THE COUNTRY OF THE NETHERLANDERS

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The improvements of modern science, especially in the machinery of war, together with the general progress of society, have a tendency to equalize men, and give countries rank according to their size and population. It therefore seems strange to us that within three centuries the world should have been led by a people who occupied so minute a subdivision of its surface. The first glance at the character of their country would have a tendency to add to this surprise, for, picturing it as it appeared in early days, one would ask how man ever reduced it to subjection. Then, however, would follow the thought that a race which could conquer this cross between the earth and the sea might, with one element in either hand, easily control the world.

The Netherlands are largely composed of the alluvial deposit of the Meuse, the Scheldt, and the Rhine. For countless ages these rivers poured into the German Ocean the soil of France and Germany, building up the mainland, as the Nile has done in the Mediterranean, and the Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexico. The sea in return cast up its dunes and sand-banks. Back of these, and behind the hardening slime which the rivers heaped up from side to side as they straggled on their course, most of the country was a broad morass. Here and there were islands which seemed to float on the surface of the ooze, tracts of brushwood, forests of pine, oak, and alder, while tempestuous lakes filled in the picture. Along the coast appeared a succession of deep bays and gulfs, through which the Northern Ocean swept in resistless fury. At length, the wearied rivers appear to have given up the contest, and lost themselves, wandering helplessly amid the marshes. Then man took up

the struggle. Little by little the land was rescued; dikes chained the ocean and curbed the rivers in their

channels; lakes were emptied, canals furrowed, and even the soil itself created.

In this warfare with the elements, the brunt of the contest fell on the hollow-land, or Holland. It had no iron-in fact, no metal of any kind-for tools, and no stone for houses or for dikes. Even wood was wanting, for the early forests had been destroyed by tempests. To this country nature seemed to have denied nearly all her gifts; so that, almost disinherited at birth, it stands a vast monument to the courage, industry, and energy of an indomitable people. From end to end it is to-day a frowning fortress, keeping watch and ward against its ancient enemy, the sea.* In great part it lies below the water level. Even now inundations ever threaten ruin. One who has seen the North Sea in a fury can imagine what such perils were in the earlier days when science was in its infancy. Time after time whole districts have been submerged, cities swallowed up-twenty, eighty, a hundred thousand persons disappearing in a night. So marked have been the transformations from this cause that a map of Holland as it existed eight hundred years ago would not be recognized to-day.†

*The coast of Harlem is protected by a dike of Norway granite, five miles in length and forty feet in height, which is buried two hundred feet beneath the waves. Amsterdam is built entirely on piles, frequently thirty feet long. The foundations of every town and village in Friesland are artificial constructions. It is estimated that seven and a half billions of francs have been expended on protective work between the Scheldt and the Dollart. Taine's "Art in the Netherlands,” pp. 39, 40.

+ Edinburgh Review, Oct., 1847, p. 426; "Holland and its People," De Amicis; Taine's "Art in the Netherlands," Durand's transl., p. 38, and authorities cited. This change has been going on in the whole of the Netherlands. For example, Ghent was a seaport in the ninth century, and Bruges in the twelfth.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL FACTOR IN HISTORY

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Still, man remained the conqueror. On this patch of manufactured earth was realized the boast of Archimedes. The little republic, just come to maturity when America was settled, vanquished and well-nigh destroyed the mightiest military power of Europe. Shortly afterwards, it met the combined forces of Charles II. and Louis XIV. of France. As a colonizer it ranks second to England alone, reaching out to Java, Sumatra, Hindostan, Ceylon, New Holland, Japan, Brazil, Guiana, the Cape of Good Hope, the West Indies, and New York. To-day the waste which the ancients looked on as uninhabitable is among the most fertile, the wealthiest, and most populous regions of the world; its people stand the foremost in Europe for general intelligence and purity of morals.*

It is very evident that these Netherlanders must have had a remarkable history. That history can only be understood by always bearing in mind the natural surroundings and conditions of existence in this peculiar land. The destinies of every people are determined, to a great extent, by the soil, climate, and geographical configuration of their country; but these influences differ in intensity, and hence in the manner and rapidity, with which they accomplish great results. Thus it is that the question of geographical situation becomes of more importance in the history of some nations than in that of others, although this truth is not always given its due prominence.

For example, the whole story of the English people centres around the fact that they have lived in an island

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* Proportions considered, there are fewer persons in Holland ignorant of the alphabet than in Prussia. Holland and its People," De Amicis, p. 157, Amer. ed.

fortress, where, since the Norman Conquest, they have been secure from Continental invasion and left to work out their own problems substantially undisturbed. Such a position of separation from the elder nations of the Continent has had its marked advantages, developing the love of country and liberty, the self-confidence, and the practical sagacity for which the Englishman has always been distinguished. To it is also largely due the vast accumulated wealth which has made this little island the treasury of the world. But, on the other hand, the very isolation which has had such beneficent results, with the security from reprisals which has made her wide-spread spoliations possible, lies at the bottom of many of her great defects. The gigantic moat which separates her from the rest of Europe has kept out much of good as well as of evil influence. Had it been closed three or four centuries ago by one of nature's mighty convulsions, England would fill a very different place on the historic page.

The history of the Netherlands furnishes perhaps even a better illustration of the influence of environment in shaping a people's life. Certainly the points at which their conditions of existence differed from those of the English, and the effects produced by these natural differences, form very suggestive subjects for a student. We have already seen something as to the character of the soil, and the mode in which it has been created and preserved. Now take a map of the country, and we shall see that on two sides it is bounded by the German Ocean, and on the other two by France and Germany. More than this, the latter boundaries are not made up of natural barriers; they are simply lines upon the map, passing through level districts and intersected by great rivers. Here, then, we must pause for a moment and

THE GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION OF THE NETHERLANDS 97

see how the geographical factor has influenced this people.

Although the sea-coast stretched along but two sides of the country, it was one perhaps even more favorable to primitive commerce than that of England, for its indentations and the limitless extensions furnished by its river channels afforded innumerable refuges against the pirates, who were in former ages the chief enemies of trade. This relation to the sea made the people, like the English, from the earliest time a race of sailors. But the inland connection with the other European peoples was at first even more important. Most of the early commerce was carried on by the rivers, and by the old Roman roads which led from Italy. Through these arteries flowed the civilizing streams, which, though at times quite faint in their pulsations, never ceased their vivifying work. Here was an element almost entirely wanting in England; of its importance we shall see more hereafter. Suffice it now to say that everywhere in the commerce, manufactures, arts, institutions, and laws of the Netherlands, we find traces of this connection with ancient and modern Italy.

Still, this situation, with three great rivers flowing through the country to the ocean, and with roads leading out in all directions, favorable as it was for trade in times of peace, was one calculated to invite attack in times of war. Having no ocean barriers like those of England, no mountain ranges like the Alps or Apennines, no rocky fastnesses like those of Switzerland, the Low Countries have in all ages been subject to the incursions of their lawless neighbors. The "Cockpit of Europe" is the name given to this region in modern days, from the number of battles which have been fought upon its soil. To the enormous war expenses