Littell's Living Age/Volume 182/Issue 2358/The Cruise of the Chrysalis
Accounts of cruises in small yachts have a certain interest for all healthy Englishmen, whether their hobby be sailing or not; but small yachts that are under fifteen tons are necessarily limited in their choice of cruising-grounds. There is, however, one cruising-ground of fairly easy access, where there is plenty of room, plenty of variety, and which is markedly foreign in its appearance, and that is Holland and its great inland sea, the Zuyder Zee, bordered by its many ancient cities, each with a capital harbor, and with its islands, which are worlds of themselves, not satellites of the mainland. It is a favorite cruising-ground of mine, and the following is the log of a little yacht belonging to my wife and myself, which carried her joint owners a delightful cruise on Dutch waterways.
The Chrysalis (a name compounded of the names of her owners) is ten tons builders' measurement, and nine tons Y. R.A. She is forty feet long over all, and nine feet beam, with the moderate draught of four feet nine inches, but quite enough for Dutch canals and rivers. She is the fisherman's idea of a good sea-boat, having a “flat floor and two good ends,” ballasted with a lead keel. She is very snugly rigged as a yawl, is as handy as a Una boat, dry in a seaway, and fairly fast, The accommodation consists of a good forecastle with two cots, cooking-galley, pantry, lavatory, main cabin about eight feet square, and two bed berths on each side of a narrow well, over which hatches slide in bad weather.
We left Lowestoft harbor at noon on the 3d June. There was but a light air from the south-east – dead ahead, as our course was south-east – and we had to use our sweep to get out of the harbor. We tacked slowly down the Roads to the southward until we reached Pakefield Gat, when we stood out to sea, the wind having southered, so that we could lay our course. With all lower sail and jib-headed topsail set, the boat lay over and leapt through the waves, the wind freshening quickly and settling from the south-west. We had set the log at twelve o'clock at noon, and were fairly astart upon our voyage across the North Sea. Directly we got outside the sands we experienced a long ground-swell, caused, as it happened, by a strong blow of the day before in mid-sea. The glass was falling too rapidly to be reassuring, and we meant to hurry across as fast as we could, as the swell might, as far as we. knew, be a token of a coming gale, instead of a consequence of one that was past, so we sailed her with her lee-rail awash, and the tops of the waves now and then breaking over the fore-deck.
By three o'clock the land had entirely disappeared. We were also out of the track of coasting steamers and vessels, and there was not another sail in sight. We might expect now to be alone on the circle of the sea until we fell in with the North Sea fishing-fleet in the early morning. The wind freshening and the sea increasing, too much water was coming aboard over the bows, so we lowered the stay foresail, which is a very pressing sail on a small craft, while the jib is a lifting sail. The effect was marked. Although our speed was scarcely lessened, we went along perfectly dry over a bright blue translucent sea, with a surge of dazzling whiteness roaring away from our lee-bow.
At five we took in the topsail, and shortly afterwards the mizzen; and at seven, as the wind was now strong, and the high swell beginning to break, we lowered the topmast. Relieved of the top-hamper, the little yacht bore herself easily and bravely in what was really an awkward sea, such, indeed, as you might not see in a hundred journeys across in the summer time. “A winter sea and a winter sky,” said the skipper, as he looked back at the stormy yellow sunset and black, hard-edged clouds. For some time before the sun neared the horizon it had been surrounded by a halo of rainbow colors – a “sundog,” as it is called, which always presages wind; the glass was falling rapidly, and was below thirty inches, so that we apprehended a dirty night of it. It now took all our skill to dodge the break of the swell. “White horses” covered the sea all round, and we went sliding up one side of a steep wave and down another in a lively fashion, luffing to it if the wave came on the bow, or bearing away, so that her stern lifted to it first, if the wave came on the quarter. Every now and then there would be a sudden lull, then a gathering of a greater wave, which would come roaring along as if it meant to engulf us, but we would rise in what appeared to be a marvellous manner over its height; but the drop on its other side down its steep swift slope, and the dive into the two or three short high waves which succeeded each big one, was a thing to be remembered rather than to be welcomed. Wet jackets and holding on was the order of the day.
At 8.45 P.M. we hauled the log, which registered 57½ knots, so that we had been travelling at the remarkable speed – under the circumstances of a rough sea and towing a jolly – of over six knots an hour, a knot equalling 1.1515 of an English mile. The jolly was half full of water, and was too big to get on board. We fully expected to lose her every minute.
As it grew dark we took the precaution of changing to our second jib, and taking two reefs in the mainsail, also reeving two other reef-earings in case the expected gale broke during the night. We were now snug enough for the night, and to our relief the wind grew no stronger. When we got among the lights of the North Sea fishing-fleet, which shone brightly and in numbers all around us, we sailed close under the sterns of one or two of the smacks as they lay at their nets, and asked them to report us at Lowestoft on their return in the morning
It was quite light long before the sun rose from behind a low wall of black cloud, the upper edge of which was a straight line of flame; and the mackerel clouds in the western sky, and the heaving sea beneath, were ruddier far than the eastern sky and sea. With the sunrise it fell calm, and as the swell still continued in some degree, the rolling of the boat made the windless sails flap loudly, and the boom swing and jerk as if it would rive the boat to pieces.
