®uttB ^uïunsmn TMün Monday 18th May 1959 CONTRIBUTORS: GODFRIED ROMANS, J. J. DE GELDER, E. HELDRING, OLGA HELDRING, OLGA VAN MARLE, MARIA WILKINS. Wishing you a good morning and hoping that you are rested well after yesterday's bustle, we, for the last time, offer you our paper with information about today's program. We will leave the town for a trip to „Water land", an appropriate name for this district of North-Holland, as it consists of meadows with many and varied patches of water, pools and lakes, and is intersected by ditches and canals. Here ancient towns slumber after a more active life in the seventeenth century and some villa ges and small settlements, some solitary farms pursue their existence, waiting for their des tiny. The meadowland is animated by birdlife: lapwings and godwits in springtime fill the air with their shrill noise, mingled with the cry of the blackheaded gulls who float over; and the skylark showers a rain of melody. Nature has laid the foundarion of Holland, its ever active powers, water and wind started the game many thousandas of years before our era, stowing bottomsand out of the ocean on to a long stretch of remnants of an older conti nent still sticking out of the floods. So, slowly, the dunes assumed their shape. Mankind finished the work. One of the first maps of Holland North of the Y, engraved about the year 1600 with great care by the able Amsterdam artist Balthasar Florisz. shows on the western side a small stretch of acnient soil, a ridge that defined the boundary of the sands. The map shows the disjointed and mean state of the province: There is almost more water than land. Compare this with a map of the present time and you see how great a deal of our day's territory is artificial. It is a remarkable fact that our fathers shaped their country whilst they fought for its liberty against the world power of Spain. This tough resistance against tyrannty came from the same people that struggled with another tyrant, the surroun ding water, a struggle that had already lasted many centuries and is still going on. This eter nal contest has influenced deeply the soul of our people this and the sea itself and gave it the charasteric qualities of patience and per severance. We have a subconscious perception of the momentous significance of our dikes. A disaster like the one of 1953, when a whole pro vince fell a victim to the floods appealed strong ly to our imagination, roused an enormous sympathy and assistance, and the submerged grounds were reclaimed in a very short time. After all those aquatic considerations you won't be shocked if we tell you (in strict confi dence) that you have been sleeping in a bog all these nights and that the legs of your bedstead are not the only props that keep you out of the water, for the house itself stands we could say: on its own legs, to wit the piles that are rammed through the soft upper layer deep down in the firm soil beneath. Fancy the street alongside your hotel could be laid open, without desbroying the house an uncomfortable fancy like one has in dreams a pit had to be dug to a depth of at least 30 feet or more. And fancy that the groundwater in that pit did not well upward as it inevitably would the sight of the many long fir-stems under the foundation would, if not astonish you (for now you are warned) but at least impress you more so than was our dear Pickwick's amazement at the discovery of Bill Stumps his stone. And the awe-impelling fact is that all the town's houses rest on piles. The number of them under the Royal Palace on the Dam is said to be 13659, quite a forest! Those piles want to be kept under water, consequently there is a unique institution in Amsterdam, that controls daily the height of the groundwater. The Town's Water Office is established in the ancient defence-tower of Montalbaen on the Oude Schans. If the water sank one yard, the piles would rotten off and the town tumble down. Amsterdam, in the time of its glory, when it was the first commercial town of Europe, stood open to the sea that dashed on its threshold seals have been reported swimming in the canals. From the Damrak harbouring small cargo and fishing-boats, you saw a forest of masts and all the stir of ocean-sailing craft. Access to the open sea was then Eastward, beyond Edam, Hoorn and Enkhuizen to enter the North-Sea south of the isle of Tessel. But the mouth of the Y sanded up and in the nineteenth century the North-Sea canal was cut, shortening the distance to sea. The extent of the Y was reduced; part of it was laid dry; on the Southside new islands were made for the construction of new quays and then, shutting away the water from view of the Central Station; lastly a dam with sluices was cast up against the influx of the Zuiderzee. And now for our trip. We go by bus to Monnikendam, by boat to Marken and Volen- dam and return by bus via Edam. Leaving the town on the Eastside, we cross the new bridge which links the two banks of the Y. The building of this huge structure with the accessory roads and a second bridge was accomplished in two years. It is situated East of the sluices. The complete work is more than 4 miles long. From somewhere on this shore an artist, a pupil of Rembrandt, made this view of Amsterdam: You see the enormous sheet of water in front of the distant town, a picture of quietude in vivid contrast with the present condition. A Waterland peasant, going with two wooden buckets to his meadow for milking, found the artist busy with his drawing. Of course he had a chat with him and was asked to stand model for a moment, his figure furnishing a splendid With this number goes to-day's bottled profundity: If you are wed, Sir, to some Sally Brass or Mrs. Gamp, and meet a lovely lass, don't drown yourself in one of our canals; take BOLS and drown your [sorrows in a glass. set-off, accentuating the space to which he turn ed his back. Our busses speed Northward through a detached part of the town, that covers more and more the pristine meadows. We soon pass Broek in Waterland, a village that in the eigh teenth century was a select dweilingplace of retired sea-captains, wealthy peasants and distinguished merchants. It is of early date, mentioned in the thirteenth century. When the Reformation penetrated the Low Countries it found here many adherents. It is a small place with a quantity of eighteenth century wooden houses; one, the Broekhuis, is a museum. It had a reputation of great wealth and has been a squeamish and overparticular place: no carriages were tolerated there, people moved only on foot, tobaccopipes without a cover were prohibited, all this to keep the streets clean, and even nowadays they have a yearly survey to make sure that inhabitants tread upon clean roads. Next to the church they have preserved up to now the pillory It would perhaps be advisable for visitors not to be careless with cigarette-butts. The square of water, visible to the left before we reach the houses along the road, is now a pond but was a port when it had an outlet to sea.

Krantenviewer Noord-Hollands Archief

The Dutch Dickensian | 1959 | | pagina 1