Norwich bulletin., 1914-11-27

| aLllllIsA | werp, Hamburg, Hong Kong and Rot | terdam. Rotterdam led London. The | measure of greatness, of course, was the grand total of tons of freight, en- tered and cleared by each port.
 1 With this information about Rotter- | dam in mind, many an American has | strained his eyesight from the forward | deck just off the coast of Holland, | like that of New York. All that has rewarded his effort has been a low, barren, desolate stretch of sandy l shore, lonely to a point of sadness. | This dreary outlook is the Hook of | Holland, relieved on nearer inspection by rambling shed. combination of | baggage and customs house. There are a few scraggly bushes and dwarf 1 trees in the picture. Probably, in nine l chances out of ten the tourist has | reached the Hook after the turn of l the tide, in which case he has had to | land there. j In July, an unmerciful sun beats 1 down on this tongue of land, which, | together with the pigmy train wait | ing upon the smoky sands to carry the l passengers to Rotterdam. makes the l traveller almost feel that he has been landed in sleepy Africa by mistake. There is nothing about the Hook of | Holland or the narrow, shallow ribbon ! | to aid him in realizing the magni- | tude of the port but an hours ride away.
 Rotterdam is today Europe's great 1 est neutral seaport. The vast buSi- ness of Antwerp and Hamburg has l ceased. London is an object for the | enterprise of war. The shipping to western Europe can alone rest com pletely secure in the harbor of Rot terdam, and this port city has be- rlT fI1nI ,-f,1 r,f ,zT. fr,. | the purchases of all Central Europe will pour through its spiral streets.
 Ideally situated for handling the | oversea commerce of central Europe, | Peop}ed by . race of skillfuI mer- chants and traditional sailors, con- | reSaed with all the principal markets l or tha hinterland by the wonderful | systeLl of railways which branch out from here and reach Germany, France and Austria. Rotterdam has always done a remarkable shipping despite l keenest competition. This city has i earned great part of it's wealth the last score years through the handling | Of German iD ports and the vast ex- ports to every corner of the world from | the Rhine manufacturing district l These goods have been mostly sent down the Rhine to Rotterdam and by | the Dutch reshipped to their destina- | tions. It was in order to preserve this business in German hands, that the Empire undertook the construction of the Dortmund-Ems Canal, at SEQ o00,- 900, connecting the industrial Rhine country with German port on the North Sea
 Its wonderful shipping has made Rotterdam the leading commercial city of Holland. There are some industries scattered among its straight-fFont, five and six story, sharp-gabled houses, such as rope and cigar manufacture, but they are unimportant.
 HeligoIand-As an excursionist from Hamburg, one comes upon the solitary little island of Heligoland, far out in the open North Sea, some 30 miles from the nearest point of land, a defantly isolated maroon-brown crag, projecting itself suggedly against the horizon. This tiny land is the vor- tex around which the ambitions of two of the proudest navies of the world are swelling.
 Approached in the heat of a late July day, an overhead sun sharply chiseling it's outline, Heligoland makes an impression never to be forgotten | ness anywhere in the northern hem isphere.
 Since the day when great powers first conceived a familiar interest in its existence, Heligoland has been ded- icated to war. In 1890 Great Britain and Germany entered into a treaty defining the spheres of their infiu- ence in East, West and Southwest Africa, and in return for the German recognition of the protectorate of Salisbury, in behalf of his Govern ment. ceded Heligoland to Germany. Since that time it has been usurped by the German vacationist for a sum- mer playground. Its interests are three-fold; military tourist and in dustrial. Its industrial interests are it's least concern, being of importance only to the few hundred fisher folk who have faith enough in their little rock to pass their lives away upon
 Helgoland properly consists of two islands, one of a high rocky plateau of military significance, and the other a great drifting pile of sand, protected by engineering works against water erosion, which serves chiefly as a. bathing beach for the summer visi- tors. Duenen Insel, or sand dune is- land, the small, sparkling greenish- yellow sand pile Of the summer guest, was split off from the main island by a violent disturbance in 1T20. The main island is high table of rock, in the higher points rising some sheer two hundred feet from the water
 about a mile from tip to tip on it's roughly triangular surface, and a nt- tie more than a third of a mile wide at the widest points. The stormy winter seas have fretted its exposed coast in a wealth of caves. and routed pillars. arches and needles of rock. Much of the tableland is forbidden to the tourist. The inquisitive strang- CT is not encouraged to roam at will
 nor to photograph whatever might strike his fancy. For the rock is strategic ground: its surface is stud ded with turret Notifications, hidden big gun pits, and upon one part of the island there is an important Zeppelin station. Near it's southeastern pont is sandy cleft in the rock upon which the lower town is constructed and where Helgoland steamers moor. In this sheltering cIeff is where the na- tive fisher folk huddle through the bit ter. stormy, grey, blood-congealing North Sea winter. Almost continual ice-blasts chop smash and churn these waters during the winter time
 As small as the island is, it yet of I fers tha visitor a choice of several