OCR Text |
Show IMPRESSIONS OLD AND NEW Rotterdam Most Peculiar City in Europe Eu-rope Church of St. Lawrence i Delft and Schiedam The Hague the Fashionable City of Holland Leyden Achievements of the Dutch. i (Special Correspondence.) Rotterdam, deriving its name from the river Rotte and dam. is the most curious city in Europe. Eu-rope. It is more like a huge dockyard than a city, for everywhere, you turn you have bridges, canals and quays, the tall masts of the trader and the funnels of every species of boat. It is a beautiful city with its quaint, high houses and its boulevards boule-vards and long avenues lined with trees. Here you see an immense dyke, there a floodgate, and many other contrivances which have for their aim t he-preservation he-preservation of the city from inundation. Set upon up-on the church steeple that overlooks river, ship and city, a vane, herring shaped, whispers to you that herring fishing is Rotterdam's staple industry. Delving into history you will find that it was from this city the Pilgrim Fathers sailed down tho Maas three centuries ago to form the New England settlements set-tlements in North America. It was here, too, that the Dutch first raised the banner of revolt against the Spanish yoke and Philip II. And in the market mar-ket place stands the statue of Erasmus, the famous Greek scholar and man of letters, who gave to Cambridge his talent and to Rotterdam his name. There are many interesting things to be seen in Rotterdam. In the market place you have tho curious old church of St. Lawrence, dating back to the fourteenth century, with its tower over 30O feet high. In the church is an organ containing five thousand pipes, and as you listen to the mighty; I swell you imagine you hear the rush and music of many rivers. I believe it has no equal, if we ex-cepr ex-cepr ibn world-renowned organ at Lucerne and Ila.irlem. The interior of the church is plain and contains nothing worthy of notice. Rotterdam has a very fair museum, but the tourist who has feasted his eyes on the glorious canvas of the museum at Antwerp finds little to interest him in these pieces. ,t An object of great curiosity is the railway which traverses the whole length of the town. It is built on immense arches, some of them of castiron, some of solid masonry. The. zoological gardens is an interesting place to visit, for, besides the goodly collection of animals which it contains, it offers the additional feature of possessing those beautiful flowers, especially tulips, for which Holland is famous. fa-mous. Not far from Rotterdam you have two little towns remarkable the world over for two things pottery and Holland whisky. These towns to which I refer are Delft and Schiedam. The former quiet little Dutch town is remarkable, too, on account of its being the birthplace of the celebrated Gro-tius, Gro-tius, who, as every schoolboy knows, gave us such excellent treatises on the principles of good government gov-ernment and the rights of nations. During tho late years The Hague has attained world-wide notoriety no-toriety on account of the Peace Conferences held there. It is the fashionable town of Holland. It is more like a French town than a Dutch, and boasts every modern species of comfort. The country coun-try around it is indeed very beautiful, especially in the matter of woods, and these woods owe their origin to the former counts of Holland, who had royal residences on the outskirts of the city. As you leave the railway station you come almost at once to the chief thoroughfare of the city, and here you have many beautiful buildings and sorao statues of Holland's great men. It is a good many-years many-years ago since I came across the name Spinoza, and here, right before me, is the statue, and opposite op-posite the statue is the home where he died. lie first saw the light in Amsterdam in 1632. and died here at the early age of 45. In the center of a beautiful square stands the monument of William the Silent. He it was who liberated Holland from the Spanish yoke and whose end was the assassin's bullet. I believe he met his death in the town of Delft. Around this square are the government houses, and there is an air of bustle to be met with here that reminds you somewhat of London. The picture gallery at The Hague contains a magnificent mag-nificent collection of pictures from such artists aa Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Jan Steen and Paul Potter. Close to the museum is the Bennen-hof, Bennen-hof, or the houses of parliament. It was formerly the residence of the Stadtholders, and the- many historic events which took place in the halls of, that building and around it would take volumes to chronicle. The city is rich in museums, theatres, thea-tres, parks, and the quiet and homely look of tho other Dutch cities is altogether absent from Tho Hague. The hotels offer every modern accommodation accommo-dation and for a fashionable city the tariff is not excessive. I forgot to mention that the best way of seeing what is to be seen in the Dutch cities is to order a droschken (cab). The driver will take you everywhere through the city and you pay him by the hour. The old city of Leyden is about ten miles from The Hague, and at one time was a very important city, famous for the sons it produced in war, literature, art and science. It is called the university town of Holland. Situated on a branch of the Rhine, it was the center of some fierce struggles strug-gles during the wars against Spain, and we are told that the hen Prince of Orange was pressed so hard by the Spanish troops during the siega of the city in 1574 that he broke down the dykes and flooded the city and country sooner than suffer suf-fer defeat at the hands of his enemies. Leyden is the most beautiful city in all Holland. Tha canals are clear and lined on either side by trees and gardens and quaintly gabled houses. Tho streets are wide and lined with magnificent shops, and at night," when the city is lighted up, the aspect as-pect is indeed fine. In the center of the city stands the famous university, which numbered amongst its members some of the most brilliant scholars in Europe. It was founded by William the Silent in 1575. Poor Oliver Goldsmith started from, the university on that tour which gave us "The Traveler." Trav-eler." We are told that he came to Leyden from Edinburgh university and continued his studies j Continued on Pase 5. ' I IMPRESSIONS OLD AND NEW. Continued from Page 1. there for a time, but the spirit of the road was in him, and setting out from the university's walls, he trudged through Europe on foot, depending upon up-on his flute playing and his wits for his daily bread. The Dutch did not impress the poet very favorably if we can judge from these lines of his: "Hence all the good from opulence that springs With all those ills superfluous treasure brings Are here displayed. Their much-loved wealth imparts im-parts Convenience, plenty, elegance and arts. But view them closer, craft and fraud appear; Even liberty itself is bartered here At gold's superior charms all freedom flies; The needy sell it and the rich man buys. A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves Here wretches seek dishonorable graves, And calmly bent, to serviture conform, Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm." If we except the Vatican in Rome, Leyden possesses pos-sesses the richest and best equipped library in the world. Leyden is rich, too, in museums, and to enter into detail concerning them is beyond my scope. One thing the visitor to Leyden should not miss, and that is the pleasant train ride to Katwyk. You pass beautiful little villages nestling so closely by the clean canals, and parks and gardens gar-dens dotted over with every species of flower. Katwyk Kat-wyk is a fishing village and its streets are paved with red and yellow bricks. Here you can form some notion of what the dykes and canal works of Holland are like, and the engineering skill that has raised those barriers against the incursions of the cold gray North sea, that unceasingly rages outside. Formerly the Rhine on the way to the sea used to break out in all directions over the swampy ground, but in the days of Louis Napoleon Na-poleon the work of making a canal was undertaken, and now the Rhine, through means of this outlet, rushes into the sea and leaves the sturdy farmer to cultivate his patch of land without fear of his crops being washed away. It is wonderful what things the Dutch have achieved by dykes and drainage, drain-age, and I suppose the greatest engineering feat of any age was the draining of the Haarlem lake. That 'mighty work gave to Holland 50,000 acres of good land, and today 15,000 people eke out a good living where there was once an immense sheet of water fifteen to twenty feet deep. The time taken to drain the lake was thirteen years. Next week we will have a word to say about Amsterdam and a few of its neighboring cities. NAPPER TANDY. |