Foreign Parts
Rhine to the North Sea

Foreign Parts.

Down the Rhine River to Holland and the North Sea on Bikes.

[By H. and F. Rieck, Coffs Harbour.]

Zwischanaku (Oldenburg),
10th Nov., 1901.

The whole way from Metz in north-easterly direction towards the Rhine we passed many rivers and towns, which reminded us of the horrible time of the last German-Franco battles from the middle of June till 2nd December, 1870. The rivers Morsel, Saar and Nahe, their waters flowing now so peaceably towards the majestic Rhine, were in those horrible days polluted with streams of blood of white Europeans, and our swift wheels whirled us lightly along places where in these times, after a few hours of desperate fighting, tens of thousands of picked, carefully trained, and splendidly equipped soldiers were turned into mangled bodies, and promptly buried deep in the earth where, at the present time, glittering iron in the form of peaceable ploughshares is busily employed from early morning to the late hours of the very long days cultivating the fertile ground.

Along the river Mosel we passed many lovely towns and villages, surrounded by sunny, flourishing vineyards, orchards, forests and fields, and on the eminences of the green, vine-clad hills, above rocky slopes, grand old fortressed castles and towers, pictures of rugged strength and romantic duty, are looking down as if sheltering the security of the burghers and villagers in the valleys, but in fact are the only witnesses out of a time passed four to six centuries ago.

We had lunch in the small town of Sierk, a lovely town on the river Mosel, much frequented by summer visitors, and would have very much liked to have stayed there longer. But our luggage was sent on from Metz to Birkenfeld, and towards Birkenfeld we went. The sun was still high in the heavens, so we passed on towards the town of Merzig. This town did not make a favorable impression upon us, so we went right through it, and stayed for the night in a small agricultural village, where we found the landlord to be at the same time the local school teacher, and also the assistant priest in the village church. This shows how different nearly all the hotelkeepers are in Europe to what they are in Australia. It is scarcely ever found that in those parts the publicans drink too much of their own liquors, and are generally good and highly respected men.

On the following day, passing through almost uninterrupted forest lands, and after hard uphill travelling, we reached the village of Selbach, where the source of the river Nahe is in close vicinity. We soon reached the town of Birkenfeld, where for one month we took furnished rooms.

The whole way from Metz we were met with factory towns and chimneys, with black and dirty but busy factory workers in all possible kinds of manufactories (mostly in iron and machinery foundries), so that when we came into the principality of Birkenfeld (belonging to the far-away on the shores of the North Sea situated dukedom of Oldenburg), were surprised to find a quiet, old-style, idyllic, peaceful and contented agricultural population.

In these, with beautiful dense pine, oak and beech forest-covered lands, about 2000 feet above the sea level, you feel as if living in the Hartz mountains. Scarcely anything except rye and potatoes are thriving in these poor and dry heights, where no glaciers—like in the Alps—keep on watering the parched hills during the summer.

The people in Birkenfeld are like those of the Hartz—kind, jolly, friendly, and very honest. Although they are apparently poor they are content; although they live frugally they do not suffer.

The climate there must be exceedingly healthy, as we saw such a great number of very old, jolly, and funny-looking men and women. An old lady—during our stay—just celebrated her 103rd birthday, and is quite bright and sensible, although very much shrivelled up.

In the small town of Birkenfeld is only a brick manufactory; but at Oberstein, belonging to the same principality, are world-renowned manufactories of jewellery, as in these mountains a kind of very beautiful precious stone is found in such quantities that the price is not high in comparison to its great beauty. This precious stone is called agate, and there are thousands of people found in these manufactories of agate jewellery.

This town of Oberstein, which is very grotesquely situated on the quick-flowing river Nahe, is also celebrated for a church, which is within a niche high above the city, towering up a rocky mountain wall, carved out in a very remarkable and artistic style.

Scarcely one hour’s walk from the good old town of Birkenfeld is situated, amongst densely wooded hills and carefully cultivated fields, a great number of mineral wells. They are prodigiously bubbling out of the earth everywhere on this spot, and not only by theoretical men, but also practically by crowds of sufferers of manifold evils, are highly praised.

