Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1907-11-07
IN RURAL HOLLAND
4 nAvS TRAVEL IN THE LAND
OF DYKEs.
Prem Amsterdam Through the Won
dsrful Country Wrested from the
Sea by Sheer Courage and
Resourcefulness.

aere II 2 pretty description OF .
lays travel through Holland: "At
Amsterdam / left the train and board
I'd boat bound for the Helder. the
northernmost point Of North Holland,
where the low-lying islands curve
round to the horizon, looking az II
they had been appointed ocean out
posts to Friesland The voyage might
take day, but what Of that7 There
u only one way to travel In Holland
by water. The boat glides through
The brmming canal, passes the clean
towns and the many windmills. Life
persists: passengers and cargoes come
and go, but you are no longer at war
With the world or In trouble with It
You are a spectator, idling through a
summer day, wrapped In aloofness,
content merely to be moving through
the moist and luminous air. When the
environs of Amsterdam are left be-
hind and the waterside houses give
place to the reeds that bend as the
backwash overtakes them and the fac
tories fade into vast, bright meadows,
the spirit of this land, wrested from
the sea, obsesses the traveller. I for
got to count the windmills, was indif-
ferent to the locality of the hut where
Peter the Great studied shipbuilding
and was content with pretending to
choose a habitation from among the
dwellings, whose gardens are washed
by the waters of this great north
canal
1--WE passed through Alkmaar. On
Dne side Dutch farmhouses, compact,
tour-square stretching In an endless
line along the waterway; on the other
side the meadows and beyond them,
Tar away, the sweeping line of the
dunes. They rise above the North sea
and on their sandy sides and heights
men are forever on the watch against
the Entertainments of the ocean; they
plant the shrub called helm, that
binds the sand together, making bull
wark against the rage of the waves.
God gave us the sea, but we made the
shore, says the Dutchman. These
dower-fruitful and pastoral meadows
that outstretched as we glided north
ward were once submerged in water.
The fight against the sea never ceases
As we moved northward the three
great dykes doomed out. / gazed out
1t these high bulwarks, patrolled and
watched by day and by night, ana
unused on the legend that at Amster-
dam there is one master key a turn OF
which, in times of peril from foreign
Invasion, will drown the land again.
And as unused there swept past
barge. The great sail was hoisted.
The family--a mite of the $4,000 canal
population who live out their lives on
these floating houses-were gathered
round the tiller, where mynheer
smoked and steered. A barge-the
symbol Of this sea-conquering people.
Below the Helder landed. Beyond is
the fort. with the fringe of islands out
posting Friesland. the fishing fleet and
he gunboats, and the channel between
The mainland and Texel opening to the
world. AS crossed the bridge l saw
The sight Of sights. There was no fuss,
40 shouting. no spilling of wine at
hat launch. The barge moved from
her cradle, shot downward. took the
water in a rush, pretended to capsize
md all at once acquiesced. She had
found her master"