Windmills and Wooden Shoes

by Blair Jaekel

On any other day but Tuesday there can be no excuse for the traveler to take the least heed of the train conductor’s garglings and stop off at Goes; but the costumes of Zeeland, as seen at a Tuesday’s market, are well worth a break in the journey.

A few miles beyond Goes the train crosses the Zuid-Beveland Canal, which intersects the long, straggling island of that name and of which Goes is the capital. The canal was cut through by the Dutch engineers in 1863–66 as a sort of apology to nature for their having deliberately closed up an arm of the Scheldt called the Kreekerak—a body of water that the Dutch never trusted since its contribution to the inundation of the east coast of Flemish Zeeland. Previous to 1532 that east coast was fertile farm land and populated by peace-loving peasants. But in that year the dike burst. Three thousand inhabitants are alleged to have perished, and the locality is still under water, it being known to-day as Verdronken Land, or “Drowned Land.”

A little later your train will cross the Kreekerak on the embankment they built, and Bergen-op-Zoom is the next stop.

They say Bergen-op-Zoom used to be one of the most flourishing towns in the Netherlands. Doubtless that is true. The only flourishing parts to be found about it now are its thousand and one rags flourished by its thousand and one housemaids scrubbing its thousand and one doorsteps. The latter are incessantly being cleaned and recleaned by the former in the hands of the intermediate; so much so, indeed, that it appears as if each maid were trying for a record. Bending double or down on their knees—in every conceivable attitude they attack their front doorsteps as many times a day as they think necessary, which is rather more than often. I have never read a consular report that speaks of Holland as a territory open for trade in mops. They may be on sale, but I have yet to see one in action. For one cause or another the Dutch seem to cling to the hand method of wringing the cloth over the bucket, then bending double and sloshing it from side to side across the pavement with a movement akin to that of a nervous captive elephant; but perhaps for the reason that this Dutch method is not and never can be thorough, do they deem it exigent to repeat the operation with such frequence.

The lesson gleaned from all this is how the Dutch have beaten their lifelong enemy, water, at its own game, ousted it, and then turned round and made of it an humble and subjected medium for keeping the country clean.

Most towns west of the Zuyder Zee are so notoriously clean that even walking over the pavements is not encouraged. For reasons of his own a householder will continue his property line out across his two or three feet of pavement with the help of a chain or iron railing, more or less decorative, so that the pedestrian, when he comes to the barrier, must side-step into the street in order to pass it.

There are four or five other features of Bergen-op-Zoom that I remember no less distinctly. One was the imposing old Gevangenpoort with its massive brick archway. It dates from the fifteenth century and constitutes one of the few remaining relics of the ancient town fortifications. Another was the accomplished female at the railway station, who served liquid refreshments to warm and weary travelers and, by way of diversion for the sake of accumulating a few extra absurd little ten cent pieces, handled the baggage of arriving and departing visitors to the town with the ease and strength of a full-blown dientsmann. If there happened to be too many pieces of luggage to carry at once, she invariably remembered where someone had hidden a wheelbarrow conveniently near the station. This she would fetch, often without the knowledge or consent of its owner, load the luggage upon it, and march off with a dignified, “what-do-you-think-of-me” sort of an air.

Another feature was the glaring heat of the place—the day of my visit being a rather humid one in July; and still another—the most important of all—was a quiet, shady nook on the low portico of a little café just back of the Groote Kerk, from which sheltered position I looked up more than once over the tops of the trees and admired the lofty steeple of the old house of worship through the bottom of a tall, slender glass.

But a short ride from Bergen-op-Zoom brings you to Rosendaal, which, from the apparent activity about the station, might be by long odds the most important town in all Holland. It is the seat of the Dutch customhouse and therefore the junction of many railway lines, north, south, east, and west; or vice versa. All roads lead in the Netherlands, not to Rome, but to Rosendaal. To explore the town is scarcely worth the trouble, but the railway station itself deserves especial notice. If you enter Holland from the Belgian frontier it will be impossible not to notice it, for the train will stop long enough at Rosendaal for the customs officials to question each and every passenger personally about cigars, perfumery, and other dutiable articles. If you come from the east or the west it is eleven chances to one you will have to change cars at Rosendaal, in which latter predicament you will at least enjoy a stroll up and down the long station platform.