We often ran out on our bikes to this charming spot, and drank great quantities of this water, which Mrs. R. found “delicious,” and corresponding to our bottled sodawater in Australia, but as we, thank God, always enjoy the best of health, we could not test its celebrated medical qualities.

One of these springs is carefully walled in and kept under lock and key by an old Frau Oberförsterin, and the water bottled, labelled, and sold far away in foreign lands. But another of these springs is in a convenient style walled in by Government for the free use of the public. Although the quality of the water is exactly the same, the old lady condemns the public well, as she desires to make a fortune by the well of hers. In spite of her frantic preaching and scolding, great numbers of carts and other small and large vehicles patronise this public well, fill bottles and casks of this mineral water, and bring it away gratis.

About 50 miles west of Birkenfeld is situated the town of Trier (or Treves), where, no doubt our readers have read, there a very ancient garment called the “Holy Coat” is kept in a church, locked up and hidden. This coat is by some people believed to have been one of the garments of Jesus Christ. It is only shown once every 20 years, and is said to possess wonderful healing powers to those who see or touch it. We did not go there, as this garment reminded us of the tooth of the Buddha, in Kandy (Ceylon), about which in a previous letter, we have already reported.

We left Birkenfeld 26th August, 1901, and proceeded via Newbrüik and Oberstein down the very interesting and wild Nahe River, via Kirn and Kremnach, towards Bingen on the Rhine. We had a magnificent run, gently down hill on splendid road, and wind most favourable. The country on the Lower Nahe is so fertile and beautiful that it is called the “Paradise of the Nahe.” We reached Bingen at 5 o’clock afternoon, much earlier than we expected.

Bingen was formerly one of the prettiest towns on the Rhine River, but, as it is at present a smoke-discoloured, noisy factory town, we took steamer across the river to Rüdesheim, and, as it was still early and light, we ran up along the Rhine, in the direction of Mainz, and stayed in the quiet little village of Geisenheim.

Although one of the prettiest shores on the Rhine, along the right side of the river between Rüdesheim, Geisenheim, Johannesberg in direction of Mainz, there is no public road close to the water’s edge, but the road runs for the greatest part through narrow and often dirty cobblestone village streets, and here again, as in many other parts (and not only in Europe) we found out what a great and irreparable mistake it is that the Government or Communities did not at the proper time reserve the lands on the bankments of the sea, rivers, lakes and creeks for public thoroughfares, and not allow private people (rich or poor) to occupy and monopolise what for ever should remain public property under the safeguard of Governments.

Intending to visit the celebrated city and Kur Ort, Wiesbaden, we started on a splendidly-kept, broad, metalled road early on the morning of the 27th of August, with a gentle wind in our favour, from Geisenheim, through many picturesque villages and vine-clad hills, but seldom seeing the Rhine River, although in close vicinity, till we left its course and turned off in a sharp angle in the road which leads towards Wiesbaden.

We found this celebrated and highly beautiful bath-city growing at an astonishing rate. In the part where we entered, the Kaiser Allee, we saw whole blocks and streets of most magnificent buildings like gigantic palaces in course of erection, each vieing with the other in beauty and splendour of style, ornament and construction, each at least four, five, and six stories high, with ornamental balconies and high windows in every story, and each balcony standing detached with space for garden and park in front and beside it.

A ring of such structures in broad parades surrounds the grand old and stately part of Wiesbaden, and here the splendid smooth, enormous broad, and scrupulously clean asphalt road is flanked on both sides by noble old trees. Around Kurhans or Casino is a fine park and, on many places of it, magnificently kept flower gardens, where an elegant crowd, in such weather as the present, is swarming, and all possible European languages are spoken.

The baths at Wiesbaden are mostly attended by rheumatic patients; but this town is the most favored residence of retired officers of the armies and navies of many nations, amongst whom I had the great pleasure to find some comrades of the last war——1870-71; also at the present 80 years old General von Lehmann, Exc., from Oldenburg.

After dinner we finished our view of town and surroundings, rode down the Rhine River again to the mighty town and fortification of Mainz, and also to Gonzenheim, to see some old friends. As these were not at home, and all hotels were full, we set out once again for Bingen.

