Being Stray Notes of Five Years of Travel

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 14, 30 September 1908, Page 26

Being Stray Notes of Five Years of Travel

BY

WINIFRED H. LEYS, AUCKLAND.

HOLLAND: THE HAGUE AS A CENTRE FOR DAY EXCURSIONS.

IN all the wide, wide world there is. perhaps, n<> country in which the visitor may by day vxriiiwions from one centre so easily visit all the other important towns, as in the circumscribed country of Holland. For a week so spent in the land of the Dutchman, the Hague or. as the Dutch call it. (Jravenhage- is as admirable a

centre .is could be obtained, since he towns that one desires to \i-it lie . .1 an hour or a two hours’ train jourm x -- it being but tiv<» miles to Delft. 15 miles

south-east to Rotterdam. 10 miles northeast to Leiden, and 3!) miles north-east to Amsterdam. However, convenience alone docs not make the capital city charuling. The home of the conventions of 1710 and 1717. and of the more recent Peace Conference of 1907, the Hague has an air of genuine good-fellowship; clean wide streets open into squares beautifully shaded by lime and poplar trees, and

bordered by th.? palaces of royalty and the nobility, or tin* oflices of the Ministers of the High Council. In the streets

the tall, stated houses, that are the homes of the retired military aaid naval ofliuero. who have come home to the Hague to spend their declining days in the most beautiful city of their hone-

land, breathe down upon the pedestrian an air of prosperous aristocracy and of happy home life. The origin of the city

was clue to the Counts of Holland, who about the year 1250 ehose this one'j shady park as the site for a hunting lodge, and the village that consequently grew up around the castle has kept the proud air of luxury even to this very day. In the matter of individual sights the Hague docs not keep us as busy as many another capital, but the general beauty of her streets and squares and parks keeps our interest alive, and, above all else, she is never tiresome. If we wandered in her streets in a somewhat idle manner, it was a luxury to do so, and to breathe the freshness that sweeps in from the German Ocean, only two and a-half miles away. When we visited the Hague in 1907 the Peace Conference was sitting, and the quiet city had an air of extra importance. Carriages stood in front of the Hotel des Indies and other hotels, and sped to and fro through the streets to the Ridderzaal, where the conference was being held. Even Prince Henry, husband of the muchloved Queen Wilhelmina, was now and then to be seen driving to or away from the reception of some notable ambassador. The principal square in the Hague is called the Plein. This and the Vijver Lake were illuminated with fairy lamps one evening during our stay, in honour of the birthday of the mother of Queen

Wilhelmina. Under the shady trees of the I’lein is a statue of the Dutchman's greatest hero. Stadhoider William 1., who lived towards the end of the sixteenth century, and was known as William the Silent, on account of his reputation for never speaking a careless or misguided

word. During his lifetime this brave and generous prince beggared himself to help tile' Dutch against the power of Spain. No wonder they reverence his name; no wonder that in their anger at his cruel fate they tortured to death the dastardly coward who had murdered their prince in the hope of winning the reward offered by Philip of Spain for the death of his noble rival. Kven in this twentieth century, there are Dutchmen who raise their hate as they pass tiiis statue, ami women who place a Hower on the pedestal in token of an undying ad-

miration for tin* father of their nation. On the other side of the Plein is the Mauritshuis, where is treasured a good collection of pictures by Dutch and Flemish artists. Having stood in one of the rooms, and from looking out of the window at the Vi j ver lake that laps the

outer walls of the gallery, turned back to the representations of Dutch scenes, I felt that here these somewhat sombre pictures are at home, as they never seem to be squeezed into a gallery of sunny Italy. The very people in the rooms have faces akin to those painted by Frans Hals, and Israels, and Rembrandt. Paul Potter’s famous Young Bull, which, being a life-sized representation of this truly Dutch animal, might indeed be sheltering under a tree on anyone of the tow-paths we had passed on our way un from the Hoek.

This calls to mind an incident illustrating how necessary it is when visiting a city to make a point of seeing, as far as possible, all its most notable possessions. For. if you fail in this, someone is certain afterwards to declare that the one thing you missed was

of supreme interest and importance. When sitting in the lounge of our hotel one evening, 1 overheard the following conversation between two American ladies: —“We went to the Mauritshuis this afternoon,” said one of the ladies. “Did you see Paul Potter's Bull?'’ inquired the other. “I guess I just did," the first speaker replied. “Why, when Mrs Jones returned from the Hague last year I heard a ladv sav to her. ‘Did vou see Paul Potter’s Bull?’ And when Mrs

Jones confessed that she had not seen it. because it was away for cleaning, or some such reason, her friend exclaimed that it was the only picture in the Hague worth looking at. What is more, she harped on that bull to such an extent that poor Mrs Jones felt as

if her w hole visit to the Hague had been a failure. So. I guess, I just made up my mind that I would not return to America until 1 had seen that identical picture.” The attitude of Mrs Jernes’ friend seems very narrow-minded and absurd, but it is one that has to be reckoned with among the* minor irritations, of travel, for one meets with it continually.

