Windmills and Wooden Shoes

by Blair Jaekel

XIII
The Hinterland of Holland

If Friesland be considered the frontier of Holland’s tourist territory, the provinces of Groningen, Drenthe, and Over-Yssel certainly constitute its hinterland.

With the exception of one or two towns they lack the symmetry of scenery, the quaintness of costumes, the masterpieces of art that adapt the provinces west of the Zuyder Zee to intensive sight-seeing, so to speak, while their peoples differ in manner so much from those in the west that you seem to be traveling through another country altogether. Old buildings they have in plenty, and rural and urban beauty spots may be discovered here and there, but taken by and large, they offer fewer attractions for and cater less to the invasion of the tourist than any portion of Holland.

For the above reason, in planning a trip through this land of the brave and the home of the sea, it might be well, if practicable, to tap these three provinces at the beginning, embellishing first impressions by reversing the time-honored route and returning, instead of advancing, through North and South Holland, Utrecht, North Brabant, and Zeeland, and spending a profitable day at least on the Island of Walcheren as a kind of tasteful cordial after the seven course tour.

Groningen, the capital of the province of the same name, shares the distinction with Leyden and Utrecht in being one of the three university towns in Holland. Although twice as large as Leeuwarden, it is barely half as interesting. It seems, too, a vastly more modern place, with its trolley service, its large assortment of wide streets, its apparent dearth of silent canals, while its narrow, busy Heerestraat emulates the examples set by the Kalverstraat in Amsterdam and the Spuistraat in The Hague.

Its university, established in 1614, is attended by half a thousand students, and has within recent years moved into more commodious and modern quarters in the form of an appropriate and handsome building erected in 1850. Among the treasures of its library, housed in a separate building, is to be found a copy of the revised New Testament by Erasmus, bearing marginal annotations in the handwriting of Martin Luther. This much for learning. With respect to art, Groningen is the birthplace of two of Holland’s best known modern painters, H. W. Mesdag and Josef Israels, the latter being especially distinguished for his ability to record upon canvas the sadder aspects of humble life. At the advanced age of eighty-seven this master of his craft died during the past summer in The Hague, where he had resided for a number of years.

At the foot of the tower of the church of St. Martin on the edge of the market square stands the old regthuis, a small brick building of early sixteenth century erection, lately restored and put into use as a guardhouse. With its green and white shutters of diamond design it looks strangely out of place as the opponent of a building of such conglomerate architecture as the columned stadthuis, on the western side of the square. Grain being one of the staple commodities of the place, one end of the visch-markt is bounded by the corn exchange. Behind this stands the Aa-Kerk, of Gothic construction and thirteenth century origin. And, as is the habit with many of the towns in this section of Holland, Groningen has made the most of the site of her old ramparts and city fortifications by transforming it into a public park.

Without the least savor of favoritism, Groningen might easily capture the palm for supporting about the most uninteresting market in Holland. Held in the great square that serves the town as a center for outdoor business transactions and trolley service, it is a market of everything and a market of nothing. It looks as if all the shopkeepers had put up tents and transferred their stock from their shops to the street. Here they sell anything from cucumbers to cocoanuts, from stepladders to safety matches—a nondescript assortment of edibles, cooking utensils, secondhand clothing, cheap crockery, old books, and umbrellas. There are no types to speak of, and the place reeks with the essence of small and insignificant bargaining. The hotel at which I registered in Groningen was centrally located—too centrally, in fact—on the market square. Just in front along the curb a purveyor of dried fish held forth in his tent. The breeze was blowing gently, and the hotel stood to the leeward of the dried fish purveyor. As Sam Bernard would say, “Sufficiency!”

The railway line from Groningen down through Assen and Meppel to Zwolle penetrates a flat, barren, unattractive-looking country which, in places, might be mistaken for the “meadows” near Atlantic City. The roadbed of the railway itself is the worst in the world—at least I think it is the worst in the world, although the allegation may arouse the envy of one or two Mexican roadbeds that I am no longer on speaking terms with, each of which claims the same distinction. The engineers who were responsible for this piece of track, through a perfectly flat country with no curves or grades to cope with, could hardly have done much worse. It is even beyond the powers of the imagination how they contrived to make it as bad as it is. Its construction reminds one vaguely of the story of the “jealous pie,” whose top and lower crusts grew jealous of each other for fear something might come between them. So with this railway. If one rail bulges outward a little the other rail bulges inward sympathetically. And it is fortunate that they are so attached to each other, because if one rail bulged outward and the other rail likewise bulged outward at the same point we might not be here to tell of it.

Neither is the tediousness of the two-hour ride relieved at all by the congeniality of one’s traveling companions. For the information of the prospective tourist through Holland it might be well to state in this connection that smoking is only forbidden in those few and far-between compartments of the railway carriage marked “Niet Rooken.” In all others, whether labeled “Rooken” or not, whether occupied by men, women, or children, smoking is not only permitted but encouraged; and however vigorous and healthy a Hollander may be, his one weak point is his aversion to ventilation. In this matter he may be likened to the elephant afraid of a mouse. Consequently, the first move he makes when he enters the compartment is to close both windows. If he lacks the boorishness to reach over deliberately and try to curtail your supply of fresh air, which is not often, he will huddle himself in a corner as far from the offending draft as possible, and eye you up and down for your failure to appreciate his position.