The village of Jugelheim, not far from Bingen and opposite castle Johannesberg, is the spot where the grand and proud residence of Charlemagne, or Karl der Grosse (first Emperor of Germany and France) was situated about 1000 years ago. At present there is a rather ugly little village and a large ill-flavoring cement manufactory. This Jugelheim also became remarkable for me, as one of the many strangers and foreigners-hating village dogs there, a sly collie, came very quietly up to me as we were sailing on our wheels through the streets, and gave me such a severe bite on the leg that the blood filled my boot. I forgot my reverence for this place for a while. We went to the local police and laid complaint, and I am sure that this foreigner’s-hating, low cur by this time is shot by the prompt German police.

The next morning was cold and showery till we reached Bingen, and then we had a splendid run the whole day through the most magnificent scenery to be seen close along the waters of this grand river, which we already described in our walking tour (October, 1899) in these columns. At that time we walked or crawled along in five days from Rhens (near Coblenz) to Jugelheim; but now (August, 1901) we, on our up-to-date bicycles, accomplished exactly the same journey in one day, and with much less fatigue.

In the small town of Rhens (about 3000 inhabitants) we were very glad to find exactly the same good homely people in the snug little hotel close to the waterside—Zum Schiffchen, or Little Ship. We were astonished at the progress made here since our last journey on the Rhine, two years ago, especially in the building of factories and dwelling houses. Also many of the grim, old, ruined castles, monuments out of that “glorious” war-time—when English and French Generals (Marlborough, Condè, and others, before and after them) brought destruction upon these lands—are now in a new and majestic style rebuilt, showing that glorious and flourishing times for these parts of the world have now returned.

Wine is still grown and made here in enormous quantities, and of a lovely quality, but is generally exported into other parts of the German Empire at highest prices, while the local population drink a very good locally-brewed beer, because, as they say, the wine is too dear. This is strange, as we see by the papers that the harvest in South Switzerland, Italy and France is so abundant that in Italy a gallon of new wine costs scarcely a penny. This proves that the States of Europe ought to have freetrade like those of Australia.

On the following day we passed the famous Loreley Rock, and rode without delay through Coblenz, Godesberg and Bonn, which towns we also found miraculously improved and largely extended in these few years. On our journey down the Rhine River we met numbers of tourists of all classes, ages, sexes and nations, sometimes whole crowds of neighbours with all their families—grandfathers, mothers and children, on bikes or on foot, so that passing motors have to stop or proceed with greatest care. The river is also crowded with passenger steamers going up and down. We were told that this year there were fewer English people travelling on the Rhine that in former years.

We stayed in a very snug and comfortable inn at the village of Horsel, near Bonn, and 10 o’clock next morning found us again in the city of Köhn (French, Cologne), which we described at length in our letters to the Examiner in the year 1899.

We crossed the Rhine again from the left shore to the right at Mühlheim, and reached the very friendly, elegant town of Düsseldorf at about 5 p.m.

The country is now getting quite flat, and, as the roads (except in villages, where square cobblestone pavement prevails) are of the best description, we sailed along at an enormous rate, and at 6 o’clock stopped at the village of Osterath, where we found ourselves in one of the homeliest of country hotels. The good people spoke only the Lower German dialect, as the Néderlandish boundary is not very far from here. The old landlord and his family were exceedingly kind to us when we told them that we were Australian farmer people, such settlers like the African Boers, many of whom came from these Lower Rhenish parts. The good people showed us around their splendid establishment. They had in the stable thirteen splendid cows of best breeds, several fine horses, and a great many well-bred pigs and fowls. Herr Ludwig Weindorf and family, at Osterath, were so very hospitable, kind, and friendly to us that it was with great difficulty that we pressed payment on them, and got away the next morning.

On the following morning, August 31, we passed through the several kilometer long, badly, with square cobblestones, paved street of the town of Crefeld.

Here, towards the boundary of Holland, in a high, dry heather and sand country, we noticed that there cannot be a good harmony between the German and Dutch road authorities, as we had, from one land into the other, to walk several kilometers through a stretch of antediluvian heather and sand territory without any street improvements at all. Evidently the Dutch had refused to meet the Germans in matters of high-road construction, as we were not only obliged to lead our bikes, but actually carry them over the heather tussocks, similar to the difficult march over debris of the great avalanche in Switzerland, on the Simplon, as described in this paper in one of our previous letters.

