A Wanderer in Holland Part 21

It occurs to me that very little Dutch has found its way into these pages. Let me therefore give the first stanza of the national song, "Voor Vaderland en Vorst":--

Wien Neerlandsch bloed in de aderen vloeit, Van vreemde smetten vrij, Wiens hart voor land en Koning gloeit, Verhef den sang als wij: Hij stel met ons, vereend van zin, Met onbeklemde borst, Het G.o.dgevallig feestlied in Voor Vaderland en Vorst.

These are brave words. A very pedestrian translation runs thus:--

Who Ne'erland's blood feel n.o.bly flow, From foreign tainture free, Whose hearts for king and country glow, Come, raise the song as we: With b.r.e.a.s.t.s serene, and spirits gay, In holy union sing The soul-inspiring festal lay, For Fatherland and King.

And now a specimen of really mellifluous Dutch. "How would you like," is the timely question of a daily paper this morning, as I finish this chapter, "to be hit by a 'snellpaardelooszoondeerspoorwegpitroolrijtung?' That is what would happen to you if you were run down by a motor-car in Holland. The name comes from 'snell,' rapid; 'paardeloos,' horseless; 'zoondeerspoorweg,'

without rails; 'pitroolrijtung,' driven by petroleum. Only a Dutchman can p.r.o.nounce it."

Let me spice this chapter by selecting from the pages of proverbs in Dutch and English a few which seem to me most excellent. No nation has bad proverbs; the Dutch have some very good ones.

Many cows, much trouble.

Even hares pull a lion by the beard when he is old.

Men can bear all things, except good days.

The best pilots are ash.o.r.e.

Velvet and silk are strange herbs: they blow the fire out of the kitchen.

It is easy to make a good fire of another's turf.

It is good cutting large girths of another man's leather.

High trees give more shadow than fruit.

An old hunter delighteth to hear of hunting.

It hath soon rained enough in a wet pool.

G.o.d giveth the fowls meat, but they must fly for it.

An idle person is the devil's pillow.

No hen so witty but she layeth one egg lost in the nettles.

It happeneth sometimes that a good seaman falls overboard.

He is wise that is always wise.

When every one sweeps before his own house, then are the streets clean.

It is profitable for a man to end his life, before he die.

Before thou trust a friend eat a peck of salt with him.

It's bad catching hares with drums.

The pastor and s.e.xton seldom agree.

No crown cureth headache.

There is nothing that sooner dryeth up than a tear.

Land purchase and good marriage happen not every day.

When old dogs bark it is time to look out.

Of early breakfast and late marriage men get not lightly the headache.

Ride on, but look about.

Nothing in haste, but to catch fleas.

To return to Arnheim: of the Groote Kerk I remember only the very delicate colouring of the ceiling, and the monument of Charles van Egmont, Duke of Guelders. I had grown tired of architecture: it seemed goodlier to watch the s.h.i.+pping on the river, which at Arnheim may be called the Rhine without hesitation. All the traffic to Cologne must pa.s.s the town. Hitherto one had had qualms about the use of the word, having seen the Rhine under various aliases in so many places. The Maas at Rotterdam is a mouth of the Rhine; but before it can become the Rhine proper it becomes the Lek, What is called the true mouth of the Rhine is at Katwyk. At Dordrecht again is another of the Rhine's mouths, the Waal, which runs into the old Maas and then into the sea. The Yssel, still another mouth of the Rhine, which I saw at Kampen on its way into the Zuyder Zee, breaks away from the parent river just below Arnheim. As a matter of fact all Holland is on the Rhine, but the word must be used with care.

If one would study Dutch romantic scenery I think Nymwegen on the whole a better town to stay in than Arnheim. It is simpler in itself, richer in historic a.s.sociations, and the country in the immediate east is very well worth exploring--hill and valley and pine woods, with quaint villages here and there; and, for the comfortable, a favourite hotel at Berg en Daal from which great stretches of the Rhine may be seen.

To see Nymwegen itself to greater advantage, with its ma.s.sed houses and towers presenting a solid front, one must go over the iron bridge to Lent and then look back across the river. At all times the old town wears from this point of view an interesting and romantic air, but never so much as at evening.