Sending up the topmast and making all sail, we drifted along until five o'clock, when the two tall towers of Scheveningen were faintly visible through the haze. Then we came suddenly out of the clear blue sea into a muddy torrent, the line of demarcation being as perfectly sharp as a division between two solids rather than between two liquids. This was the ebb-water from the Maas, and soon the shipping entering Maas sluice was plainly to be seen. A fine breeze sprang up from the westward with the flood-tide about nine o'clock; and with wind and tide in our favor, and all sail set, we smoked away up the long miles of uninteresting river at a rare pace, and at twelve o'clock we dropped anchor just off the park at Rotterdam, a hundred yards below the quay of the Harwich steamers. A hasty run ashore to despatch a telegram to the wife to cross by the night boat, which brought her to us by nine o'clock the next morning, and then a general clean and tidying up, and a comfortable meal and rest.
Of a place so well known as Rotterdam we have nothing to say here; and I desire to assume that every reader knows something of the history of the Netherlands, for thoroughly to enjoy Holland journeyings a more than superficial acquaintance with her past is necessary.
We “did” the town, and visited the Hague with its pictures, and Scheveningen, with its quaint Noah's arks of brightly painted fishing-boats tossing in the surf, its fish-auctions on the beach, and its teams of horses hauling up the vessels on the strand.
Our anchorage could not be called a quiet one, owing to the swell caused by passing steamers; but it was fresher and pleasanter than to moor in one of the many havens or basins which lie within Rotterdam streets, and are so crowded with barges and small steamers, and have such a busy movement of going and coming, and loading and discharging cargo, that they remind one of the teeming activity of the occupants of the galleries of an ants' nest, when laid bare by an intruding spade.
At half past five on the Thursday morning a fussy little tug, only large enough to hold her powerful engines, took us in tow; and when the “missus” turned out at breakfast-time, she found us moving gently along the broad, smooth river, with a motion so motionless that it was imperceptible in the cabin, although we were travelling at the rate of five miles an hour. We formed one of a procession of five vessels in two files, each with her warp fast to the steamer – two lighters, two tjalks, and ourselves.
The tjalk abreast of us, as a type of all other tjalks in the country, which by scores and hundreds we met daily, may be described. She was massively built of varnished oak, with bows so bluff as to be almost square, a straight-sided box, made, like all Dutch craft, to slide over the water rather than through it, and with immense wing-like lee-boards on each side to let down and supply the place of a keel when going to windward. A tall mast bore a lofty, narrow-headed mainsail with a short, curved gaff, and a fore-staysail from the bow. The great rudder bore along its upper edge a grotesquely carved and gaily painted lion couchant, the most common of all the rudder decorations, and of as much importance as the familiar figure-head in sea-going ships.
Hull and spars were brightly varnished, with casings of polished brass, and rings and scrolls of red and blue paint wherever there was room; the staves of the water-barrels were green and white, and marvellous landscapes were painted on the ends. There was a neat raised cabin at the stern, gaily ornamented in green and yellow, with little white-curtained, flower-decked windows, through which one caught glimpses of a spotless dolls'-house interior, with shining pots and pans and quaint shapes of blue and brown earthen vessels. Of course all the items of household life – cooking, washing, the baby's toilet, and so on – were performed in the most open and unconcerned manner on deck.
The river Yssel from Rotterdam to Gouda is somewhat tame and uninteresting. The chief impression was that everything was slowly gliding – ourselves, the craft we met or passed, the high banks, and the farmers' chariots (the word cart conveys no idea of the quaint shapes of these vehicles), and the hazy clouds which made the day so soft and silvery. A storks' nest in a tall tree, with the old birds and young perched upon it, was the first excitement, and then we noticed many storks and herons in the bays or which, between breakwaters, are numerous. Many of these bays are utilized for setting the fishermen's nets. In others, men were digging up the deposited mud which supplies the material to the many brickyards along the river. In these yards are made the clinkers or narrow bricks with which so many of the streets and roads of Holland are paved, a neat and cleanly method, only available in a land where the heavy traffic goes by water.
It was afternoon when we arrived at Gouda, and casting loose from the steamer, we had to pole the yacht through the lock and into the narrow town canals. In these we made nearly the entire circuit of the town in company with many other craft. It was a slow progress, as there were a score of bridges which had to be opened. Only two vessels were allowed to pass through each time, and then the bridge would be shut to allow the passengers to cross. At length we reached the main canal, and moored under a grove of trees in front of some little shops, with tjalks before, behind, and outside of us. The canal looked doubly dirty, as they always do in the towns; but there was no perceptible smell, and we saw a boy lie down on his stomach, part the floating filth with his hands, and drink heartily. Women would come up with two buckets, one of which, filled with slops, they would empty into the canal, and the other they would fill with water for household use.
Nearly every street in Gouda had a canal down it, and in this respect and the general quaintness of its tree-shaded houses, I should call Gouda one of the most thoroughly typical towns in Holland. In its vast, plain church we saw a tailor plying his trade, the half-made clothes spread out over the pews. He was probably the sacristan of the church also. In Enkhuisen church we saw a baby's perambulator, and clothes hung out to dry. Of course the Dutchman does not take off his hat when he walks about an empty church, nor does he cease smoking.