At last we reach the Hollandish roads, which are in this southern part, leading through heather, sand, and endless sparsely populated poor districts, only very middling. At last we reached the border town of Venlo, at 2 o’clock. This is a small but thriving busy place, with pretty, neat country houses, wide streets, and many nice coffee houses, where we saw the grave Nedderlanders smoke their long clay-pipes, and drink their gin and water and sugar.

This day, being Queen Wilhelmina’s birthday, the town was gay with flags and bunting, and many people walked and rode about the streets, especially ladies and children, with patriotic little Dutch red-blue-white flags fastened to the handle-bars of their bikes. Here, and all along the border, German money is taken at full value (20 mark=12 gulden).

Some country roads in Holland are very good, but, of course, not all. From Venlo we started in a direct line towards Einshoven, on an apparently irreproachable highway, but after a long detour we had to alter our direction, and arrived in rather moist and foggy weather at the small fen-village of Helden, where the only inn was crowded with passengers, and we were sent to a little wayside inn, but the people were very reluctant to take us in, as some time ago some, also well dressed, foreigners had eaten and slept and then gone away without paying. But, as we laid on the table the amount of Hollandish guldens, we had an excellent supper of ham and eggs, bread, butter, cheese, and tea, bed and breakfast, and the good people were very friendly and good.

The country in this part of south-eastern (Catholic) Holland appears to be very, very barren, all sand and heather, with occasional bits of loam and sour fen-land; but, as there is no want of moisture, also in these parts, like in the southern sandy heather parts of Friesland, Olderburg, and Westphalia, great stretches of formerly barren lands are now in a slow but continual state of improvement by that artificial fertilizer called Thomas Schlacke, (prepared out of ironfoundary slag), kainit, and many other newly-invented artificial cheap manures the application of which requires knowledge, which, through scientific chemical researches from German universities and agricultural schools, gradually get into the practical habits of the European farming population.

We were really surprised how well-off those homely Dutch farmer people already were in these little, low-built, thatched-roofed, homely, clean, farmhouses. Our house people had 78 fine cows, 70 sheep, 2 horses, pigs, fowls, and also a strong dog, to watch the house and cart the milk to the butter factory, about a mile away.

The Dutch language is as different to high German as it is to English, but it is similar to both, but the Lower German tongue, spoken on the North Sea shores, in Lower Saxony and Friesland, as well as in the Holsteinish province of Angelar, is understood in Holland. Therefore, Mrs. F. R., although she was born in Australia, of English parents, speaks the “high German” very fluently, and understands this language perfectly; if spoken without dialect, was quite unable to converse with these good people.

Next day being Sunday, we travelled through nothing but turf moor, or fen and heather, and saw many colonies of turf (for fuel) producing and bee-keeping people. The bees are kept here in enormous long sheds, and the hives are mostly in the old style, made out of straw and clay. Honey is sold in Europe from 6d to 1s 2d per lb., according to quality. The heather-flowers are an excellent pasture for bees, which are kept in the old-style straw hives, as they have to be fed here through the winter, and these thick thatched hives are said to be warmer in winter than the modern frame-boxes.

At dinner time we reached the town of Einshoven, and then began through the celebrated marches (river and ocean, alluvial flats) of Holland the splendid “klinkerstraat” roads, like the hardwood pavement of Sydney, but here made of very carefully-laid, hard (like glass) baked black clay bricks.

We skipped without the slightest trouble through this quiet flat, utmost fertile, beautiful, with exceedingly clean houses, dotted country, sometimes on top of high dykes, overlooking a green pasture land full of thousands and thousands of black and white, gigantic cattle of Friesland breed. There are no fences here, but the lands are divided by a network of trenches and canals, and to our astonishment we frequently saw, amongst the peaceably feeding cattle, sailing ships slowly floating along these canals, as if they were floating high over the lands.

Often we saw farmers with their farming implements (plough, mowing machines, etc.) in small boats, drawn by their farm-horses, on the trenches going to their fields.

Windmills, in great numbers, mostly employed to regulate the draining and irrigation of the country, we saw in all directions busily swinging their long arms.

In the evening we reached the very pretty, amongst gardens, fields and gigantic, shady clumps of trees, situated little town, St. Oederode, where in an hotel we inquired for accommodation.

