"Or in the het jagertje," laughed Paul, who had been talking with Mr. Fluxion.
"We'll take a reef in that now. Don't your teeth ache, captain?"
"No; that's the boy that rides one of the horses."
The canal was filled with boats loaded with market produce, drawn by men and women harnessed like mules to the tow-ropes. Woman's rights seemed to be particularly recognized in this part of Holland, for females are harnessed to the boats like horses, enjoying the same rights as the "lords of creation." The houses on the way were mostly cottages, whose steep roofs were often twice the height of the walls. The stork, which the people cherish with a kind of superstitious reverence, was occasionally seen, but not so frequently as in the vicinity of The Hague, where he has a nest on the roof in a large proportion of the houses.
The boys were much interested in the navigation of the trekschuit. Meeting another boat, the steersman shouted "Huy!" indicating that the other craft was to go to the right. When the tow-boy of the approaching boat reached a certain point, he stopped his team, and the trekschuit horses passed over it, as the rope slacked. He halted again to loose the rope for the barge to pass over. Neither boat was stopped by the operation. At the many bridges the rope was cast off, and made fast again, without any delay.
An hour and a half brought them to Broek, the paradise of Dutch neatness. It is a village of eight hundred people, most of whom have "made their pile" and retired from business. Neatness is carried to lunacy here, for no one is permitted to enter a house without taking off his shoes. The narrow lanes and passages which serve as avenues are paved with brick, or with tiles of different colors, arranged in fantastic figures, and some are covered with sand and sea-shells, made up into patterns. Strangers are warned not to ride through the place; they must walk, leading the horse. The houses are mostly of wood, gaudily painted; the roofs are covered with glazed tile of various hues.
The cow-stables of the dairy farms are better than the houses of most of the poorer classes of Europe, having tiled floors, with everything "polished off" and sandpapered as nicely as though they were intended for drawing-rooms. Over each stall is a hook, by which the cow's tail is fastened up, so as to keep her neat and clean.
The students continued on their way from Breck to Alkmar,—which sustained a siege, and successfully resisted the Spaniards,—and thence to The Helder, a town of twelve thousand inhabitants, opposite the Texel. The great ship canal to Amsterdam commences at this point, which is the only place on the coast of Holland where the deep water extends up to the shore, the tide rushing through from the Zuyder Zee keeping the passage open. The party had an opportunity to examine the mighty sluices and gates, and to observe the stupendous dikes, before described by Mr. Mapps. They visited the fortress erected by Napoleon with the intention of making The Helder the Gibraltar of the North.
On Thursday morning the tourists took the steamer, through the Great Canal, to Amsterdam. Being obliged to wait an hour for the train to Utrecht, Paul visited one of the "diamond mills" of the city with Mr. Fluxion. About five hundred men were employed in the establishment, and, as the business is exclusively in the hands of the Jews, the mills are closed on Saturday, and work on Sunday. The art of cutting and polishing diamonds was for a long period exclusively in the hands of the Jews of Antwerp and Amsterdam. There are quite a number of these manufactories in the city at the present time. The machinery is operated by steam, turning wheels for polishing the precious stones, and propelling the wire saws for cutting them.
Diamond dust is the only substance with which an impression can be produced upon the hard stones, and they are polished by metal plates covered with this dust, and revolving with inconceivable rapidity. The saw is a very fine wire, to which the dust is affixed. This process appears to be the origin of the adage "diamond cut diamond." Before the fifteenth century, diamonds were worn in their natural state, and the art of cutting and polishing them was discovered by a native of Bruges.