At Gouda, as everywhere in Holland, we noticed the perfect whiteness of the linen of the poorest people. The little children playing in the street had on the whitest of stockings and pinafores even at the close of the day. The extreme softness of the water in the canals makes it easy to wash with a moderate amount of elbow-grease. The formal blue wire-gauze blinds in every front sitting-room window, of exactly the same pattern; the heavily handsome, shining front doors, ornamented with scroll-work; the formal rows of flat-branched and close-trimmed trees, between the houses and the canal; the deep shade, and the extreme dislike to admitting sunlight into the houses; the heavy, lace-edged blinds, never more than half drawn up; the glimpses through the windows of trim tea-tables, with tiny paraffin-lamps glowing under tea-urns; the outdoor mirrors set at an angle outside the windows, to show the curious frouw within who comes along the street, and also reflecting her own face to the passerby, – all and every one of these characteristics of Dutch towns were noted during our evening walk in Gouda.
But on this evening, as on every evening during our cruise, we felt sleepy at ten o'clock; and the deep, delicious sleep of the yachtsman on quiet waters was too rudely broken at four the next morning, when a steam-tug took us in tow in company with four other craft bound to Amsterdam by Overtoom, the direct trading-route, but one which, for reasons to be presently seen, yachtsmen should avoid.
Early as it was, business on the canal had all begun. We moved very slowly round the sharp curves of the canal out of Gouda, and at no time went faster than a man's quick walk. Thus it was easy for the numerous pedlar boats to hitch alongside the craft and sell their bread, cheese, butter, milk, and vegetables, being towed a mile or two in the process. We were fairly successful with our limited Dutch in asking them the names of places. “Who ate dat?” sounds niggerish, but is the proper way of pronouncing (not of spelling) “What place is that?” If one man only replied we understood, and could spot the place on the map; but generally three or four would shout out the name together, and then the result was confusing, being double Dutch with a vengeance. We glided dreamily the broad canal passing Boskoop; a collection of brightly colored doll's-houses on both sides of the canal, with well-kept gardens, smart summer-houses with complacent mottoes, as “Ons Genoegen,” “Our Delight.” The women's washing-tubs amused us. They are sunk in the canal at the foot of each garden, and have a ledge around. In these the housewife may stand dry-foot, though up to her matronly waist in water, and wash her clothes in the canal without stooping.
There was ever the same stream of passing craft, sailing, and towed by steamers, horses, and by dogs. Of course it is a common sight to see small carts drawn along the streets and roads by dogs; but it looked outlandish to see dogs marching gravely along the canal-banks towing the small boats laden with green milk-pails, or red cheeses, or flowers and vegetables. This mode of towing was, how ever, generally confined to the smaller side-canals. The dogs look well-fed and happy, doing their work willingly and cheerfully, and distinctly proud of their equipage, and jealous of other dog-carts.
We took a sharp turn through the sluice at Gouwsluis, and shortly reached the very quaintest of canal-side villages – Alphen – with a storks nest on a chimney-top, the bird on one leg calmly surveying the busy scene below as the vessels glided through the bridge, with groups of waiting passengers on each side.
From Alphen our long procession went peacefully along until of a sudden we entered the large lake known as Brassemmer Meer, which was calm and placid, with low reedy shores fading on either hand. It was about two miles across it, and took us a very agreeable half-hour. At the other side we entered a little village, the canal being the street thereof, as usual, and the houses close to the waters edge. Our route now lay along the border of the great Polder, which took the place of the renowned Haarlem Meer, a polder being the low meadows intersected with dykes, which were once the bed of a lake, but have been drained, and now form the very greenest and most fertile of marshes. As far as the eye could reach stretched the perfectly flat meadows straightly cut, with numberless gleaming dykes, instead of the sea where once naval battles were fought between Dutch and Spaniard. The level was some twelve feet below the surrounding canal on which we were sailing, and into which by a series of easy steps, from dyke to little canal, and little canal along to big canal, the water was pumped by wind and steam mills. Holland is largely made out of such polders.
On our right was a very large lake, on which the title of Haarlem Meer has descended. it has openings into the canal, and had many small crafts sailing on it.
This particular route was new to all of us. Haarlem was on our left, and the river Amstel on our right, and Overtoom in front of us. After passing many fruitful market-gardens intersected with broad dykes, we came in sight of Amsterdam; but leaving its towers on the right, we came late in the afternoon to the foulest place imaginable, a narrow canal filled with foul fluid, inky in color, where it could be seen for the crowd of vessels upon it, and smelling vilely.
Our steamer had cast us off and gone ahead, and for more than an hour we had to pole through a crowd of barges, all struggling to enter a lock, into which at last we got.
Through the lock our steamer took us in tow again, along the most awful sewer, with chemical works, scavengers' heaps, manure-factories, and unnamable abominations on its banks – the lighter in front of us, being deeply laden, churning up the pestilential mud from the bottom. We shut the wife down below with a bottle of eau-de-Cologne in front of her, and we held our breath and wondered where we were going to. We ought of course to have taken the route by the Amstel or by Haarlem.
