The Walls Are Hung With Pictures By The Flemish Masters, Wherever
Space Can Be Found For Them.
In the Cathedral, is the Descent from the
Cross, by Rubens, which proves, what one might almost doubt who had only
seen his pictures in the Louvre, that he was a true artist and a man of
genius in the noblest sense of the term.
We passed two nights in Antwerp, and then went down the Scheldt in a
steamer, which, in ten hours, brought us to Rotterdam, sometimes crossing
an arm of the sea, and sometimes threading a broad canal. The houses on
each side of these channels, after we entered Holland, were for the most
part freshly painted; the flat plains on each side protected by
embankments, and streaked by long wide ditches full of water, and rows of
pollard willows. Windmills by scores, some grinding corn, but most of them
pumping water out of the meadows and pouring it into the channel, stood on
the bank and were swinging their long arms madly in a high wind.
On arriving at Rotterdam, you perceive at once that you are in Holland.
The city has as many canals as streets, the canals are generally overhung
with rows of elms, and the streets kept scrupulously clean with the water
of the canals, which is salt. Every morning there is a vigorous splashing
and mopping performed before every door by plump servant girls, in white
caps and thick wooden shoes. Our hotel stood fronting a broad sheet of
water like the lagoons at Venice, where a solid and straight stone wharf
was shaded with a row of elms, and before our door lay several huge
vessels fastened to the wharf, which looked as if they were sent thither
to enjoy a vacation, for they were neither loading nor unloading, nor did
any person appear to be busy about them. Rotterdam was at that time in
the midst of a fair which filled the open squares and the wider streets of
the city with booths, and attracted crowds of people from the country.
There were damsels from North Holland, fair as snow, and some of them
pretty, in long-eared lace caps, with their plump arms bare; and there
were maidens from another province, the name of which I did not learn,
equally good-looking, with arms as bare, and faces in white muslin caps
drawn to a point on each cheek. Olycoeks were frying, and waffles baking
in temporary kitchens on each side of the streets.
The country about Rotterdam is little better than a marsh. The soil serves
only for pasture, and the fields are still covered with "yellow blossoms,"
as in the time of Goldsmith, and still tufted with willows. I saw houses
in the city standing in pools of dull blue water, reached by a bridge from
the street: I suppose, however, there might be gardens behind them. Many
of the houses decline very much from the perpendicular; they are, however,
apparently well-built and are spacious. We made no long stay in Rotterdam,
but after looking at its bronze statue of Erasmus, and its cathedral,
which is not remarkable in any other respect than that it is a Gothic
building of brick, stone being scarce in Holland, we took the stage-coach
for the Hague the next day.
Green meadows spotted with buttercups and dandelions, flat and low, lower
than the canals with which the country is intersected, and which bring in
between them, at high tide, the waters of the distant sea, stretched on
every side. They were striped with long lines of water which is constantly
pumped out by the windmills, and sent with the ebb tide through the canals
to the ocean. Herds of cattle were feeding among the bright verdure. From
time to time, we passed some pleasant country-seat, the walls bright with
paint, and the grounds surrounded by a ditch, call it a moat if you
please, the surface of which was green with duck-weed. But within this
watery inclosure, were little artificial elevations covered with a
closely-shaven turf, and plantations of shrubbery, and in the more
extensive and ostentatious of them, were what might be called groves and
forests. Before one of these houses was a fountain with figures, mouths of
lions and other animals, gushing profusely with water, which must have
been pumped up for the purpose, into a reservoir, by one of the windmills.
Passing through Schiedam, still famous for its gin, and Delft, once famous
for its crockery, we reached in a couple of hours the Hague, the cleanest
of cities, paved with yellow brick, and as full of canals as Rotterdam. I
called on an old acquaintance, who received me with a warm embrace and a
kiss on each cheek. He was in his morning-gown, which he immediately
exchanged for an elegant frock coat of the latest Parisian cut, and took
us to see Baron Vorstolk's collection of pictures, which contains some
beautiful things by the Flemish artists, and next, to the public
collection called the Museum. From this we drove to the Chateau du Bois,
a residence of the Dutch Stadtholders two hundred years ago, when Holland
was a republic, and a powerful and formidable one. It is pleasantly
situated in the edge of a wood, which is said to be part of an original
forest of the country. I could believe this, for here the soil rises above
the marshy level of Holland, and trees of various kinds grow irregularly
intermingled, as in the natural woods of our own country. The Chateau du
Bois is principally remarkable for a large room with a dome, the interior
of which is covered with large paintings by Rubens, Jordaens, and other
artists.
Our friend took leave of us, and we drove out to Scheveling, where Charles
II. embarked for England, when he returned to take possession of his
throne. Here dwell a people who supply the fish-market of the Hague, speak
among themselves a dialect which is not understood elsewhere in Holland,
and wear the same costume which they wore centuries ago.
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