Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 146.djvu/201

1889.] One sees these curious basket-purses hung up everywhere in Friesland, by and along, and always above the level of the water. Sometimes they are supported on a framework of sticks.

We had to trice up the tack and lower the peak at every bridge, as appears to be the rule, and as we had to put a doublejee or so into the wooden sloe at the end of a fishing-pole, in which the toll is taken at the bridges, we ranged all our small coins on the cabin-top to be in readiness, for we generally shot through the bridges at a great pace.

We came to our first mere at the reed-and-water-surrounded village of Grouw, which looked such a thoroughly aquatic sort of place that we should like to revisit it.

Our pilot made many inquiries as to the depth of water from meeting craft as we flew along under a press of sail and with a freshening wind; the season had been a dry one, and the waters were unusually low. It was a wild-looking country through which we were hurrying—water, reeds, marsh, and sky; and nothing else all around, save the numerous wild-fowl—waders, terns, and gulls—which would make these watery wastes a paradise to the ornithologist.

We shall never forget the sail across Sneekje Meer, which is some eight miles across. We entered it in company with half-a-dozen big tjalks laden with peat (which is scooped from the bottom of the lakes), but soon left them astern and led the way along the straight channel, well buoyed out, which marked the way across the peaty-coloured sea. For sea it looked, the low shores being only faintly discernible, an effect owing more to their flatness than to their distance.

Wishing to visit Sneek, we turned off to the right along a channel so that our keel dragged in the mud, and we had to keep the yacht well laid over by means of her topsail to lessen her draught; so the decks were well awash. We met a Dutch yacht about our own size, and very swart and trim, with lofty, narrow-headed sail, and a bright-coloured flag as big as a topsail. Her owner shouted to as excitedly the only English phrase he could call to mind in a hurry, which was the odd greeting of "Good-bye, sir! Good-bye, sir!"

We spent about an hour in Sneek shopping and money-changing, and meeting with great civility. It is av odd little town, with a wealth of queer bits to sketch; most foreign in its aspect, and a place where one feels most comfortably out of the world. We would have stayed there, but our pilot was nervous about the depth of water, and wished to take advantage of the strong fair wind.

On our way out of the Sneek channel, we met the Dutch yacht returning, with her sails soaked half-way up the mast. She had found more "sea" on than she liked on Sneekje Meer.

As the wind was now blowing very hard, we had to shorten canvas considerably. We tore along canals and over meres before half a gale, and when we entered the stormy expanse of Tjeuke Meer (ten miles across) we were surprised to find what a commotion of coffee-coloured waves and tinted surf there was. The channel was very shallow. We kept continually sounding with a pole, to find only five feet of water and a hard bottom. Two great waves mounted on each quarter as we dragged the shallow water after us.

The land was literally invisible through the mist and spray torn