Matters improved by-and-by, and we reached a basin hard by the railway bridge, where the steamer cast us off for good, and we presently poled to a dock communicating with the Y. As the wind lay we should have to beat out of the dock through a narrow opening into the river, and a host of longshore loafers gathered round and offered to pilot us to Amsterdam (which was just around the corner so to speak), coolly demanding from ten to thirty shillings for the service, and prophesying our destruction if we ventured without them. Quickly hoisting our sails and making a few inquiries as to the depth of water from a customs officer who had boarded us, we set sail, and at the third tack were standing for the entrance, while a large East India steamer coming up the river was also making for it. Seeing that we should meet in the entrance, and as sails have pride of place over steam irrespective of size, she shut off steam, and we held on our course. A boat-load of pilots had followed us, and seeing what they thought was our predicament cried, “What do you think of it now? Wont you take a pilot now?” receiving a reply in forcible if not polite English. We judged our distance accurately, and slid out between the bow of the steamer and the jetty, with at least six feet to spare on either side.
It was a treat to be on the fresh and sparkling Y after the horrors of Overtoom, and bowling gaily along we soon reached the little piers jutting out from the quay near the station, and were moored and stowed, and with dinner under way, and a group of the curiously dressed Marken people, who had come from a schuyt close by, surveying us. On this old-world island on the Zuyder Zee, close as it is to Amsterdam, the people wear a costume which is comically picturesque.
The streets of Amsterdam are delightful, with their curious and variegated gables, and the angles at which the houses lean, supported as they are more by each other than by their rotting pile-foundations driven into peaty mud. From the enthralling (to womankind) shops in the Niewendijk and Kaalverstraat to the odds and ends of the Jews quarter, there is a picture at every step; but most of all do I like the Y itself, that broad river which was once an arm of the Zuyder Zee, but is now cut off from it by immense sluices. Fresh and breezy and wide, it is a kaleidoscope of craft, from the great East India steamers and ocean-going ships which have come by the deep ship-canal from the new haven at Ymuiden, to the schuyts from the Zuyder Zee, long lighters from the Rhine, and tjalks and barges of many kinds from the inland canals. The small craft sail through rapidly opening bridges among the queer gables along the town canal, and other craft are disgorged as it were out of the houses, and scatter upon the Y.
Yachting is a pastime growing more into favor with the Dutch, especially within the last two years. Their pleasure-craft are of two kinds; the flat-bottomed boiejer, with its bluff bows and great lee-boards, simply a dandified model of the usual tjalk, most solidly built of varnished oak, clumsy to look at, but really fast in sailing, particularly in running before the wind; and the beamy centre-board yacht, of American model, of which there are many at Amsterdam. All the yachts are kept up with the utmost care, the ironwork not galvanized but kept bright polished, and the brass work and varnish dazzling to behold. The internal arrangements are also remarkably neat and good.
Then, as a relief from the admiration of the craft, we can go to the Rijks Museum, one of the finest in Europe, and never tire of the pictures. Let whosoever goes there be sure not to miss the part known as the Netherlands Museum, where there are natural-size models of peasant homes, with family groups, life-size, of the inhabitants. Zeeland, Friesland, Walcheren, Hindeloopen, are all reproduced with startling fidelity. One fine morning we ran across the Y, under foresail only, to the locks at the entrance of the North Holland Canal, and through these we hoisted all sail and ran quickly along the canal before a light, fair wind.
The North Holland Canal was the great highway for ships from the sea at Nieuwediep until the shorter canal from Ymuiden to Amsterdam took away all the heavy traffic. Now only the country craft and small steamers navigate it, and it is comparatively deserted, but it is broad and deep and kept in perfect order. The villages and houses on the banks are all of one type, the houses square with,, pyramidal roofs of great height, partly thatched and partly tiled in ornamental patterns, the tiles so highly glazed as to shine as if varnished. The land being lower than the canal, frequently only the roofs of the farmhouses were visible above the banks; but, where walls were visible, we saw hanging on them rows of milk-pails, some of copper bright-scoured outside, but painted red or green inside, and sometimes of gaily painted wood. The houses were gaily painted also, with green gables pricked out with white or yellow. Around each square farmhouse was a square plot, with generally a square of trees in rows, and a square of green, weed-covered dyke. A little bridge crossing the dyke would have a gaily ornamented gate across it, by its size and decoration indicating the owners wealth or taste. The paths up to the house were often painted with patterns and borders, and very commonly the trunks of the trees up to the height of six feet from the ground were painted, chiefly blue, but sometimes red or brown. The shorn sheep tethered to the banks, and with canvas jackets on to replace the warm wool; the black-and-white cattle in the meadows, many of these having canvas coats on also; the numerous windmills, revolving the opposite way to English windmills; the brilliant green of the grass, silver of the dykes, and sheen of flowers in the sunshine, all gave food for remark as we slipped quietly along.
When we reached Purmerend, where there are locks, the wind had shifted to the westward, and, as the canal takes a sudden turn in that direction, we could not sail any further, but we arranged with a man and horse to tow us as far as Molenbuurt, where the canal again turns to the northward. Our steed went at a jog-trot, with the man sitting sideways on its back, and took us along faster than a man could walk. When we met other craft also towing, one or the other, according to the rule of the road and the side on which tow-path might be, stopped his horse and let the tow-line slack, so that the meeting horse and vessel might pass over. This was in all cases very skilfully done just at the right moment.
The country on the right was chiefly polders, taking the place of the great Beemster Lake and others. On the left was a large mere, called Langemeer. At Molenbuurt our towman cast us off, receiving three guelders, about 6d. a mile for his services. We hoisted all sail, but it fell calm, and we had to employ another man to tow us.
