Little Folks (November 1884) / A Magazine for the Young

by Various

Then the dykes were planted with trees, which throw out a network of roots, and help to hold the whole structure firmly together. On the dykes there are over 9,000 windmills always at work, pumping up water to keep the land dry; and there are in the whole country nearly 1,150 miles of canals, for diverting the waters, a good many of their bottoms being higher than the land they drain.

Every dyke in the land is under constant inspection, and every three years the network of willow-twigs is renewed. It is one of the strangest sensations in the world to stand at the foot of one of these outer dykes at high tide and hear the angry breakers of the sea dashing against the other side of the wall, at a height of 16 ft. or 18 ft. above your head.

From the beginning of their history until the present time the Hollanders have had to fight the waters, and they will have to do so as long as their country exists. There are two great sources of danger—the sea and the rivers; and either left neglected would very soon lead to hopeless ruin. There is therefore a great institution, or society, in the country, called the Waterstaat, for watching and controlling the water. Everybody in the land is obliged to obey its commands. If any one see the water threatening to pour in, he must at once give the alarm, and all the people of the district, and of all the districts round about, must be summoned by the ringing of the alarm-bells, and by the booming of cannon, and then old and young, rich and poor, soldiers and public servants, must all set to work together and fight the common foe.

Notwithstanding all the constant vigilance there are terrible stories told in Holland of inundations. It is recorded that during thirteen centuries there has been one great inundation, besides smaller ones, every seven years. When that great flood came, in the end of the thirteenth century, which formed the Zuyder Zee, 80,000 persons were drowned; in 1421, in one night 72 villages and 100,000 persons were swept away, and even so recently as the year 1855, there was a great inundation which invaded the provinces of Gueldres and Utrecht, and covered a great part of North Brabant.

coast scene in holland, with dyked marshes.

Most of these catastrophes occurred from the sudden rising of the waters and the bursting of the dams; but it is not from these causes only that the safety of the country is threatened. If you go into the Museum at Leyden you will see some pieces of wood full of little tiny holes. These once formed part of piles and sluice-gates, and they are very memorable to the Dutch people, for they call to mind a terrible danger which befell them once, and might do so again at any time. A ship returning from the tropics brought with it, it is supposed, some tiny little shell-fish, the Teredo navalis. These increased and multiplied with marvellous rapidity, and swarmed the waters. One day every inhabitant of the land was seized with terror, for it was found that these little creatures had nearly eaten away the sluice-gates of the dykes, and had it not been that night and day an immense body of men worked with the energy of those who were trying to save the lives of themselves and their wives and their little ones, the sea, their great enemy, would have been let loose upon them. "A worm," says the historian, "had made Holland tremble."

Once the dykes were cut and the country flooded purposely. It was when Leyden was holding out against the Spaniards, led by Valdez. For four months the people had been besieged, and at last provisions had failed. But when Valdez summoned them to surrender, Vanderdoes, the burgomaster, replied "that when provisions utterly failed, then they would devour their left hands, reserving their right hands to defend their liberty." One day, when the people were reduced almost to their last extremity, a carrier pigeon was seen flying into the beleaguered city, and it brought the joyful news that the Prince of Orange was coming to their deliverance, having cut the dykes and flooded the country in order that his flotilla of 200 boats laden with provision might reach them. But the water did not rise high enough, the flotilla got stranded, and the poor starving people could see the supplies in the distance, but could not get at them, and it seemed so hard to die of starvation with plenty of food in sight. At last relief came in an unexpected way: the wind arose and a violent storm drove in the flood through the broken dykes, and onward it poured with increasing volume and power, sweeping away the cruel Spaniards, and bearing the flotilla to the very gates of the city. It is no wonder that in commemoration of this almost miraculous deliverance on the 3rd October, 1574, the citizens hold an annual festival.

There is a story told all over Holland—and it has been retold in almost all languages—of a boy, the son of a dykeman, who once saved the country, but whose name, strange to say, has not been preserved. He was only a little fellow eight years old, but like every child in that country, he knew of the danger in which he lived, and how at any time if he should see any sign of water coming in through an embankment, or a sluice-gate, where it ought not, it was his bounden duty immediately to give the alarm. One day he asked his father's permission to go to a village not far off to carry a little present to a blind man who lived there, and who had often talked very kindly to him. He did not stay long at the village, for his father had bidden him to hurry home, but being only a very little boy he walked on and on, thinking of the words the blind man had spoken to him, and of a hundred other things, and paying very little heed to the way in which he was going. After a long time he found that he had taken a wrong road, and was in a desolate part of the country close up by the dykes. It was in the month of October, and night was just coming on, so he climbed up the embankment to try and see the nearest way he could take to reach his home. As he was descending he passed by one of the great flood-gates of the dyke. Pausing for just a moment before making a scamper off towards home, he heard a sound which filled him with dismay—it was the sound of water falling and trickling over stones. He knew it was his duty to find out where it was, and very soon he saw a hole in the wood-work through which the water was coming pretty freely. Examining it more carefully he saw that the pressure was threatening to open up a wide crack in the gate; and, child as he was, he knew that if it were not stopped that little stream would soon become a cascade, a great sheet of water, a torrent, and then a terrible inundation which would end in desolation and death. So the little fellow did not hesitate. He determined to try and prevent the mischief. Reaching up to the hole he placed his finger in it, but soon he found that the wood was rotten, and that the small hole would soon become larger. So he took off his jacket and, tearing off a sleeve, he inserted part of this in the hole, and for a time it resisted the water. But not for long. He found that the pressure was not strong and even enough, and that there was nothing for it but to tear away the edges of the decaying wood and then to put his arm, encased in the other sleeve of the jacket, into the hole. To his delight he found that it exactly fitted and effectually stayed the water. Meanwhile the night was growing darker and he was far from home. But the brave little man would not leave his post. He called at the top of his voice, but there was no one to answer, and his only hope was that some of the dykemen going their rounds might hear his voice and come to his relief. But no one came. Hours passed away and still he was alone, and still the water was resisted. He was in terrible pain, however, for in that chill October night the water was very cold, and his hand and arm and shoulder were so benumbed that he knew not how he could endure it. Then he thought that if he did not persevere the waters would come in and drown perhaps his father and his mother and the neighbours, and he knew not how many others besides, and so he determined, however great the pain might be, to bear it, God helping him. Very long and very terrible were those dark hours of the night, and the poor child cried bitterly with the pain and the terror, but he did not remove his arm!

At last, in the early morning, he heard what seemed to be the sound of footsteps, and raising his voice to its highest pitch he soon had the joy of seeing that some one was approaching. It was a clergyman who had been spending the night by the bedside of a dying man, and was returning home with the first gleams of the morning. He was horrified to see a little child, pale, jacketless, shivering, with eyes swollen with tears, and a face contorted with pain.