Rubens, the prince of Flemish painters, was knighted. He was handsome and amiable, and his celebrity as an artist procured for him the friendship and patronage of princes and men of distinction throughout Europe.
Not far from the cathedral the young artists came to the museum, in front of which rises a statue to Van Dyck, pupil of Rubens. "Here, Alfonso," said Leo, "is encouragement for you, for Van Dyck like yourself was the son of a wealthy man or merchant of Antwerp. He was educated in Italy, where he executed several fine portraits which I saw in Genoa as I journeyed to Paris." Charles I. of England appointed Van Dyck court-painter and knighted him. Van Dyck's ambition was to excel in historical works, but the demand upon him for portraits never left him much leisure for other subjects. How often "man proposes, but God disposes."
Alfonso and Leo reached Dort or Dordrecht, which in the middle ages was the most powerful and wealthy commercial city in Holland. Huge rafts float down from the German forests, and at Dordrecht the logs are sawed by the many windmills. The Dutch province of Zealand is formed by nine large islands on the coast of the North Sea, and it has for its heraldic emblem a swimming lion with a motto Luctor et Emergo.
Most of the province, which is created by the alluvial deposits of the Scheldt, is below the sea-level, and is protected against the encroachments of the sea by vast embankments of an aggregate length of 300 miles. Willows are planted along the dykes, the annual repairs of which cost $425,000. An old proverb says, "God made the land, we Dutch made the sea."
This fertile soil produces abundant crops of wheat and other grain. Near Dort is a vast reed-forest, covering more than 100 islands, which is also called, "Verdronken land," drowned land. This area of forty square miles, once a smiling agricultural tract, was totally inundated on the 18th of November, 1421. Seventy-two thriving market towns and villages were destroyed, and 100,000 persons perished. Leo made a sketch of the tower of Huis Merwede, the solitary and only relic of this desolate scene.
The two artists visited Rotterdam, the second commercial city in Holland, which is fourteen miles from the North Sea and on the right bank of the Maas. An attractive quay a mile in length is the arriving and starting point for over 100 steamboats that connect Rotterdam with Dutch towns, the Rhine, England, France, Russia, and the Mediterranean.
Alfonso and Leo studied the collection of portraits at Boyman's Museum, and sketched in the River Park the happy people who were grouped under trees, by the fish ponds, and along the grassy expanses. Alfonso bought a photograph of the illustrious Erasmus. It is about ten miles to Delft, once celebrated for its pottery and porcelain, a city to-day of 25,000 inhabitants. Here on the 10th of July, 1584, William of Orange, Founder of Dutch independence, was shot by an assassin to secure the price set on William's head by Farnese.
Our two artists visited a church in Delft to see the marble monument to the memory of the Prince of Orange, which was inscribed "Prince William, the Father of the Fatherland." Not far is Delft Haven which Americans love to visit, and where the pious John Robinson blessed a brave little band as it set sail to plant in a new world the tree of Liberty.
At length the artists reached The Hague, which for centuries has been the favorite residence of the Dutch princes, and to-day is occupied by the court, nobles, and diplomatists. No town in Holland possesses so many broad and handsome streets, lofty and substantial blocks, and spacious squares as The Hague.
Alfonso and Leo hastened to Scheveningen, three miles west of The Hague, on the breezy and sandy shores of the North Sea, a clean fishing village of neat brick houses sheltered from the sea by a lofty sand dune. Here bathing wagons are drawn by a strong horse into the ocean, where the bather can take his cool plunge. Scheveningen possesses a hundred fishing boats. The fishermen have an independent spirit and wear quaint dress. A public crier announces the arrival of their cargoes, which are sold at auction on the beach, often affording picturesque and amusing scenes, sketches of which were made. The luminous appearance of the sea caused by innumerable mollusca affords great pleasure to visitors, twenty thousand of whom every year frequent this fashionable sea-bathing resort.