At Alkmaar we moored under a pleas ant grove of trees in a small park, and were soon besieged by the usual inquisitive crowd; the boys were rather trouble some, but the grown-up people were exceedingly civil, and apparently were much impressed by the Prince of Wales's feathers which, as the badge of our club, appeared upon our caps and flag. They were all much interested to find that a lady was on board such a little boat.
The weigh-house at Alkmaar is a well-known subject for a sketch; and the market on a fair-day is a sight, crammed as it is with piles of cheeses, brought by the craft which crowd the town canal; while country chariots, with their high poop canopies, bring the stout farmers and their silver-crowned wives to make the quaint old town gay with quaint dresses.
In a field on the other side of the canal, opposite the yacht, was a tall pole with a platform on the top, and on this obligingly placed coign of vantage a stork had built its nest. It was most amusing to watch through our glasses the old storks feeding the young ones; and in the morning be fore breakfast, I crossed with my camera and proceeded to take some photographs of them. While so doing, a young farmer came down, and invited me and my frouw to go and see the butter and cheese making at his farm. We did so, finding the house to be of the usual type. The dyke surrounding the premises stank most frightfully, and its filth was in extreme contrast to the neatness and cleanliness of the house, outbuildings, and utensils of the farm.
We duly saw the round cheeses moulded and made and the butter pressed, and then entered the cow-byres, which at this time of the year were empty, the cattle being in the fields. They occupied one side of the square house, and had no ceiling, the whole of the space above the height of the walls and under the great pyramidal roof being empty and open, the only the living-rooms being ceiled off from it. The byres were beautifully clean, and bright with paint and varnish, colored oilcloth being laid all along where the sterns of the cows would overhang, and the stalls deeply floored with loose sea-shells. Rings in overhead beams marked the places where the cows tails were tied up at milking-time out of the way. The farmer pointed with pride to several swallows' nests under the low beams, and underneath each nest was placed a flat shelf to prevent the droppings of the birds from soiling the floor below.
In the garden we saw rabbits in a dovecot perched on the top of a tall pole, and doves in rabbit-hutches close to the ground, and some beautiful golden pheasants, and then we took a closer photograph of the storks nest. The old bird was very suspicious of our camera, and made her young ones lie close in the nest.
After breakfast we made all sail, and went tearing along before a fine breeze northward, approaching within a couple of miles of the coast, where the lofty sand-dunes, tumultuous in form, and showing white in the sun, which keep the North Sea out of Holland, bore us company for many miles. It was a pleasant, rippling sail to Nieuwediep, the only excitement being at the floating drawbridges, which were not well watched by their keepers, the traffic on the canal being so slight, so that we had to holloa loud and long to get them opened in time, and check the speed of the yacht by “yawing” her about.
In the evening we strolled along the great Helder Dyke, along the North Sea shore, a massive work which wins admiration, and looked over the troublous Zuyder Zee, which, however, appeared placid and calm and tempting for the morrow.
We soon engaged a pilot for the dangerous crossing to Harlingen, and were up in the morning at four o'clock, and by five were through the lock into the harbor. The tide had commenced to make, and raced up the long, narrow harbor at a speed of six or seven miles an hour, so that we could not, as we intended, slip out with the ebb, and it took all the strength of two men to tow the yacht against the tide. Half-way down the harbor a pilot cutter was moored alongside the quay, and we hung on outside of her and hoisted sail as a light air began to make off the land.
There was just sufficient wind to enable us to stem the tide, and we were just hoisting our largest topsail when we saw the schuyts running in from the North Sea before a heavy wind. They came bruising along in groups of a dozen or twenty, their bluff bows making the spin-drift fly. We had but little room to dodge between them; but in a few minutes we were rushing along the Texel stream of the Zuyder Zee before a wild squall of wind from the north-west, which soon rose to a regular smothering sea, short, choppy, all white water. We had to shorten sail and lower the topmast in a violent hurry. The wife was in bed at the time, but was not long in dressing; and on from the cabin saw the sea, which her deceitful husband had represented to be always calm and lake-like, a mass of foam through which the yacht was flying, with a great white surge at her bow, and the water tumbling over on both sides of the deck.
The old pilot steered us remarkably well through the pother, every now and then diving into a paper bag which he had brought with him, filled with coarse shag tobacco, frequent handfuls of which he transferred to his capacious cheeks.
We were surrounded by dangerous shoals traversed by narrow channels marked out by buoys and perches, through which there was a race of tide. After about fifteen miles of fair wind and tide, we turned to the northward and had to tack tediously against the tide for about nine miles along the narrow Inschot channel between the Robbesand and Molenrack and the Waard-gronden shoals.
Rounding a white buoy, we turned a sharp corner and sailed back almost in the direction in which we had come with a fair wind and tide down the Blauwe Sleuk channel to the south-east, our destination, Harlingen on the Friesland shore of the Zuyder Zee, being in sight. A heavy thunderstorm killed the wind and it fell dead calm. Drifting away to the southward into shoaling water (where we poled along for some time) we had to anchor for an hour. The heavy storm-clouds over to the westward looked alarming, and tempest after tempest passed over the islands to the northward, making the scene in that direction exceedingly grand, while we swayed gently on a calm sea; and to the eastward we could see one of those pearly atmospheres for which the Zuyder Zee is noted. The Friesland shore was lost in a bright haze, out of which prominent objects such as churches, houses, and trees stood up boldly above the horizon, unconnected with each other; and with a silver streak of sea underneath and between them to a further horizon beyond. Each object was doubled by reflection, and the general appearance was that of a row of buoys of queer shapes floating upon a smooth lake for miles and miles. This appearance may be seen almost every calm summer day on the Zuyder Zee when a few miles out from shore.
