Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 127.djvu/630

618 of the districts of the United Provinces. If the country has done well on the whole, and looks forward to the future with well-founded confidence, certain parts of it have experienced sad vicissitudes, and must resign themselves to living in the past and in the memory of vanished glories. Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in the pride of their wealth and reinvigorated energy, may find melancholy warnings in the history of decaying neighbours, as to the uncertainty of human affairs. One evening we were seated in the Palace of Industry in the former city — a great crystal-roofed building resembling in some respects the Alhambra in Leicester Square — where you may indulge in refreshments while listening to music. Among the adornments of the hall were a display of scutcheons, each of them bearing a municipal coat of arms, and being surmounted by the name of the city that carried it. There were Rotterdam, Haarlem, Leyden, Utrecht, Delft, etc. — populous towns on paying lines of railway, and long familiar for their associations with some remunerative commodity, such as tulips or learning, velvets or pottery. But interspersed through these there were other names — Enkhuizen, Medemblik, Hoorn, Kempen, Monnikendam — which awakened only some faint geographical and historical memories. One was sorely puzzled to remember in some cases what and where one had heard of them; in others, where they were situated. Yet every one of these places had once had a history, though now they have almost dropped out of the recollection of their nearest neighbours, unless on the occasion of a contested election, or when it is a question of making up so many national decorations. These and others are the decaying cities that lie round the margin of the Zuyder Zee, left for the most part half stranded by its receding waters, or silted up by its advancing sands. In their day they had sent out their fleets of trading-ships to the Indies in place of a few miserable fishing-boats; and repeatedly they had changed their merchantmen into war-galleys, fighting out some bitter local feud among themselves, or taking their part in the struggle of the Provinces against invaders from Spain or England. The more reduced they were now, it was plain that they must be the better worth visiting for those who appreciate the picturesqueness of decay. And as none of them had come to a violent end, as their populations had been imperceptibly diminished and impoverished, and as the inhabitants had had ample time to reconcile themselves to oblivion and extinction, there was nothing in the nature of their misfortunes to shock the most sensitive nature, while time might be trusted to have dealt gently with the monuments of their more glorious past. Reading these names, then, and ruminating over the appropriate memories, it struck us that we could scarcely do better than explore the shores of the Zuyder Zee. But it was then late in the year, and we knew something of the difficulties and disagreeables of travelling in bad weather in northern Holland, away from the beaten tracks. So we put off our project to a more convenient season, which, we are sorry to say, has never as yet come to us. In the mean time, however, a French gentleman, an artist, has done what we have delayed to do; and M. Henri Havard has published the account of his experiences in a small illustrated volume entitled, "La Hollande Pittoresgue, Voyage aux Villas Mortes du Zuiderzée."

M. Havard sets out by telling us that there is no more interesting voyage to be made in Europe, as there is none that has been more rarely undertaken. For that there is very satisfactory reason. There are no regular communications between the decaying cities either by land or water, and, as it may be imagined, the accommodation they offer is worse than indifferent even for visitors who are by no means fastidious about their quarters. In the absence of public conveyances, M. Havard's obvious alternative was to charter a coasting craft of light draught, as most of the towns in question are more or less accessible by water. Even that, however, was not so easily done. It appears that the Dutch coasting skippers are bound to register themselves, not only as hailing from certain ports, but as plying on certain boats; and if they desire to infringe on the letter of their engagement, they have to find security for new certificates. The consequence is, that each man is only acquainted with his own especial portion of the coast, and the sea is not to be navigated safely unless by those who have a tolerable knowledge of it. Great part of the Zuyder Zee is a labyrinth of submerged banks intersected by crooked navigable channels. Between the island of Marken and the mainland for instance, we are informed that the depth varies from four feet to two. All difficulties, however, were finally overcome by M. Havard. He and his Dutch companion — a descendant, possibly, of the famous navigator, Von Heemskirk — were 