Some versions of "Lohengrin" set the story at Nymwegen; but the Lohengrin monument is at Kleef, a few miles above the confluence of the Rhine and the Waal, the river on which Nymwegen stands.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was at Nymwegen in 1716, drew an odd comparison between that town and the English town of Nottingham. If Edinburgh is the modern Athens there is no reason why Nottingham should not be the English Nymwegen. Lady Mary writes to her friend Sarah Chiswell: "If you were with me in this town, you would be ready to expect to receive visits from your Nottingham friends. No two places were ever more resembling; one has but to give the Maese the name of the Trent, and there is no distinguis.h.i.+ng the prospects--the houses, like those of Nottingham, built one above another, and are intermixed in the same manner with trees and gardens. The tower they call Julius Caesar's has the same situation with Nottingham Castle; and I cannot help fancying I see from it the Trent-field, Adboulton, &c., places so well known to us. 'Tis true, the fortifications make a considerable difference...."

Nymwegen reminded me of nothing but itself. It is in reality two towns: a s.p.a.cious residential town near the station, with green squares, and statues, and modern houses (one of them so modern as to be employing a vacuum cleaner, which throbbed and panted in the garden as I pa.s.sed); and the old mediaeval Nymwegen, gathered about one of the most charming market places in all Holland--a scene for comic opera. The Dutch way of chequering the shutters in blue and yellow (as at Middelburg) or in red and black, or red and white, is here practised to perfection. The very beautiful weigh-house has red and black shutters; the gateway which leads to the church has them too.

Never have I seen a church so hemmed in by surrounding buildings. The little houses beset it as the pigmies beset Antaeus. After some difficulty I found my way in, and wandered for a while among its white immensities. It is practically a church within a church, the region of services being isolated in the midst, in the unlovely Dutch way, within hideous wooden walls. It is very well worth while to climb the tower and see the great waterways of this country beneath you. The prospect is mingled wood and polder: to the east and south-east, s.h.a.ggy hills; to the west, the moors of Brabant; to the north, Arnheim's dark heights.

Nymwegen has many lions, chief of which perhaps is the Valkhof, in the grounds above the river--the remains of a palace of the Carlovingians. It is of immense age, being at once the oldest building in Holland and the richest in historic memories. For here lived Charlemagne and Charles the Bald, Charles the Bold and Maximilian of Austria. The palace might still be standing were it not for the destructiveness of the French at the end of the eighteenth century. A picture by Jan van Goyen in the stadhuis gives an idea of the Valkhof in his day, before vandalism had set in.

As some evidence of the town's pride in her a.s.sociation with these great names the curfew, which is tolled every evening at eight o'clock, but which I did not hear, is called Charlemagne's Prayer. The facade of the stadhuis is further evidence, for it carries the statues of some of the ancient monarchs who made Nymwegen their home.

Within the stadhuis is another of the beautiful justice halls which Holland possesses in such profusion, the most interesting of which we saw at Kampen. Kampen's oak seats are not, however, more beautiful than those of Nymwegen; and Kampen has no such clock as stands here, distilling information, tick by tick, of days, and years, and sun, and moon, and stars. The stadhuis has also treasures of tapestry and Spanish leather, and a museum containing a very fine collection of antiquities, including one of the famous wooden petticoats of Nymwegen--a painted barrel worn as a penance by peccant dames.

From Nymwegen the train took me to Hertzogenbosch, or Bois le Duc, the capital of Brabant. It is from Brabant, we were told by a proverb which I quoted in my first chapter on Friesland, that one should take a sheep. Great flocks of sheep may be seen on the Brabant moors, exactly as in Mauve's pictures. They are kept not for food, for the Dutch dislike mutton, but for wool.

Bois le Duc has the richest example of mediaeval architecture in Holland--the cathedral of St. John, a wonderful fantasy in stone, rich not only without, but, contrary to all Dutch precedent, within too; for we are at last again among a people who for the most part retain the religion of Rome. The gla.s.s of the cathedral is poor, but there is a delicate green pattern on the vaulting which is very charming. The koster is proudest of the pulpit, and of a figure of the Virgin "which is carried in procession through the town every evening between July 7th and 16th".

But I was not interested so much in particular things as in the cathedral as a whole. To be in the midst of this grey Gothic environment was what I desired, and after a little difficulty I induced the koster to leave me to wander alone. It was the first church in Holland with the old authentic thrill.

Bois le Duc (as it is more simple to call it) is a gay town with perhaps the most spirited market place in the country. The stalls have each an awning, as in the south of Europe, and the women's heads are garlanded with flowers. I like this method of decoration as little as any, but it carries with it a pleasant sense of festivity.