Page:Things Seen In Holland (1912).djvu/34

 town or village belfry ringing out gently not only quaint old tunes familiar centuries ago, but also airs that are painfully modern, drawn, as they often are, from the répertoire of music that is not classical, one falls into the somnolence of a lazy reverie, in the midst of which arises the awakening recollection of the difficulties under which the entrancing landscape has been fashioned by the hand of man and the sweat of his brow. Over and over again have the cruel and greedy waters claimed more than their pound of human flesh and more than their share of the land, begrudging the poor Hollander every square inch of his country.

Towards the close of the thirteenth century the sea destroyed a peninsula near the mouth of the Ems, and engulfed over thirty villages. In the same century a series of marine inundations opened a gap in North Holland, formed the Zuider Zee,