LETTER XIII.
Hotel Vieux Doelen,
The Hague, Holland, August 6th, 1888.
In coming from Amsterdam here we saw water-lilies—sheets of them—on rivers and dikes! Yes, just like our own New England blossoms. How I did want the cars to stop, so that I could get a breath of their fragrance—a breath of Cape Cod—a breath of Plymouth ponds—a breath of East Taunton’s sweetest offerings! We saw storks too, tall and stately, carrying with them good luck, and bearing good omens. Our hotel here is a noted one; it is several centuries old, and has been always the stopping place for members of noble families, travelling from all over the world. It has been several times restored, and is very comfortable. Peter the Great and his suite, King Don Ferdinand of Portugal, and a list, as long as your arm, of kings, princes, and dukes, have been registered as guests in this historic old mansion. On our arrival the house was crowded, and to F. and myself was given the state guest chamber, in which these crowned heads have rested. The furniture of the large room, which is on the first floor, is massive, made of mahogany, ebony and gilt, with light-blue silk coverings, and puffs of light-blue silk to throw over our tired bodies. So much elegance for us, while E. is tucked up under the roof somewhere, so full is the house.
After arranging our luggage in our room, and resting a wee bit, off we started for Scheveningen. It took but a short time to reach this celebrated watering-place by steam-cars, which we took to save time. As we stepped out of our car at the station a strange picture greeted us. There before us was the North Sea, throwing its big waves toward the beach—the first glimpse of sea that we had had for many a day, and its roar was music to us. The broad beach was smooth, hard, and white, and at this point was covered, as were also the dunes in back of it, with the peasantry, Dutch women and children, old grandmothers, and mothers with their little ones of all ages, playing in the beautiful white sand. We spread our wraps on the beach, and sat down amongst them and we are evidently as strange a sight to them, as they are to us. The wee urchins gradually approach us in a shy manner, but E. coaxes them nearer by distributing bits of coin amongst them, and speaking words which they understand; and a close look at their sweet, fresh faces is worth the price. These little ones are fair, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed tots, with long, flaxen tresses, surmounted by little, close, white caps. They are dressed alike, in dark-blue dresses, with little handkerchiefs crossed on their chests, and all wear wooden shoes. The costumes of old and young vary but little, and all look fresh and clean. The women were knitting, and chatting with each other, and occasionally one would go toward the water, hold her hands over her eyes, and peer far out to sea. They were straining their sight to catch glimpses of the boats that carried the men most dear to them. These wives and mothers come mornings with their fishermen, push them out on the water in their boats with a ‘God speed you,’ and then stay on the beach, with their children and their knitting, until the men sail in again. They then help drag the boats on shore, unload, and carry the freshly caught fish to market. The lucky fellow who has caught the greatest number of fish as his day’s work is entitled to kiss the maid he thinks the prettiest in the crowd, and the rest look on and clap their hands, and there seems to be no jealousy amongst them. The Dutch fishing boats, with their brown sails, are queer-looking craft, and have been painted by many of our own artists. The beach from here extends for about forty miles, I am told, in a straight line, washed by the cold North Sea waves—without rocks or inlets.
We next proceeded to the fashionable end of the beach; a division rope separates the portion allotted to the fisherwomen from this. What will divide the poor from the rich in heaven, I wonder? Will it not be Father Abraham’s voice only, when he says the words, ‘Remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things’? How different this scene! Here is a fashionable watering-place, with huge hotels, restaurants, stores, and crowds of stylish people. This is more like Old Point, Narragansett, or Newport than anything we have before seen. But the beach is superior to any of these, and the bathing-wagons on wheels, in which the bathers are carried to the water, and back to the hotels after their baths, were quite new to us. They contain all toilet utensils, an abundance of towels, and are most certainly a great improvement over the way bathers at our own sea-side resorts come out of the water, with dripping costumes clinging to the skin, to face a crowd of lookers-on. Here, too, a space for those who bathe is roped off, and others are not allowed to go within that enclosure. The bath-chairs were also a great delight to me. Here were hundreds of them, basket-work, with covers and without, and footstools added, in which we could sit and look upon the sea, protected from the sun and the wind. Some were for one, and in others two or three could sit together. The sense of rest was most delightful in these chairs, with the broad, blue expanse of water and sky before us. Gay, merry children were riding about on ponies and donkeys, and the road between the hotels and the beach was filled with carriages and people on horseback.
But the hours flew rapidly amidst such scenes as these, and the sun was going to rest; so, reluctantly, we turned our steps toward the big hotel on the crest. The piazzas were crowded with people in full dress, but, with our travelling gowns on, we mixed in, and went to dinner. In the house was a beautiful hall or concert room, and after dinner the Philharmonic Orchestra of Berlin gave a choice concert there. The music was superb, and nowhere in Europe had we seen so fine-looking an assemblage; many of the ladies were remarkably handsome, and all were dressed in excellent taste.
Hotel Vieux Doelen, The Hague, August 7th.—You would have laughed had you been with us in our fine room this morning. Our commode looks like a sideboard, and is so high that I had to stand on a chair to take my morning splash; and as I began to fill my bowl with water, something jumped, and so did I. ‘The shade of Peter the Great!’ said F., but it was only a little, harmless toad, which had probably come in at the window, which I had left open. The arrangements for bathing and washing in houses in this land are very meagre and inconvenient.
The Hague seems a very elegant, sleepy, quiet city. The streets are broad, many of them bordered with handsome limes, and the residences are large and square. Canals are here, also, but do not seem to be used much, if any, and the water looks stagnant. In one street, the odor from the canal was very offensive, although the streets on its borders were beautiful ones, and this is the residence of the Court; in fact, the place has really the appearance of an exclusive little royal city dropped in the centre of a grand old forest. It has pretty parks and gardens, and a pleasant promenade around a lake, called the Vijver, or fish pond, from the water of which the old palace seems to be rising. In the square is the statue of William the Silent, who did so much to effect the liberty of Holland, and who was a father to its people. This brave man’s faith never failed him, nor did he ever swerve from what seemed to him his duty, through political storms or discouraging defeats; freedom for all, and the right to worship God in accordance with the dictates of one’s own conscience he fought for as long as he lived. In Delft, a little town near by, he was struck down by an assassin.