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National Geographic : 1908 Sep
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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE the guilders that would come in ex change for the cheeses thus produced. In time the government will set about to relieve the aching and the itching, and the Zuyder Zee, passing into history like the Haarlem Lake, will place seven hun dred square miles at the disposal of the Dutch farmers. The soil thus rescued will, for a time, give out a leaden cloud of fever and ague which no steam pump yet invented can lift away, but which will be worked off by Dutch patience and quinine. EVERYBODY IN HOLLAND LOVES FLOWERS In the world of horticulture Haarlem and tulips are synonymous. It is here that the air is filled with a delicious per fume and the eye charmed by the sight of acres of hyacinths or tulips, which are planted so closely that they seem huge carpets, with the brightest colors in their designs, laid down by mother earth for her own housekeeping. Here are seen tulips uncolored, fine, and superfine; monsters, hybrids, and thieves classified into a thousand orders of nobility and elegance; tinted with all the shades of color conceivable; spotted, striped, and speckled with leaves fringed, waved, and festooned; decorated with medals of sil ver and gold; distinguished by the names of artists, generals, and statesmen; char acterized by bold and loving adjectives recalling crossings, adventures, and tri umphs-all leaving a sweet confusion in the mind of beautiful images and pleas ant thoughts. Everybody in Holland loves flowers. The winter is long and bleak, so when spring comes nature breaks forth in beauteous rejoicing, and man looks with gladness upon the evidence that summer is near. Upon the banks of our canal there is every Thursday a flower market, and as I look out I see a man admiring with wistful gaze the potted plants and flow ers before him. The grimy iron wheel under his arm tells that he is a diamond cutter. The wheel he carries is the re volving disk against which he presses the little gem that mocks him with its brightness and defies him with the im possibility of its possession. For him the seasons pass without change or chance, the days come and go, the hours follow in an unbroken repetition of wist ful work, and life, creeping darkly on, knows no rest until its end has come. To one who makes a rapid run through Holland there comes a feeling of disappointment. He sees less of the amphibious element than he had ex pected; the people move too slowly to justify the claims made for their attain ments, and there is a dearth of the quaint costumes of which he had heard so much. But for the person with eyes open to the beauties of art, mind keen to grasp the effects of environment upon character, and heart responsive to ef forts put forth for the amelioration of sorrow and suffering, no land under the sun possesses so much of interest or gives so much to the tarrying tourist. Toward Holland my face turns in gladness, and the fleetest agencies of transportation, in taking me thither, would move too slowly were it not that, on stepping aboard one of the ships of N. A. S. M., the captain's greeting calls to mind the fact that I am under the flag of Holland. In leaving, my eyes look with a senti ment of respect and tenderness upon the flower-decked windows, the silver hel mets, the livid sea, the downs, and the windmills that bristle over the landscape and swing their arms as if in adieu. There is a feeling of depression as the gables, masts, and steeples fall behind. The gathering haze of distance softens the outlines of things material, and there come the visions of Rembrandt, Eras mus, Boerhave, Grotius, Barentz, Wil liam of Orange, gracious Wilhelmina, and all the beautiful and noble images of that glorious, modest, and austere country. But, like the days of sojourn, these visions, too, pass away, but memory brings cheer in the echo of the reassur ing words expressed on parting, "TOT WEERSIENS." 634
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