The hotelkeeper, a real old-style gentleman, looked us up and down, then calling his little, old, stout and fine lady, they both inquired if we, perhaps, were “musik-makers?”—As we assured them that we were not at all “musik-makers,” we were most kindly ushered into the house, and they gave us the best accommodation and food that we ever had the whole journey through. We found, as a rule, the country people in Holland very distrustful of strangers and foreigners. Although they are very fond of musik, theatre and all arts, they appear to have a great fear, almost horror, of musicians, show-people and artists of all kinds; especially when they now—during the time of the present South African cruel war—hear the English tongue, the good people get quite horrified. But by hearing the low German, which I speak perfectly, they soon calmed down and showed us their true, brave, Nedderlandish hearts whenever we travelled in Holland.

Like in southern Germany and Austria, the country people in Holland are painfully conservative in custom and dress, each part and province having a distinct style of dress, which, in spite of the changing European fashions, has been worn for many long centuries.

As we advance towards the big town of Utrecht the land becomes more and more rich and fertile, but very low, so that it is mostly used for meadow and pasture land. Of course, at this season (beginning of September) the harvests are all gathered in, and we see only in the far stretched flats numberless, beautiful (mostly “belted”) black and white cattle, of the “Friesian breed,” feeding.

On Monday we passed through numberless, painfully clean villages to the town of Hertogenbosch, and from there on to Utrecht, the celebrated, big, ancient seaport of Amsterdam.

In their concluding article of “A Journey in Foreign Parts,” contributed to the “Examiner,” Mr. and Mrs. Rieck write:

On our road from Hertogenbosch to Utrecht the land is, although very low and only a few feet above the sea level, of enormous richness, being a fine grained, slime-like, blue-greyish, alluvial deposit of the North sea, as well as the many arms of the Rhine River. On the coasts of Australia there is no sea alluvium, and the so-called alluvial flats on the rivers are mostly soil washed down to the river banks from the hills and higher stratas. In the low lands of Europe the very muddy waters of the rivers, very broad and slowly flowing in the vicinity of the ocean, and the waters of the North Sea themselves, which contain finely dissolved masses of fat, mineral, vegetable, and animal substances, deposit a thin layer with every flood tide on the inundated plains. These layers at times of ebb-tide, like coats of paint, are dried, and afterwards covered by new layers of this rich manure-like substance.

So, in centuries, these European North Sea marshes are created, and their slow but continuous growth of soil enables the dwellers of these coasts—Nedderlands, Frusians, Nedder-Saxons, and Angles on the coast of Holstein up to the rich western coasts of Sleswig—by judicious dyking, draining and sluicing, to increase their lands.

Like the lands on the mouth of the river Nile, this territory between Hertogenbosch and Utrecht, in Holland, is divided by the many arms of the river into a network of deltas, and several times our splendid bicycle road of glass-hard burned tricks (called here “klinkers”) was here interrupted by these muddy and slowly creeping Rhine arms, which we had to cross on ferry boats of a very strange and ingenius description, as simple as practical. Across the stream, about 10 feet above the water, stretches a wire rope, on which, by one shorter and one longer line, running on rollers on this wire rope, the ferry boat is attached, causing the boat to bend towards the stream of the river in such an angle that the stream drives the boat across the river arm. On the other side of the water the two lines have only to be changed, and the boat, by no other power than the current of the stream, is driven across the rivers. The canals are crossed by bridges, high enough to allow the many barges, shuites, and not seldom ocean-bound small crafts, to pass under, after laying down the masts.

On our road to Utrecht we were often delayed by halting and looking at the many strange and interesting sights, so we were unable to reach this town before dark. We stayed in a little village close to a huge Rhine dyke, and arrived in Utrecht at 9 o’clock next morning.

This is a very large town, with a great number of navigable canals, and from here starts a whole network of railway lines to all directions of the Kingdom. Also a great many giant chimney stacks indicate the fact that an enormous industry is here carried on.

On our tour from Utrecht to Amsterdam we were struck by the signs of great wealth the country and people of Holland exhibit, and they show it in a remarkably unpretentious way. The people are very sturdy, strong and tough, very earnest and quiet, but friendly, simple-hearted, and in a quiet way earnestly religious.

