The Alaska daily empire., 1914-11-06
THE GOUNTRT TO FEE H0LbAEDBRS
 Gertrude Mallette.

Gertrude alallette-
 '.'s--sssss,'sss 7''''''''''''e'.
 if che war Is led into Wilheimipa g Kingdom ihero win be no Waterloo fields on which to wage their battle. ! there will be no three hundred niles Of firing line, there will be no rocky .naturnl forresses surmounted by 9 Namur or a Dnant Perhaps, unless one can actually visit Holland, there is no better way to become asquaint. ed with the land of the Dutch than through Edmondo de Amicia work on ! Holland and Ats people, translated by Caroline Triton
 De Amlcis says that the first time he crossed the Old Rhine ho stopped on she bridge and asked himself: Is that the Rhlne?" and wondered that it could be the somo meiestic river he had seen rushing in thunder be- fore Mayence, and passing in tri. lumph under the fortress of Ehren- i breitstein. Writing Of tho death of the great river, within the border lines of Holland De Amlcis says; eThe yiccitudes which accompany the agony ana death of the Rhine are such as really to excite q sense of pity such as if felt for the misfortunes and in- l glorious end of people once power ful and happy From the nolghbor- hood of Emmerlch. before reaching the Dutch frontier, t has lost all the beauty of it's banks, and flows in great curves through vast and ugly flats, which seem to mark the ap. proach of old age At Millingon it runs entirely in the territory of Hol- land; and a little further on it di- vldes. The main branch shamefully loses It's name and goes to throw it- self in the Mouse; tho other branch, insulted by tho title oi the Dannerden canel, flows nearly to the city of Arm chm. where 1t once moro divides in- to two branches. One empties into the Gulf of Zuydcr-zee; the other still called out Of compassion, the Lower Rhine, goes cs far as the yil- iago of Durstcde, where 1t divides for the third time; a humiliation now of old date.
 One of these branches, changing its name Ike coward, throws itself into the Mouse near Rotterdam; the other still called tho Rhine, but with the ridiculous surname of "cuved" reach es Utrecht with difficulty where for the fourth time lt egain divides; ca pricious as an old man in his dotage. One part denying its old name drags itself as far as Muiden, where it falls into the zuyderzee; the other, with the name Of sho old Rhine, or simply the old. flows slowly to the city Of Leyden. whose streets it crosses with out giving sign of movement, and is finally gathered Into one canal by which 1t goes to it's miserable death in the North Sen.
 But it is not many years since this pitif'il end was denied it. From the year SS9. in which furious tempest had accumulated mountains of sand at its mouth. until the beginning of the present century the old Rhine lost itself in the sand before reaching the sea, and covered vast tracts of coun- try with pools and marshes. Under the reign of Louis Bonaparte the wa- ters were collected into a large canal by three enormous sluice gates, and from that time the Rhine flows di- rectly to the sea. These sluices are the greatest monument in Holland, and perhaps, the most admirable hy- draulic work in Europe.
 The dikes which protect the mouth of the canal. the walls, the pillars and gates, present altogether a Cyclo- plan fortress. against which it seems that not only the sea, but the united forces Of all the seas, must break as against wall of granite When the tide rises the gates are closed to pre- vent the waters from invading the land when the tide recedes they are opened to give passage to tho waters Of the Rhine which have accumu- lated behind them; and then mass of three thousand cubic feet Of wa ter passes in one minute
 Napoleon said that Holland was an aluvion of the Scheldt tho Rhino and the Mouse. all French rivers, and with this pretext he added 1t to the em- pire. One writer has defined it as a sort of translation between the land and sea; another, as ar immense crust of earth floating on the water; others, an annex of the old Con. tinent the Chine of Europe, the end of the earth and the beginning of the ocean, Q measureless raft of mud and sand; and Philip II. called it the country nearest to Hell.
 But they all agreed upon one point. and all expressed it in. tho same words: l Holland is a conquest made by man over the sea-it is an artificial coun- try-tho Hollanders made it--it exists because the Hollanders preserve it-l 1t will vanish whenever the Holland CTS shall abandon it.
 To comprehend this truth we must imagine Holland as 1t was when itl was first inhabited by the first Ger man tribes that wandered away in search Of Q country. 1t was almost
 ts.asstt..r.1.. I'M, .,.s ,.rrv.- rr.-t 1, f-a.