A slight breeze from the westward allowed us to raise our anchor, and then as and we sailed away for Harlingen, a shoal of dolphins hove in sight, and presently overtook the yacht, and dividing into two companies of a dozen in each, kept on both emerging sides of the yacht within fifty yards of us. The gambols of these creatures, which in appearance are like immense porpoises, were very interesting. They plunged and dived and leaped many feet out of the water, falling back with a resounding splash, and rushing under and around the yacht in rapid play. They are probably the white-beaked dolphin, but there is much uncertainty as to the species of cetaceans inhabiting the North Sea, and several kinds are called by the fishermen by the common name of scoulter. They come inshore in rough weather, and are fond of following vessels, which perhaps they may take to be of a kindred species. We sailed into Harlingen at three in the afternoon, where our appearance attracted much attention. We pushed through the lock to a comfortable mooring-place in a very narrow canal, and made all snug, putting the awning up between us and the curious crowd on shore. The next morning a paragraph appeared in the newspapers, and went the round of the Friesland press. With the aid of a dictionary we translated it as follows: –
Yesterday evening arrived here from England a sailing-vessel so small as here before not over the sea is come. It is a narrowly built pleasure-yacht, measuring from stem to stern, perhaps 30 feet at the largest; in her middle 6 feet. Her entire hold is as cabin enclosed in. This little ship is provided with two masts. Evidently she shall along the canals of our land a tournée make. She is at least ready to sail in the Leeuwarden canal.
Harlingen is busy on the arrival of the London steamers, but apparently at no other time. There are large and convenient docks, and every facility for trade.
The next morning the wind was ahead for our course to Leeuwarden, and there was a collection of tow-horses and their attendants on the bank waiting to be employed. Having ascertained the market value of a tow, we declined to pay the exhorbitant prices at first asked, and saying we were in no hurry, but would wait until the wind changed, we let them all depart save one who came to our terms namely, 3¼ guelders for the tow to Leeuwarden, a days journey. So, after breakfast, we took his line aboard, and started at a jog-trot along a very narrow and winding canal through green pastures, where the larks were singing high aloft in the sunshine in true English fashion. Our towman was most amusing. He was a yellow-haired, blue-eyed Frisian, with long, untidy locks, short and thick-set, but active and very excitable. When we came to a great haystack on a barge moored to the bank, he clambered up it on all fours just like a cat, to pass the tow-rope over. He hung his sabots over the horses neck, and put on a pair of cloth slippers. He had no whip, but in lieu thereof he would take off one slipper to beat his horse with, hopping the while on the other leg in a most ludicrous fashion. He had to stop to replace his slipper, and the steed, after trotting on a few yards, would coolly halt and turn round to watch. Then there would be a hullabaloo and a repetition of the performance.
We stopped at and explored Franeker, a funny little town half-way to Leeuwarden, and then under way again we trotted merrily along in an enjoyable manner, but without much incident, passing many small villages, of which one, called Deinum, had a remarkable church spire with a globular top, something like a huge inverted turnip, or, more poetically, the minaret of a Moorish mosque.
We arrived at Leeuwarden, and moored in a widening of the canal with sylvan surroundings, so that we seemed to be in a lake in a park. Hundreds of terns were swooping and circling about us, between the trees and over the water, looking brilliantly white in the sunshine against a rising thunder-cloud, while their plaintive cries mingled with the growl of the distant thunder.
We were at once boarded by a civil harbor-master, who spoke English, and procured us a pilot over the Friesland meres for the next day but one.
Leeuwarden is a remarkably fine town, with modern and fashionable appearances fitting in better than usual with the picturesque characteristics of an ancient Dutch city. The gold helmet, with frontal bangles and pins, is commonly worn by the women, and when covered only by a rich lace cap is very taking; but when, as is too often the case, it is surmounted by a modern bonnet or hat, with artificial flowers and gay ribbons, the effect is incongruous.
Early in the morning we were awakened by the lowing of cattle and bleating of sheep, which passed us at frequent intervals; but there was no sound of tramping feet, which was puzzling until we awoke to the fact that these droves of animals were being conveyed in steamers and sailing-craft along the canal, and not by road. The canals were chock-full of vessels unloading animals, merchandise, cheeses, crockery (blue and brown, and quaint and artistic in shape), flowers, and vegetables.
The cattle-market was beautifully clean, and the drovers' and dealers' proceedings remarkably orderly. The open spaces of the city were converted into markets flowers in one place, cheeses in another, hardware in a third, meat in another, and so on. The streets were crowded, and the brilliant sun shone fiercely upon the golden helmets which bobbed everywhere through the crowd. These helmets are often of very great value, and set with jewels. Of course they are treasured heirlooms. The jewellers' shops are full of them, and full also of the delicate filigree-work for which Leeuwarden is noted.
We did some marketing for provisions, and in vain search for mutton bought some kids flesh, which was very sweet and crisp. Meat was always our great difficulty, and at Hoorn we were actually offered horse-flesh as a delicacy.
