ADIEU TO HOLLAND AND PROFESSOR HAMBLIN.
After dinner the party, in charge of a couple of the city officials, who had given them a welcome, went to the Palace, the noblest building in Amsterdam. It rests upon nearly fourteen thousand piles, driven seventy feet through the mud to "hard pan." During the reign of King Louis, it was his residence, and the other sovereigns of Holland used it when they visited the city. Its remarkable feature is an imposing hall, one hundred and twenty feet long, fifty-seven feet wide, and one hundred feet high. The interior is lined with Italian marble, and adorned with works of art.
"Young gentlemen," said Mr. Mapps, taking position in this great hall, "Amsterdam contains a population of two hundred and sixty-eight thousand. In shape, it forms rather more than the plane of a half circle, the circumference being composed of the walls of the city, outside of which is an immense canal. Inside of the walls there are four principal canals, extending nearly around the city. Take the transverse section of the trunk of a chestnut tree, divide it, with the grain of the wood, into two equal parts, and the top of one of them will give you the plane of the half circle. The layers of the log, formed by each year's growth, would indicate the canals and the intervening spaces covered with buildings. The heart of the city, however, is irregular.
"Each of these canals is situated in the centre of a broad street. The Keizers Gracht, or Canal, is one hundred and forty feet wide. They are not circular, but form the sides of an irregular decagon. Other canals intersect the principal ones, so that all parts of the city may be visited in boats or vessels. The River Amstel flows through the town by a winding course; and Amsterdam is derived from the name of this stream and the dam built over it, in former days, on the spot where this edifice is located.
"The Y, or the Ij, is an arm of the Zuyder Zee, and forms the diameter of the half circle; but it is bent in the shape of a bow. The water is admitted to the canals by the Amstel. At low tide the water in the Zuyder Zee is only six or seven inches below the level of this river, and great difficulty is experienced in obtaining a circulation of water in the canals, where it stagnates, and affects the health of the city. All the canals and openings from the sea are protected by flood-gates and sluices. The canals which cut up the city divide it into no less than ninety islands, connected by two hundred and fifty bridges.
"The entire town, its sluices, and even some of its canals, are built upon piles; for the soil beneath is nothing but loose sand and bog mud. In 1822 a vast warehouse sunk down into the mud, on account of the weight of grain stored in it. Amsterdam is not only in peril from the sea around it, but there is danger that the bottom may drop out.
"In the Spanish war, of which I have had so much to say since we entered Holland, Amsterdam was held by the Duke of Alva, and, with this city as the base of operations, he intended to conquer the country. The siege of Harlem was conducted from this direction.
"A small fleet of Dutch armed vessels was frozen up near this city, and a force was sent to capture them by the Spanish commander. The crews opened a wide trench in the ice around their vessels, and, putting on their skates as the besiegers approached, advanced to give them battle. The Dutchmen, perfectly at home on skates, out-manœuvred and beat the Spaniards, who left several hundred of their dead on the ice. The duke was astonished; but he was a prudent man, and ordered seven thousand pairs of skates, upon which his troops were trained to perform military movements."
"That was a big thing on ice," said one of the students, as the lecture closed.
In the course of the day the party visited the Oude Kerk, or Old Church, containing "a big organ," the Niewe Kerk, which has monuments to De Ruiter, Van Speyk, and others.