Living and Dead Cities of the Zuyder Zee, Part I [pp. 150-156]

APPL ETONS' JOURNA4L.
pie could stand, but in which two hundred tons of If there had been some learned man to address her
cheese and forty thousand dollars' worth of fresh in Greek, who knows what she could have told?
herrings are annually sold. For all that appears, she was the sole survivor of her
An hour's sail from Monnikendam brings us to race, and with her perished the last chance of our
the little fishing - hamlet of Vollendam, where we learning the mysteries of the ocean-depths. One
stop for a day, and where M. Havard sketched the might suppose that the good people of Edam would
interior of a fisherman's cottage. There was the in- have preserved the stuffed skin, or at least the skeleevitable bed in its curtained alcove. A cast-iron ton of so strange a being.
stove, instead of the usual one of brick, projected From the famous Edam to the still more famous
from a gayly-tiled chimney-piece; quaint pottery Hoorn is a short half-day's sail. Entering the fine
ornamented the shelves; mosly old chairs, tables, harbor, we pass through basin after basin bordered
and armoires, as bright as wax and rubbing could by meadows and gardens which occupy the sites of
make them, were ranged around the walls. By the the great ship-yards in which were built the fleets
window, with its small panes, sat the good-wife ply- which bore the Dutch flag into every ocean. Here
ing her needle; and in the middle of the floor were were built the ships with which Van Tromp, bearing
tw o fishermen packing anchovies into a great earthen a broom at his mast-head, threatened to sweep the
jar. These all wore their quaint costume; but the English from the North Sea. From Hoorn sailed
men were in their stocking-feet, for here no man re- Abel Tasman, the discoverer of Van Diemen's Land
tains his sabots in-doors. They are always taken off and New Zealand; Jan Koen, who founded the
and left outside, so that one can tell how many men Dutch colony of Batavia, inll Java; and Wouter
are at home by counting the pairs of wooden shoes Schontin, who first doubled the stormy cape, which
by the door. he named Cape Horn, in honor of his native town.
Only a mile from Vollendam is Edam, once one At Hoorn was mainly built and manned the little
of the five principal towns of Holland, having one fleet which in I573 won the sea-fight of the Zuyder
of the largest and finest churches in the kingdom. Zee, one of the strangest engagements on record,
It is approached by a superb canal bordered by fine fought in full view from the walls of the city. The
trees, and is itself beautifully shaded. The present Spanish admiral, Count Bossu, came out from Ampopulation is about four thousand. It is surrounded sterdam with a fleet of thirty sail, trusting to sweep
by luxuriant meadows, and has been for more than the Dutch vessels from the Zuyder Zee. The pathree centuries noted for its cheese, which connois- triots collected twenty-five vessels of smaller size and
seurs pronounce superior even to the famous Parme- feebler armament, but they knew every winding of
san. In the towvn-hall is a picture, painted in I682, the narrow channels. After a brief engagement the
which bears curious testimony to the comparatively Spanish fleet scattered in all directions, chased by
modern greatness of this now dead city. It is the the most of the Dutch vessels. But B,ossu, believing
portrait of a wealthy ship-os7ner of that time, who that his great flag-ship, the Inlquisition, was an overis seated betwveen the portraits of his son and daugh- match for the whole force of the patriots, held his
ter, to whom he points out with his finger ninety- ground. Four little Dutch vessels grappled to the
two ships, all his own property. There are also por- bowas, stern, and sides, of the Inquisition. One was
traits of three other celebrities of the place. One beaten off disabled, but the others clung to her like
is Peter Dirksz, "the maln with the beard," whose sucking-fish to a whale. The great vessel drifted
capillary adornment wvas so long that it swvept the upon a sand-bank, where she stuck. The action beground as he walked. Another is Jan Cornelissen, gan in the afternoon, and lasted through the night
an innkeeper, who, at the age of forty-txxo, turned and far into the next day. It was not so much an
the scale at four hundred and fifty-two pounds. The ordinary sea-fight as the storming of a strong castle
third is Trintje Cornelissen, a maiden of nineteen, Artillery could not be used, and( Bossu and his mennine feet tall, and of proportionate bulk. By way at-arms, clad in bullet-proof armor, repelled evely
of partial corroboration of this measurement, her attempt at boarding. The Dutch plied their invulshoes, now two and a half centuries old, and as nerable antagonists with fire-balls and discharges of
large as a tolerable violin-case, are carefully treas- molten lead. Boats were continually putting off
ured up. Edam, if the veracious old chroniclers, from the shore, carrying off the dead and wounded,
Paraval and Van der Aa, are to be credited, once pos- and bringing fresh men to take their place. Early
sessed a curiosity such as no other city ever could in the morning the assailants gained brief possession
boast. In I403, when the whole region was inun- of half of the deck of the Inquisition. A sailor
dated, some fisherwomen descried a strange creature climlbed the rigging and hauled down the Spanish
disporting in the shallow waters. They gave chase, colors, but he was shot dead before he regained the
and caught it in their nets. Their prize proved to be deck, and his comrade;; were hurled back. In these
a veritable siren-not a mere vulgar mermaid with fierce hand-to-hand encounters, three-fourths of the
human head and fish-like extremities, but a veritable Spaniards were killed or wounded; and at lecgth
nymph of the sea, like those who of old sought to Bossu, his vessel fast aground, and with no hope of
allure the wise Ulysses to the ocean-depths. They succor or escape, surrendered himself and three hunbrought her to their home, dressed her in human at- dred others. He was carried prisoner to Hoorn,
tire, taught her to sewy and spin; but with all their nwhere he xwas kept in confinement for three years.
efforts could never teach her the Dutch language! He was a Hollander by birth, and was released in
154