: A tour through Holland by Carr John Sir - Netherlands Description and travel; Rhine River Valley Description and travel

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TOUR THROUGH HOLLAND.

The stratagem, if not perfectly blameless, was at least intended to be an inoffensive one; I had no hopes of a peace, and consequently none of seeing Holland in a more regular mode. I went not to investigate the nakedness of the land, and by availing myself of its confidence to penetrate the military depots, the docks and arsenals of a country not in amity with my own.

I abhor the character of a spy, moving in friendly garb, however useful his treachery may be to his employers. My imposition extended no farther than to enable me to make a picturesque tour through an almost aqueous kingdom, to view its natives in their ordinary habits, to glide upon their liquid roads, to saunter in their green avenues and flourishing gardens, and trace the wonderful results of that daring and indefatigable ingenuity, which has raised the permanent habitation of man in the ocean, and made successful inroads upon the physical order of the universe.

But though the deception gave no pang to my conscience, yet, harmless as it was, it did not escape the lash of many a petty inconvenience. Often have I been pestered upon the supposition of my being an American merchant, with interrogations as to the number of partners I had, how many clerks I kept, and the many other perplexing queries of minds at once devoted to commerce, and curiosity: nor did I escape dilemmas infinitely more perilous.

Having thus in all candour confessed my offence, if such it ought in justice to be called, and which has also met with its due proportion of chastisement, I trust I shall receive absolution from my reader, and in that hope I shall now proceed to my narrative.

I intended to have availed myself, as I wish I had done on former occasions, of the indulgence usually allowed to tours given in the shape of epistolary correspondence, the ease and familiarity of which render the tourist less formal, and the critic more indulgent; but the war presented an obstacle to the adoption of a plan which would have been more congenial to my mind, and to the nature of the remarks I have to offer.

At Gravesend we paid six guineas apiece to a Dutch captain, and a little favourable breeze springing up, we proceeded on board with a large party composed of specimens of the human race from various parts of the globe, proceeding, through the indulgence of the government of Holland, to their various destinations on the continent. The moment we stepped on board we found we were victims to the most infamous imposition. Six guineas for a berth in a vessel, which Noah in the first rudiments of his art, would have made a thousand times more commodious! Figure to yourself about forty persons stowed in a Dutch galliot of about one hundred tons burthen, deeply laden with a cargo of chalk, &c. a hold near the bows covered with straw for the accommodation of thirty-six of the passengers; a low miserable cabin, four feet high on the deck, which formed the honey-moon bower of a young Swiss and a pretty English girl just married; and a little hole astern which, furnished with a couple of tickings crammed with Dutch peas instead of feathers, constituted the vestibule, drawing-room and chamber for me and one of my companions.

Our captain and his crew exhibited twice a day that attention to their devotions, which is still so characteristic of their country, in spite of every hostile attack and insidious intrigue of France, in the most vulgar, impious, and savage era of her bloody revolution. The breakfast of every morning, and the supper of every evening, were consecrated by a long shrill anthem, and still longer prayer. The cook was the chaplain, and the kitchen, a hole of about eight feet by five, the chapel. The spirit of Calvin, if it be not offered up to the manes of Servetus, must have smiled with satisfaction at the motley group, surrounding a pot of boiled peas and pork, and enveloped in a deep fog of steam and smoke, thus offering up their homage in the language, and according to the rites of that merciless reformer.

The piety of the commander was carried to an extreme length. One morning we were disturbed by a great noise: the captain had compelled his son, a sprightly lad of about nine years old, to read the Dutch Testament for three days together, and with scarcely any cessation; in consequence of which the young disciple became restive, and whilst his father's back was turned committed the apostles to the deep, for which he received a tolerable proportion of castigation. Fifty times a day were we annoyed by our pious commander vociferating to his child,

"Leer, leer, jou luigaart, of dit endje touw zal je leeren." "Learn, learn, you idler, or this rope's end shall teach you."

I restored our captain, who spoke English very well, to good humour, by relating to him an anecdote of the activity and cool philosophy of a Dutch sailor belonging to the fleet under the command of the celebrated Van Tromp, who immortalized himself by his naval victories over the Spaniards in 1639, but submitted to the superior skill and prowess of the British fleet under the command of the sturdy patriotic Blake. At the time when the hostile fleets were laying very near each other, after a severe engagement, to refit, a British and Dutch sailor endeavoured to rival each other by their activity in ascending and descending the rigging of their respective ships; at last the English sailor astonished his competitor by standing with his heels in the air upon the truck head of the main top gallant mast; the Dutchman endeavoured to do the same, but in the attempt fell upon the deck, from which, with great anguish and difficulty, he raised himself a little, and exclaiming to the Englishman, "dere mynheer can you do dat," expired upon the spot. The Dutch are very fond of dogs. Our captain had a bitch and two puppies on board of a very peculiar breed, for which he expressed great attachment, and he was one day not a little amused at my telling him that at the commencement of the gallant action which took place between the Nymph and Cleopatra in the last war, there was a large Newfoundland dog on board the former vessel, which, as soon as the firing began, ran from below deck in spite of every exertion of the men to keep him down, and climbing up into the main chains, there kept up a continual barking, and exhibited the most violent rage during the whole of the engagement. When the Cleopatra struck he was amongst the foremost to board her, and walked up and down her decks as if he participated in the glory of the victory obtained by the English.

After a passage, during which our patience was put to a severe trial, we discovered Schouwen, and soon after the Island of Goree, where the wind began to freshen, and just before we made the mouth of the Maas, we met and hailed a fine large fishing smack, the captain of which our commander endeavoured to prevail upon, by the usual and generally successful application of a little money, to smuggle us into the Briel: after a long consultation, the captain and crew of the smack, not considering that all was fish which came to their net, refused to take charge of us, and to our no very pleasant sensations, instead of standing out to sea, tacked and returned to the Briel under full press of canvass. A low slimy shore surmounted by green flags and a few scanty oziers announced our voyage to be at its close, and we entered the river of a country which our Hudibrastic Butler thus peevishly describes:

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