturesqueness to Holland
for in the winter, on the canals and on
the rivers, the finest fetes take place. The
snow is swept away and the ice left
smooth for skating. The people are su-
perlatively excellent at that sport-espe-
cially the ladies. They begin to skate
as children. and continue it as girls and
married women, simultaneously reaching
the crowning point of their beauty and
their art, and their skates draw from the
ice they skim over the sparks that set so
many hearts on fire. Some ladies