Yes, Holland is a rich country. The many country houses were large and handsome, with pretty gardens and lawns attached, and the style these parts are laid out reminded me of the country around Saurabaya, Samarang, and Batavia, in Hollandish India.

Here, by looking across the level plains to all sides and enormous distances, we see a great number of very quaint but substantially built windmills, almost all busily occupied dumping and draining the water out of the lands over the dykes into the canals, where an admirable and highly interesting system of sluices and flood-gates bring the superfluous water out into the North Sea.

Holland has 10,100 such windmills, each of which drains on an average 310 acres of land. Besides these busily moving windmills, one sees the ships’ masts, with high sails, moving slowly through the meadows; and the great number of colossal Frisian cattle, quite accustomed to these strange sights, are not the least disturbed by them, and feed busily and quietly in the luxuriant grass. The country is so intersected by navigable canals that these ships can bring freight and passengers almost everywhere; and on these plains along the North Sea wind, more or less, is always blowing.

We reached the city of Amsterdam (places like Grafton would in Europe not be called towns, but villages) between 1 and 2 o’clock on the 2nd of September, being from our last home in Birkenfeld to Amsterdam just one week on the journey. From Colonge out we had no hills to ascend, but were unfortunate on our bicycle tour in always having the wind against us from Mainz right down the Rhine to Amsterdam; but happily we had dry weather, and not too hot for wheel travelling.

Amsterdam is a very large and highly beautiful city, with big navigable canals in almost every long and broad main street, also on many cross streets. The main canal is the river Amsel, in size like the Clarence at Grafton. This is the river from which the name Amsterdam derives. There are many hundred bridges crossing the canals and this river. The Zuider Zee is close to this city, and makes a well protected harbour. It took us a whole day later on to cross this big bay (Zuider Zee), which gives an idea of the size of it, and the enormity of the work the Hollanders are since 40 years engaged upon—pumping the water out and converting it into land, intersected, like other parts of this wonderful country, by a network of navigable canals.

The style of house building here is very simple, but substantial, always of bricks, which are then covered by a coat of varnish. The interior is very comfortable, utmost clean, and neatly furnished, ceilings and windows very high, and the window-panes not only scrupulously clean, but shining bright. The only uncomfortable thing about the houses are the narrow, steep stairs in almost all dwelling houses, beginning straight behind the house doors and leading to the upper stories, where corridors with the entrance doors to the different dwellings are. Parterre are mostly always magazines, stores, offices, etc. These stairs to the upper stories are so narrow and steep that it is impossible to carry furniture, big boxes, etc., up into the rooms. This is done by windlasses, fixed on the gables of the houses.

Amsterdam, although built on piles on the mud banks of the Zuider Zee, is one of the cleanest towns in Europe, and perhaps the world. The women are patterns of cleanliness and propriety, writes Mrs. F. R., who is an Australian born English woman, and ought to know; and they—the Dutch women of Amsterdam—are always scrubbing, cleaning, washing and polishing, especially the windows, which glitter like diamonds.

There are many hundreds of beautiful, majestic and highly artistically decorated buildings, many of great age and historical renown, such as Museums, castles, fortification towers, town-halls, churches with towers remarkable for their peals of bells, which chime and play tunes every hour, day and night. The Amsterdam Beesten Garden (Zoological Garden) is celebrated as the largest and most complete in the world. Almost every animal of the entire globe is found there, except gorilla, orang outang and chimpanzee, which can only live in warm climes. Having visited the museums and picture galleries, we took a trip out to the Haag, where is the residence of Queen Wilhemina.

The Hague (Gravenhaag) is an exceptionally pretty place, not a closely built and wide-spread city like Amsterdam, but a green, fresh, airy country town, surrounded by loveliest of walks through endless porks, lakes, and meadows full of roses, deer and stags of all ages and kinds, antelopes, etc., etc. These very tame animals play and gambol about in the sunshine in full liberty. There is also a small Zoological Garden here.