The treasure of the Mauritshuis galllery is considered to be Rembrandt’s picture of Professor Tulp’s Anatomical Lesson, but this is a little too realistic to appeal to most of us, except as the work of a young genius. From the Plein an archway leads into the Binnenhof or Inner Court which is surrounded by some of the oldest and most historical buildings in the Hague. On the north and south sides of the Binnenhof are the First and Second Chambers of the Dutch Parliament, and the central building is the Ridderzaal or ancient Hall of the Knights where the last Peace Conference was held. But the many cruel scenes that have taken place in the Ridderzaal, and in the Binnenhof, certainly unfit this cluster of buildings as the home of the world’s peace. In front of the Ridderzaal in the year 161 ft John Barneveld, the most able chancellor Holland has known, was executed in a gruesome and unwarrantable manner. Another scene that casts a lurid slur across the associations of the Binnenhof is that enacted by the infuriated mob in 1672, when they rushed the near-by prison, and tore the falsely accused brothers de Witt to pieces, and hung their bruised bodies on the archway that leads to the Binnenhof. These are scarcely the clouds that should hang over the future peace conferences. But when the new peace building is erected with the money given by Mr Carnegie, the Hague will indeed lie a city apart from all other cities. An Austrian once said to me that Vienna was a delightful eity, because it was so near to Buda-Pesth, and I think the greatest eharm of the Hague lies in its neameM to Scheveningen and to Delft. The three mile electric car ride from the capital eity to the famous watering place of Scheveningen is most beautiful. Immediately on leaving the city the car enters the woods and runs between two rows of toll treea ■ oaks or 1 ibrgct which—that meet eoor-

head. Sitting in the front of the car and looking ahead, one feels for all the world as though we were rushing through a long green tunnel, lit by some soft shaded limelight. This green tunnel ends at the village of Scheveningen. Once upon a time this was the port for The Hague, and it is still the home of a large fishing fleet, but the main life and interest centres on the long promenade which, facing the - open ocean, is bordered on its landward side by the magnificent Kurhaus, Kureaal and hotels that give accommodation each year, from June until well into September, for 20,060 visitors. The beach is of fine soft sand, and bathing and basking in the sun are the chief occupations of visitors to Scheveningen, while the splendid concerts held in the Kursaal are a feature of the Hague as well as the Scheveningen season. Viewed from the end of the long pier the beach presents a puzzling appearance to the newcomer. Whatever could all those yellow posts be stuck higgledy-piggledy on the sand, I wondered. There seemed to be enough of them to tether the whole fishing fleet, but I knew that the boat harbour was some distance away, so that there must be some other explanation for this phenomenon. On closer inspection the yellow posts proved to be basket chairs with high backs and rounded tops, wellknown appendages to continental watering places. They look queer enough from a distance, but one has only to experience the comfort of these portable summerhouses, wbieh may be moved about at will so as to shade one from the glare and heat of the sun, to understand their popularity on the sands of Scheveningen. I think that the only real disappointment in Holland is the costume of her people. Artists and photographers delight in reproducing these people in their national dress, but in reality that same national dress is conspicuous only by its- absence. Except for a few fisherfolk the people of Holland dress as dp the inhabitants of France, Germany, or England. On Sundays and holidays a few men in baggy trousers, and women in much padded skirts, eashxnere shawl, flschus, and lace caps drawn tightly over the golden head-plates may be seen mingling with the hundreds of ordinarily dressed people on the promenade of Scheveningen; and away on the island of Marken, in the Zuider Zee, the. peasants live mainly by the money obtained from tourists who go there to see those quaint ebstumes which these islanders have preserved, but which are almost obsolete in the rest of Holland. After a vain effort to snap a few of the girls- whom we met in national costume on the promenade of Scheveningen, but who fled precipitantly when they caught sight of my camera, we made a morning’s excursion down to the portion of that village given up to the Ironies of the fishing folk in the hope of there obtaining some pictures of the people. But in the village ,we met with an even worse reception than on the promenade-, for the children danced in front of the camera and the women pelted us with stones, So that it appeared to be as dangerous to “pop” down in Scheveningen with a camera as to enter a Russian city openly carrying a bomb. Another, delightful car ride—this time by steam—takes us across the flat green ■fields from the Hague five miles to Delft. Towards the end of our journey one of those bewitching tree-ehaded avenues leads us to the quaintest town of this individual land where the world seems still a-dreaming. Canals intersect this strange little town at all points and angles, and are shaded by lime and poplar trees, the former’ shedding a sweet fragrance in the summer sunshine. The canal paths in front of the houses are clean, and the houses themselves spotless. In the shops the deep blue poreelaines, for which Delft is rightly famous, tempted me to enter and possess for myself a memento of this eity of sweet contentment. I wandered to the outskirts of the city to photograph the once fortified gateway, and smiled to think of a drawbridge and cannon in this peaceful little town. But shadows have passed over Delft, and one still hangs in the Oude Delft, where the tower of the Oude Kerk leans as if in benediction towards the home of William the Silent, the very home in whieh was enacted the most pitiable tragedy of Dutch history—the murder of thia patriotic prince. Within the Oude Kerk is a tomb of interest to every Bnglish visitor—that of Admiral van Trovnp, the harrier of the North Sea and German Oeeu, and rival of aur awn hero Drake. After having spent even a finr 4ny» in HoUuid, it

