Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1908-02-08
THROUGH HOLLAND.
A Days Travel In the Land OF Wind-
mills and Canals.

A Days Travel In the Land OF Wind
mills and Canals.
Here is pretty description OF
days travel through Holland: AT AM
sterdam left the train and boarded
boat bound for the Helder, the north
ernmost point Of north Holland, where
the low lying islands curve round 10
the horizon, looking as If they had
been appointed ocean outposts to
Friesland. The voyage might take a
day, but what of that? There is only
one way to travel in Holland-by wa.
ter. The boat glides through the brim-
ming canal and passes the clean towns
and the many windmills. Life per-
sists, passengers and cargoes come and
60, but you are no longer at war with
the world or in trouble with it. You
are spectator, idling through sum-
mer day, wrapped in aloofness, con-
tent merely to be moving through the
moist and luminous air. When the en-
virons of Amsterdam are left behind
and the water side houses give place to
the reeds that bend as the backwash
overtakes them and the factories fade
into vast, bright meadows, the spirit
Of this land, wrested from the sea,
obsesses the traveller. forgot to count
the windmills, was Indifferent 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 wa
ters of this great North canal.
"We passed through Alkmaar, on
one side Dutch farmhouses, compact,
four square, stretching in an endless
line along the waterway, on the other
side the meadows, and beyond them,
far 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 encroachments of the ocean. They
plant the shrub called helm that binds
the sand together, making a bulwark
against the rage of the waves. God
gave US the sea, but we made the
Shore says the Dutchman. These
flower 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 bikes doomed out. gazed out
at these high bulwarks, patrolled and
watched by day and by night, and
mused on the legend that at Amster-
dam there is one master key turn Of
which in times Of peril from foreign
invasion will drown the land again.
"And as I unused there swept past a
barge. The great sail was hoisted.
The family, a mite Of the 10000 canal
population who live out their lives on
these floating houses, were gathered
round the tiller, where mynheer smoked
and steered. The barge is the symbol
Of this sea conquering people. Below
the Helder landed Beyond is the fort,
with the fringe of islands outposting
Fries1and. the fishing fleet and the gun
boats, and the channel between the
mainland and Texel opening to the
world. AS crossed the bridge saw
the sight of sights. There was no fuss,
no shouting, no spilling Of wine at that
launch. The barge moved from her
cradle, shot downward, took the water
In rush, pretended to capsize and all
at once acquiesced. She had found her
master. =" Chicago News.