We visited also an ancient tower in the Hague, where in times when Protestant Holland was kept under the tyrannical yoke of the Spanish Governor, the Duke of Alva, before the Nedderlanders cast off this unnatural yoke, these Spanish bloodhounds kept the Hollandish noblemen in cruel prisons. We had a look at the torture instruments of all descriptions, dark dismal dungeons and chains and execution blocks, axes and swords, by which these outlandish Spanish invaders tortured these people in their own countries, and tried to force a government upon them which they would rather die than suffer to endure.

Queen Wilhelmina’s simple little palace in the Haag occupies a centre place in the town, but she was not at this present time residing there.

About four miles from this town, close to the North Sea, is a highly fashionable bathing place, called Sheveningen. Here, even at this late season, at the beginning of September, on warm days the broad level sandy beach is thronged with visitors of all nations, ages and sexes. A splendidly built iron pier leads far out into the sea. At the end of this pier is built a beautiful large and gorgeously ornamented pavilion or casino for the use of the bathing public.

The beach is covered with bathing carts, and comical old women are in attendance with basket chairs, coffee tents, fruit stalls, etc. Everywhere are swarms of men, women and children, and particularly bicyclists. High on the terraces are many fine hotels and private mansions to be seen, and the Kurhouse is one of the most charming architectures we ever saw.

We enjoyed walking along the beach, as it reminded us of our home on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, near Coff’s Harbour. But we found the temperature of the air and water here too cold to bathe, so we sat down on the sand and watched the crowds with great interest, thinking of the chicanery of monopolising steamship owners, who put obstacles against railway building on the Coast of New South Wales, thereby preventing the dwellers of the hot and dry inlands of our colony enjoying bathing in great crowds in the ocean along the beach of the beautiful mountain forest coast near Coff’s Harbour.

When the sun sank towards the western horizon, painting the wavy ripples of the German Ocean with purple and yellow, we returned to the Hague, and by rail to our quarters at Rembrandt’s Plein, Amsterdam.

The old-fashioned many different costumes of the farmers, fishermen, boatmen, and boatwomen near Amsterdam are very interesting. The women sometimes wear a real gold close-fitting, bright head-dress, sometimes ornamented with pearls and diamonds near the temples, over which they wear an ordinary dress bonnet or hat. Hollanders are very quiet and taciturn, tall and hardy. The air in the town is very fresh, and the houses and streets utmost clean, except the streets where the Jews live. These latter people are here in Amsterdam, where they enjoy the greatest liberty, exactly the reverse of the Hollanders. The Jews are small, very talkative and lively, and their houses, dress and skin are lamentably dirty. The quarters of theee Hollandish Jews are swarming with dirty greasy men, women and children, speaking all languages, all having something to sell, and always bargaining. Most of the street traffic is done by wheelbarrows or push-carts, especially the trade in fruit and vegetables by these cheeky traders. The better classes of Jews are honestly endeavouring to elevate this miserable people.

The most common conveyance on the canals is a long, flat-bottomed barge, fore and aft round, and called fjalk. These fjalks have sails, and go along the coasts of the North Sea, from the utmost north of Norway, round Spain, into the Mediterranean Sea, and even to the mouths of the Danube, in the Black Sea. On these canals these fjalks are in contrary winds propelled by long poles or drawn along by horses. On board is a very small, scrupulously clean cabin and kitchen. The family of the skipper is always on board, as this is often his entire home, where he was born, and where his children are born, coming on shore only on business. In these fjalks is brought the merchandise from the big steamers and large sailing crafts, also fuel (coal, turf and wood), vegetables, grain, timber, bricks, etc., which are unshipped at the stores and the doors of the private houses in the city.

As the weather turned somewhat unfriendly for wheel travelling, we reluctantly had to forgo our projected tour via Haarlem, Hoorn, Eukhuizen, etc., and took steamer from Amsterdam to Harlingen, eight hours north across the Zuider Zee, and then took train to the German border at Nieuve Shanz. Luckily here the weather became very clear, dry and quiet again, so, after lodging in the hotel near the railway, kept by a very old Dutch ship captain, we on the splendid road started on our wheels again, and travelled through Friesland, via Leer, to Emden, where we took furnished rooms again, as we had from Amsterdam sent our heavy luggage thither.

