The Josephine, followed by the "Wel tevreeden," entered the river. It was a beautiful day, warm and pleasant; and the officers and crew, in spite of the hardships of the preceding night, were eager to obtain their first view of the new country whose waters they were now entering. It was still over sixty miles, by the course of the Scheldt, to Antwerp; but the sights on the river and on the shore were novel and interesting. The vessels which sailed up and down the river were essentially different from any they had ever seen, with the exception, perhaps, of the wrecked galiot. They looked more like huge canal-boats than sea-going vessels. Some of them had wings, or boards, at their sides, which were let down when the craft was going on the wind, thus serving the same purpose as a centreboard. Others were rigged so that their masts could be lowered to the deck in passing bridges.
Maps, guide-books, and other volumes of reference were in great demand among the students, and Professor Stoute was continually questioned by all hands. Mr. Hamblin was too grouty to permit any such familiarity, and doubtless he was saved from exposing his ignorance of the interesting country which the voyagers had now entered.
The West Scheldt, upon whose waters the Josephine was now sailing, is sometimes called the Hond. On the left, and in plain sight from the deck, was Walcheren, the most extensive of the nine islands which constitute the province of Zealand, the most southern and western division of the kingdom of Holland. Zeeland, or Zealand, means sea-land; and its territory seems to belong to the ocean, since it is only by the most persevering care that the sea is prevented from making a conquest of it. These islands are for the most part surrounded and divided by the several mouths of the Scheldt, all of which are navigable.
Our readers who have been on the sea-shore where the coast is washed by the broad ocean, or any considerable bay, have observed a ridge of sand, gravel, or stones thrown up from ten to twenty feet higher than the land behind. This was caused by the action of the sea. The exterior shore of Holland, that is, the land bordering upon the open ocean, has generally a ridge of sand of this description. The sand-hills or hummocks which are observed on the shores of Holland and Belgium are produced by the ceaseless beating of the stormy waves.
In Holland, these ridges, or chains of sand-hills, are called "dunes." They extend, with little interruption, from the Straits of Dover to the Zuyder Zee. The ridge is from one to three miles wide, and rising from twenty to fifty feet in height. The sand of which the "dunes" are composed is generally so fine that it is readily blown by a sharp wind; and they were as troublesome as the sands of Sahara in a simoom. In a dry and windy day, the atmosphere would become dim from the sand smoke of the dunes, and the material was conveyed in this manner far into the interior of the country, covering up the rich soil, so that it became necessary to dig up the sand. To overcome this evil, a kind of coarse reed grass is annually sown on the dunes, which forms a tough sod, and prevents the sand from being blown away.
The dunes form a natural barrier to the progress of the sea; but these, of themselves, are insufficient to accomplish the purpose; for in the highest tides the waters sweep through the openings or valleys between the sand-hills. Immense dikes and sea-walls are erected to complete the security of the country from the invasions of the ocean. The embankments which protect the islands of Zealand are over three hundred miles in length in the aggregate, and involve an annual expense of two millions of guilders—more than eight hundred thousand dollars—in repairs.
"The great dike of West Kappel is there," said the pilot to Captain Kendall, as he pointed to the land on the northern shore of the estuary.
"I don't see anything," replied Paul.
"There is nothing particular to see on this side of the dike," interposed Professor Stoute, laughing at the astonishment of the captain. "What did you expect to see?"
"I hardly know. I have heard so much about the dikes of Holland, that I expected to see a big thing when I came across one of them," added Paul.