The pilot came on board at five the next morning, and the yacht was poled a long circuit through the canals and out the other side of the town while we were yet in bed. Many routes were now open to us through the most charming district of Friesland, and our actual route was determined from hour to hour by the wind, as it chanced to be fair or not. The south and east of Friesland is a labyrinth of canals and great meres, and when the wind was foul there could be no towing. The wind, however, was conveniently fair, and we bowled along at a great pace, at first through narrow canals by Froskepolle and Warrega. At the latter place the canal was so narrow that we had to lower sail to prevent our boom from breaking the windows. Our advent created great excitement. People catching sight of us would bolt indoors, to reappear with the whole family.
In the bushes in the gardens, and on the trees, were hung gourd-shaped baskets, which served as nests for the numerous ducks. 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 shoe 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 bridge 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-colored 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 shoal that our keel dragged in the mud, and we had to keep the yacht well laid over by means of her top-sail to lessen her draught; so the decks were well awash. We met a Dutch yacht about our own size, and very smart and trim, with lofty, narrow-headed sail, and a bright-colored flag as big as a top-sail. Her owner shouted to us 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 an 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-colored 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 from the short waves. Our decks were swept with fresh water almost as much as they had been with the North Sea waves. No other craft was moving, but many were anchored or drifted aground. I think the peculiar hue of the water made the scene more wildly grand. As we neared the lower end of the mere, we turned off to the right. Our pilot looked happier as the water deepened to six feet, and we shot into a canal where our swell washed the pike and eel fishers boats high on to the marsh; then hurried over another large mere (called Groote Brekken), the farther end of which seemed to be merged into the sea; out of this into a narrow canal, and presently, lowering all sail, ran under bare poles into Lemmer, having sailed fifty-five kilometres in seven and a half hours of grand sailing.
Lemmer is a little town on the Zuyder Zee, having an excellent new harbor, with further works in course of construction. Herlingen and Stavoren look with jealousy upon its development, and it will prove a formidable rival to them, as the approach to it is not hindered by the dangerous sands, as is the case with the two older harbors of Friesland.
We spent the next day, which was Sunday, at Lemmer; and as the gale still continued, and it was cold and wet, things were rather dull. The people, too, were decidedly cold and unfriendly in their looks and demeanor. The day passed slowly until the evening, when we came across a man to whom we had, two years ago, done a good turn at the island of Urk. He could speak a little English, and he came aboard and sat with us in the cabin for some time. We apologized for the small size of our cabin, and he replied, “There is plenty of room. Your frouw is not so thick as mine. Mine weighs two hundredweight.”
We returned his call later on by invitation. He was an Aard-appelan-handel, or potato-dealer, owning a schuyt and trading to Urk.
In the little parlor behind his shop we found the frouw, a full two hundredweight of unrestrained flesh, but with a comely face under her golden crown; his daughter, a strapping young woman, who was a champion skater; a nice china tea-service, the coffee-pot on its little lamp, and the very best cigar I ever smoked. The coffee-pot would not pour, and the frouw retired with it, and we distinctly heard her blowing down the spout. She brought my wife a stooftje, or wooden-box foot-stool, in which was an earthen pan containing a glowing peat, which I was told diffused an agreeable warmth on this cold night. These foot-warmers are in general use all over Holland, and one sees in the churches great piles of them, set aside in the summer time. In the winter the fire-box is as essential an article of church-going as a Bible.
When we rose to take our leave, I gave them my card, and to our great delight the frouw ran to the shop-window, and taking down a placard about eighteen inches square with the name on it, P. Ionge, Aard-appelen-handel, gave it to us in exchange. Before we could carry it off, however, the daughter ran up-stairs and returned with a proper card of her own, with which we were fain to be content.
In the morning, while going through the lock, we were amused to see the town bellman making a proclamation. Instead of a bell, he had a big brass plate dangling at the end of a string, and this he banged with a stick.
Once out of the harbor, we ran to the southward for the island of Urk, over a gently heaving sea, and with a light, fair wind filling our biggest topsail and balloon jib. The shores of Friesland faded away, leaving only a line of clumps floating in a silvery haze; then, as these disappeared, Urk Island rose like a cloud on the horizon, and presently became plainly visible – a curious mound of gravel distinctly unlike any part of the mainland, crowned with its serrated group of houses and the lighthouse on the green. As we had visited Urk twice before, and knew well its brawny fishermen and amazonish but comely women, we did not now land. In manner, customs, and dress, and also in lack of household cleanliness, the Urk islanders are a tribe apart from the Dutch.
Leaving the island on our left, we ran still to the south-west in search of a beacon which marks the end of the large shoal known as Enkhuisen Sand, which stretches out so far from the shore that the lofty church-tower of Enkhuisen was the only thing visible on the western horizon. We caught sight of the beacon just as we began to think we had missed it. It is a mere stick with a cage on the top. We raced past it with a freshening wind and sea, and as we hauled our wind and stood to the westward to fetch Hoorn Bay, we had to lower the topsail. Soon we were among the fleet of schuyts engaged in fishing for anchovies. Queer-looking craft they are; flat-bottomed of course, with long, narrow lee-boards, very beamy, and with such high, sloping prows as to make them look all bow and no stern. But nothing can be better adapted for riding safely over the short, steep seas which a strong wind soon raises on the Zuyder Zee. The many harbors of the Zuyder Zee are crowded with these craft, especially on Saturday nights, when the boats have all come in for the Sabbaths rest.
