This passage into the North Sea has seen some of the largest flotillas in the world leave its shelter, and not only great commercial fleets and war fleets, but hardy expeditions of scientific discovery, such as that of the first explorers who sought for a Northwest Passage through the ice of the Pole. Although it failed in this, it discovered Nova Zembla. Twice did the brave William Barends attempt this journey, and the second voyage was his last, while his associate, Jacob Van Heemskerck, returned to Holland to be invested with the command of the navy in 1607, and to attack, under the guns of Gibraltar, the large Spanish fleet commanded by Alvarez d’Avila. Like Nelson, he died in the moment of victory, and fifty years later almost the same fate befell the indomitable Van Tromp. Space forbids to more than mention Harlingen, a resuscitated city, which has managed to regain much of its old prosperity, but is not architecturally very interesting. One of its claims to present attention is the picture-gallery
of a self-made man and discriminating amateur—M. Bos; and one of its historical claims dates from 1476, when Menno Simonsz, the founder of the sect of Mennonites, of whom some thousands lately emigrated to this country, was born within its territory, in the province of Witmarsum. From this place the travellers started by canal-boat, or treckschuit, a barge drawn by a trotting horse through a level, productive country. The boat has a first-class and a second-class compartment, long seats well cushioned for sleeping, a large table for meals, and, as there is no vibration, it is the laziest, pleasantest way of travelling, if one is not in a hurry. The breeding of those splendid black horses, whose long tails sweep the ground, well known throughout Europe, is still one of the sources of wealth of this Frison land, and much of the marvellous wood-carving now stored up in English collections comes from the Frison villages; but of the old costume of the women nothing remains but the golden helmet. Circumstances, however, have preserved the old fashion of skating races, which take place every winter, and are the occasion of regular festivals. The youth of a whole neighborhood gathers together, and the prizes are handed down as heirlooms in the families of the winners. In old times military manœuvres used to be gone through on skates, and these “reviews” were well worth seeing. The Frison skate is a straight iron blade, with which, though you cannot go in any other than a straight line, you can glide along with much greater speed than with the ordinary curved one we use. The only skating ground of Holland—the straight canals—are a sufficient explanation of the difference.
On Leeuwarden we will not dwell, as it is an inland city and by no means dead, but must notice a funny item in one of its collections of curiosities—that is a “landdagemmer,” or small pail that state members used to carry when going to council, and in which they put their bread and butter or whatever else they had by way of a luncheon.
From Leeuwarden the traveller carries us with him to Franeker, “well built, well lighted, and certainly one of the cleanest and best-kept towns in Friesland,” formerly a famous centre of learning. “Such men as Adrian Metius, the mathematician; Pierius Winsemius, the historian; Sixtus Amama, the theologian; Ulric Huberus, the jurist; and George Kazer, who knew every subtlety of the Greek language, with a mass of other learned scholars, indoctrinated the youth of that age in the sciences, theology, law, history, and dead languages. The spirit of learning became contagious, and the whole city was seized with a desire to acquire knowledge. The students imbued the citizens with a love of the sciences, and the inhabitants, not content with imbibing learning themselves, spread it about on the public walls; and one can still see on the front of the houses, over the doors, and even on the walls of the stables, numbers of wise inscriptions, moral precepts, and virtuous sentences” in Latin, signifying, for instance, “Know thyself”; “Well, or not at all”; “Nothing is good but what is honest,” etc. The Guildhall, built in the same style as the Leeuwarden Chancellerie, but daubed over with paint, contains two or three rooms with their walls literally hidden by gloomy old portraits, said to be those of the professors of the old academy. Among
them is that of a woman, Anna Maria Schaarman, called by her contemporaries the modern Sappho, and who, besides poetry, music, painting, engraving, and modelling, was a proficient in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Ethiopian. Her works were published at Leyden in 1648.