would be surprising indeed if on our first visit to Delft we did not cross the open Groote Markt to the Nieuve Kerk, to bestow our own tribute of admiring thought beside the tomb where lies the ill-fated William 1.. Those who have travelled a little on the other side of the world know now often and in what out-of-the-way places they meet with travel acquaintances of other days. I had been not a little surprised when, walking across the lounge of the Kursaal, at .Scheveningen, to meet with an Austrian -doctor whom I bad last seen some 18 months previously in Calcutta; but a far more amazing encounter overtook us when, in a quiet street of Delft, we were stopped by a lady who, addressing my father by name, inquired the way to the Nieuve Kerk. Noticing our surprise that she should have recognised us, she explained that she lived not a mile distant from our own home in Auckland, 12,000 miles away. These are the incidents that make one reiterate the time-worn saying that the world is very small. It is not, however, in aristocratic Hague, or cosmopolitan Scheveningen, or even dreamy Delft that one sees the Dutchman at home. We must leave thetown behind and go out across the open country on sueh a journey as that to Leiden, or to Amsterdam; out on to those miles of green flat land, unfeneed save for the divisions made by the numberless dykes, almost treeless in the fields, but so beautifully shaded where a long straight avenue connects one village with another. In the green, green fields are the black and white cows that belong to the land of the Dutchman, a breed left behind once we cross the border into Germany. Acres of vegetables surprise one into a confession that one never before fully realized how varied is the colour we call green. Ah? but I would tike to see Holland when those acres of vegetables have given place to the yellow glow of the narcissus and the various shades of the tulip! Behind each farm house is a rounded hay-stack, and most often the picturesque windmill, whose various uses range from the pumping of water and grinding of corn to the signalling from one farm to another, or to the village. Should the miller need a carpenter the wings of the mill are set at one angle, should he need a doctor they are set at another angle, and someone in the nearby village is sure to see and answer the summons. For a marriage, a birth, or a death the wings of the mill are the heralds. Indeed, there is scarcely an ijcident in the Dutchman’s life which he is unable to signal to his neighbours by means, of his beloved windmill. Of course the whole land- is very flat, and to a dweller of hill country it would soon seem extremely monotonous, but it has its own eharm as the home of the ■Dutchman—that persevering, hard-work-i'.'g man who, with his draining and reclaiming of the marshy lands, keeps pace even with the encroachments of the sea. Truly, this man works hard and wastes nothing. With bent back, he will for n.any a mile drag the heavy barges along the canals from village to village. I work, he says, why should not my dog work also; so the healthy, weff-cared-fot doggies pull little milk earts through the city streets, and seem qnite happy to do so. In this last respect the Dutchman and his dog appear to be cn equal terms, for both, though hardwerked, are happy. Leiden, the brave little city that withstood the long siege of the Spaniards in 1574, is a more open and a busier town than Delft, though quite as intersected by tree-shaded canals—the Rapenburg, with its beautiful trees, being, to my mind, the handsomest canal in Holland. In the centre of the town rises the Burg, an ancient rounded tower, dating, it is believed, to the days of those Saxon brothers. Hengest and Horsa, to whom the ancient Britons appealed for assistance against their enemies, the Picts and Scots. From the Burg we can vie# all Leiden, and> looking westward towards the green trees of the Rapenburg, the red brick Pieterskerk attracts one’s attention. Quite near to this church lived the Rev. John Rohmson, who, being among the first of the Puritans who Bed from England, settled in Leiden. It was owing mainly to his preaching and exhortations to the people to maintain tlieir independence in religious worship that the first of the Pilgrim Fathers set forth from Holland. Robinson himself remained in Leiden, continuing his weak among the Dutch Puritans, and he died eve he was able to follow those whom ho had prompted to emigrate to the now,