It is said that a thousand may sometimes be seen in sight at one time, and the sky-line to the southward seemed like the teeth of a saw with their narrow sails, so numerous were they. There are harbors to leeward from wherever the storm-wind may blow on this beautiful sea, and its so-called dead cities are busy with sea-life, and their spacious harbors thronged with craft.
The north-Holland coast was now visible in a succession of clumps – trees, or houses, with the ever-present pearly lustre underneath and between. Then the clumps were joined by the thin, flat line of shore, and we stood along the land looking for Hoorn. A smart breeze and some rain sent us swishing along with the lee decks awash, and as close-hauled as we could go, until the beautiful watergate of Hoorn, with its lofty tower, came in sight, and then we had to tack up the harbor, sounding carefully with a pole on each tack, and sailed into the pretty tree-bordered basin which forms the inner harbor of Hoorn. Here we were quietly and safely moored for two days. There is plenty to see at and near Hoorn. The city itself is so delightfully ancient, with its pointed and ornate gables leaning this way and that in defiance of the laws of architectural gravity; its weigh-house, where the cheese-weighers attached to the huge scales wear different-colored hats as a distinctive mark for the cheese of each district; the market-place, where the country chariots were drawn up, and the cheeses spread upon the ground in readiness for the morrows market, protected by tarpaulins and canvas in case of rain during the night; the busy modern Dutch life, which is yet as quaint and distinctive as the ancient life, and is still well fitted to the ancient streets; the English shield from a war-ship hung as a trophy outside the town hall, – all is interesting in the extreme, and makes every step in Hoorn a pleasant one.
We revisited Enkhuisen, which we had remembered to have been the deadest of the dead cities, but where we now found a large new harbor with steamers to Friesland, running in connection with trains which entered a brand-new and sumptuous station. The harbors were crowded with fishing-craft, and the channels between the mainland and the sand were thronged with sailing-craft – great tjalks laden high with peat or hay, or the brushwood used for repairing dykes, unwieldy, floating stacks which yet managed to sail well.
The streets were less grass-grown than before, and the dead city is awaking from its long sleep. We went to Zaandam, with its broad and beautiful river, and its three hundred and sixty-five windmills, sawing wood, grinding flour, and turning out money for the wealthy Zaandammers. We strolled through the bright green neadows, where the black-and-white cows were milked by blue-bloused men into red milk-pails, and the milk was carried in green-and-white boats, along green dykes to green-and-red farms, within squares of green and yellow stemmed trees; and all under a blue-and-white sky and a blazing sun; all bright, pronounced color, and never a half-tone anywhere.
We strolled under the great dyke which surrounds the Zuyder Zee with a rampart of Norway stone, and holds its waters as in a gigantic cup above the surrounding land, and we heard the waves breaking above our heads on the other side of the dyke.
We left Hoorn at eight o'clock on a sunny morning, but had not gone half a mile when a fog came on so thick that we could not see the bowsprit end. As there was a good and fair breeze, we kept on, hoping the fog would soon clear, but taking the precaution to set the log and a proper compass course; but the fog thickened, and we could hardly see each other. We were bound to Amsterdam, twenty-seven miles to the southward, but wished to touch Marken, thirteen miles off. On we sailed, peering anxiously with straining eyes for the schuyts which we knew to be near us. A gigantic shape would suddenly loom up and quickly disappear, and we knew that we had passed within a very few yards of a schuyt, or a tall pole would glide past within a few inches of the bulwark, showing that we were among the long lines of sticks to which the eel-fishers fasten their eel-lines and nets. The average depth of the southern part of the Zuyder Zee is but eight feet, and it is this shoalness which makes its seas dangerous in a storm.
There were momentary lightenings of the fog and then dense smotherings of it, until we could hardly see the compass-card; of all sea troubles short of an actual gale a fog is the worst, and to a well-found and strong yacht a fog in crowded waters is perhaps worse than a gale. Our eyes ached and our heads grew dizzy peering through the darkness. As the skipper said, “One can see anything in a fog,` meaning that the strange shapes of the rolling mist are deceptive, and show untruthfully ship or buoy or land, while hiding the reality. After a couple of hours of this unpleasant and dangerous state of things, we hauled the log, and found that we had run the entire distance to Marken. We at once sounded, and found that we were in five feet of water – only three inches to spare. In another five minutes we should have been ashore on Marken Island. We stood off to six feet and in to five, carefully and continually sounding, until the land loomed overhead. We kept as close to the shadow of it as we dared until we heard the sound of the fog-bell off the harbor, and not deeming it prudent to land, we stood on for Amsterdam. All at once the fog lifted, giving us a good view of the island. In another half-hour every vestige of fog had disappeared, and we were ramping along under a brilliant sun and blue sky; the sea covered with schuyts through which we had come safely in a somewhat marvellous manner. We distanced all craft bound in the same direction, sailed briskly up to the great sluices at Schellingwoude, which connect the Y with the ZuyderZee, passed through in company with many vessels and yachts, left them all astern, and arrived at our old berth at Amsterdam early in the afternoon.
There was a gorgeous and most successful regatta on the Friday at sea off Ymuiden, on the Saturday on the Y, on the Sunday on the Zuyder Zee, and a weeks cruise of yachts in company round the Zuyder Zee, which must have been most charming but imperative business called us back to England on the Saturday, and we missed most of the fun.