“Perfectly, perfectly,” said the Count. “I always take your word for what it is worth.”
“Ho! ho!” laughed the skipper, who overheard the conversation. “Look out there, Pieter. Are you keeping your weather eye open?” he shouted to the one-eyed mariner who was forward.
“Ja, ja, Captain; there’s a fleet of fishing boats ahead, we must keep to the eastward of them. Port the helm a little.”
Presently the Count and the Baron heard the tinkling of bells, and as they looked over the side of the vessel the Count exclaimed, “What are those Will-o’-the-Wisps dancing away there?”
“Ho! ho! ho!” laughed the skipper. “Those
are the lights from fishing boats. We shall see them more clearly presently.”
As the galiot sailed on, the Count and Baron observed that the lights proceeded from lanterns hung up in the rigging, and that some vessels had huge beams with black nets attached to them which they had just hoisted up out of the water, and that the crews were turning out the fish caught in the pockets of the nets. Others, under easy sail, were gliding on slowly with stout ropes towing astern.
“They are trawlers catching turbot, brill, plaice, and other flat fish,” observed the skipper. “Our country has numberless advantages; we make as much use of the sea as many other nations do of the land, though, as I before said, we are carrying on a constant warfare with it, trying to turn it away from its ancient boundaries, and doing our best to keep it from encroaching on the soil we have once gained. Holland would never have become what she is, unless Dutchmen had been imbued with a large quantity of those valuable qualities, patience and perseverance.”
“Ah, you Dutchmen are indeed a wonderful people,” exclaimed the Count. “I am very glad that we thought of visiting your country before proceeding to other parts of the world. At the same time, if we had gone by land we should certainly have seen more of it than we are likely to do now.”