free land. To-day the caretakers tell us that the old ehuaehes are too large les the present-day congregations, and thh ery is heard in Holland, as eteewhere, the people enre not to go to ehurrb. Another great name connected with Leiden is that of Rembrandt, who was bom and who spent the early years of hie life in this eharming northern Venice. A northern Venice? Could any town be just like Venice? Surely not; and although the canals of Leiden are really more beautiful thnn those of the delightful city of northern Italy, her buildings laek that appearance of wealth or power and the romantic air which holds us all enslaved to the memory of the eity «n the Adriatic sea. One of the side excursions from Leiden is the journey by steam-tram down to the village of Kat-wijk-aan-Zee, at the mouth of the Rhine. But though the six-mile ride across the huge market garden was pleasant enough, the village on the sand hills is deadly dull, and the villagers particularly uninteresting. From our homing point at the Hague we passed one day north to Amsterdam, and one day south to Rotterdam. The latter city has a certain claim on our interest in its crowded quays, an.l lindenshaded Boompjes, where the greatest part of Holland’s, shipping comes and goes. Otherwise it cannot vie with the

diamond cutting city of the Zuider Zee. Amsterdam is the great commercial city of Holland, and is ringed in a most extraordinary manner by canals large and email.. These run in a peculiar haltcircle from the Zuider Zee, through the city and back to the Zuider Zee—the Jialf circles being intersected here and there by small canals, and the city is thus divided up into 90 islands which are united by 200 bridges, large and' small. Most of the canals are bordered by trees, bo that the city, though closely built, lias a pleasant green appearance. In the plder, and more especially in the Jewish quarters, Amsterdam is very cramped and dirty, but out towards Ooster Park and towards the New Town the wide streets and handsome houses tell their Own tale of prosperity. In the llreeslraat, once the finest street an Amsterdam, now buried in the heart of the Jewish quarter, lived RemBrandt for many years. Here, with his beautiful first wife, he mingled with the highest circles of society, and here, too, after the death of his beloved Saskia, he Bank into poverty and misery until he was evicted from his home, a penniless {bankrupt. Being a brave man, however, in spite of his dire distress, arid' unpopularity, he struggled on, painting, .painting, ever pajating, until in 1669 he died, and Was. buried without honour —the man Who was among the greatest of the great in his powers of imagination, and his wonderful treatment of light and shade. To-day, in the Rijk’s museum his work is glorified, a special room being devoted to his stirring, glowing picture of the “Night Watch.” This picture gallery in the Rijk’s Museum is indisputably among the best arranged galleries'of Europe. The little compartments off the Hall of Honour are so magnificently lighted-that each picture seems hung in the light best suited to if. Here and in the other large rooms of the gallery we came to a better understanding of the portraits by Frans Hals, the landscapes of C'.iyp, and portraits by Bartholomew Heist, whose picture of the “Entertainment given by the Burgher Guard of Amsterdam to Captain Cornells Jan Wits,” was spoken of by Sir Joshua Reynolds as “ perhaps the first picture of portraits in the world.” In the portion of the gallery given up solely to poi traits, Rembrandt’s " Five Directors of the Cloth Weaver-’ Association,” looks out at us with its clear incisive proof of the master’s greatness, f think one might learn to lov<. Amsterdam d'id one remain there for a few days, but many changes of hotels and shiftings of luggage arc tiresome, so like homing-pigeons, we came back each night to the Hague. In Haarlem one finds a city not quite so Dutch in character as the others. Truly, it is completely surrounded by a wide canal, partly, indeed, by the river Npaarne, but Haarlem is crossed by onlytwo side canals, so (hat much of the charm of Leiden or of Delft is there absent. English people who know the Laughing Cavali-r of the Wallace collection in London.' are ' tempted to visit Haarlem if only to see the fine works of Frans Hals, which the citizens of Haarlem treasure in their picture gallery. Tn itlho spring, too, bulb fanciers Hock to this eeptre of the bulb-growing industry, but in the summer, as evei\one knows, one might as well wander through fields of onions as among the beds_O.f narcissus, hyacinths, or tulips. After long days spent in these towns, all so dissimilar in dr-tail in spite of their main characteristics being almost identical, it was not with feelings of unmixed delight that we returned, a little iistvyl weary ami dreamy with the memory of green fields, or delighted by artistic genius, to find our hotel overrun by a party of twenty American women who look absolute possession of the lounge and waiting room, and above .the buzz of whose ehatter during dinner it was impossible to carry on the most Ordinary conversation. However, after 0 few 'lays, they passed away, as storms eventually do, and left us. there in the Bpotlessly- clean capital of the land which from every point of view is most adapted io be the camp fire around which the nations may smoke the pipe of peace. Through the past ages she. too, has known her struggles, lias tired her great admirals, and famous soldiers, but now her energies are turned within herself, and she lives without rivalry, drawing the hands of jealous nations together in the hand-clasp of friendship, herself at peace With all the world. Next week -: . EGYPT.—I. CAIRO.