Franeker has a unique exhibition in the shape of a Planetarium, or a small blue-room, with a movable ceiling, representing the vault of heaven, where the planets, in the form of gilded balls, and by means of a mechanical process, rotate around the sun, which stands in the middle of the room in a kind of half obscurity. The room itself is only lighted by one candle. The whole apparatus is shown by a woman, said to be the grand-daughter of the great mathematician, Eise Eisinga, who devoted seven years of his life, from 1773 to 1780, to making this planetarium.
The tjalk, which the travellers had left at Harlingen, now carried them over to Hindeloopen, a sea-port and ancient city, but not one of those which have to complain of the whims of fortune; for it never rose to great importance at any time of its thousand years of existence. Just outside the harbor “the wind suddenly lulled, and one of those dead calms peculiar to these curious shores overtook us. The clouds seemed to stand still in the heavens, the very water lapping against our bows grew still, and, but for a bird skimming the horizon, a sea-dog touching the surface of the waves, or some bruinvisch leaping in pure joy under the calm waters, all nature appeared as if wrapped in a deep sleep.” The town began by being a hamlet in the huge forest of Kreijl (most of whose area is now the bottom of
the Zuyder-Zee), and its name signifies “the hind’s run,” while a running hind forms the municipal arms. The harbor, which in 1225, three hundred years after the origin of the town, was endowed with certain privileges, was never large enough for heavily-freighted ships; and though the inhabitants praiseworthily tried to enrich themselves by forming fishing companies, the boats had to be built in other ports, and the interest of Hindeloopen in these expeditions had always more or less of an artificial character. Notwithstanding the real claims of the town to notice, it has escaped the mention of historians; Cornelius Kempius ignores it altogether; Guicciardini merely refers to it; Blaeu the geographer, in spite of his minute exactitude, only gives it a dozen dry lines; and a later writer, the author of Les Délices des Pays-Bas (1769), is not more complimentary, though he allows it some “commercial interest.” It often needs an artist’s eye to look with favor on these world-forgotten places, and draw out details which make us wonder how it was possible that they have been hitherto so persistently overlooked. It is often a greater pleasure, we confess, to read of such places than of those greater ones, the pilgrimages of the world, where each successive generation of scholars and explorers flocks to bring to light some fact or some stone, and where, when all that is likely to be important has been found, they still pore devotedly over dust and fragments, eager to tell the world how the ancients ate or dressed, and how their present descendants retain or have lost or modified the old manners and customs. Havard, accordingly, says of Hindeloopen:
“Small as it was, it had its arts, its special costume, a style of architecture, and a language only spoken within its walls—which is a fact so singular that it would appear incredible were it not for traces and incontestable proofs of their existence.[196] The most remarkable of its peculiarities was, and is still, the costume worn by the women.… Not content with having a dress different to other nations, the inhabitants of Hindeloopen regulated the style of their costume, and adjusted it according to the age and position of the woman in its smallest detail. From its very birth a child is put into the national costume: its little legs are wrapped in the usual linen, but the upper part of its body is subjected to the prevailing habit of the country. Its head is covered with a double cap—one of linen, the other of silk garnished with the usual kerchief; above this again is placed another calico kerchief, and on that again a third of larger dimensions, scarlet in color and trimmed with lace. The tiny body is cased in a close-fitting jacket, over which is an embroidered bib, and the baby’s hands are put into calico mittens.”
Then follows a description of the changes of, or rather additions to, the costume from the age of eighteen months upwards. The marriageable girls wore the most complicated, everything, even the “floss-silk stockings,” being of a certain regulation make, color, and stuff. Married women wore their hair entirely covered by the headdress of square pieces of red cloth embroidered in gold, above the cap itself. Widows wore the same articles, but all black and white; and, besides this daily costume, there were others worn on festival days, chiefly distinguished by a cape or overall, with other details yet, belonging some to Whitsuntide, some to Corpus Christi, and others to betrothed girls, and relating to circumstances,