Emden is a warship harbour, newly improved with the greatest vigour by the Imperial German Government. It has been a merchant harbour since oldest times, as it is very favourably situated on the Dollart Bay, the mouth of the fine navigable German river Ems. This harbour at present is so improved that it will in the nearest future be a station for the large Bremen Lloyd and Hamburg steam companies, also for the German war ships, for the number of which the harbours of Kiel and Wileimshaven have become too small. Like Holland with the Zuider Zee, Germany is busy reclaiming parts of this Frisian Bay, called “Dollart,” and making valuable land of it, by building the sea dykes farther out.

The fishing trade of the town of Emden has long since been renowned, especially the herring fishery. There must be enormous quantities of these fish caught by the fishing companies. We can see every day in these companies’ grounds enormous quantities of brown tanned fishing nets—which we first thought in the distance to be enormous masses of seaweed—hung out to dry or loaded in the many railway trucks running to the beach, where the fishing smacks land.

On our journey to here, and also on our tours around this town, we passed many miles of land containing, as far as the eyesight reaches in a distance, endless cabbage fields. Cabbages grow here on these moist fat lands to such enormous size as perhaps nowhere else in the world, and at the present time—as we live now in the village of Zwischenahn, close to the railway line between Holland and Bremen—we see trains with 30 and sometimes more enormous luggage vans filled to the top with these enormous heads of cabbage, bound eastwards. These trains run at present night and day, and this line is only one of the many which connect Friesland and Holland with East and South Germany. The price of such a head of cabbage is here 1d engl.

Emden is a very pretty little sea harbour town of some 18,000 or 20,000 inhabitants. Some houses are very antique and splendid old structures, some built in the year 1605, the finest of which is the Rathhouse (town hall), which is of surprising beauty and grandeur. It is facing a splendid square and the ocean, and furnished on a splendid evening under the full moon in a blue sky a sight not unlike that of the Palace of the Doges at Venice.

We had taken furnished quarters, and happened to be present while there was an illumination and fireworks with rockets, etc., also a torchlight procession, for the celebration of the present finishing of some important harbour improvements, marking a new era of this sea town, also of the birthday of the burgomaster, under whose time of office this work was begun and finished.

Steamers which run between here and the sea bathing places on the islands of Borkum, Norderney, etc., in summer time carry great crowds of visitors, as these islands on the Frisian coast are very popular summer resorts, like the islands on the mouth of the Weser River, Wangerooge, Langeroog?, and Heligoland, Sylt, For, etc., at the mouth of the river Elbe.

The west winds in times of equinox frequently bring on this extreme north-west coast of the German Empire very heavy floods on the lands of the river Ems, as the high-water marks on the walls of public buildings indicate.

After our one week’s stay at Emden was finished, we proceeded in a N.E. direction via Aurich, Wittmund, to Jever, which latter was in former times the seat of one of the ancient Frisian chieftain’s residences; it belongs now to the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg. For the last of the Frisian chieftains, Fraulein Marie von Tever, the present generation has erected in front of the splendidly kept, very old castle a fine marble monument.

From Jever we rode on good klinker (brick) roads to Wilhelmshaven, also a new harbour for warships, built in Emperor Wilhelm I.’s time. We happened luckily to come when many warships were in harbour, and a very imposing sight it was to behold—formidable ironclads bristling with monster Krup guns. We counted of these ironclads alone about twenty in one harbour only. There are many training ships, barrack ships, avisos, and hundreds of torpedo boats, and smaller cannon boats (flat boats carrying only one very long gun). These flat boats can go about on the wide stretched sand and mud banks of the North Sea and up into the shallow rivers. The whole place is alive with marine soldiers, sailors and boys from the training ships. They are all very polite and well behaved.

Being quite a new town, Wilhelmshaven has very broad streets, is not too densely built, and is, for a seaport, wonderfully clean and strictly orderly.

Nia Varel, on the Jade Bay, we went to Zwisdrenahn, where we took furnished rooms for coming winter time. This is in summer time a Kurorl, as there is between beautiful oak forests an immense far stretching lake, surrounded by pretty walks, villas, and a large kurhouse, where people reside and bathe during the hot summer time. Lodgings in winter are here very pretty and cheap, and the forests are also in winter time very beautiful. At present (middle of December) frost has set in, and we hope soon to be able to begin skating on the Zwischenahner Lake and the canals of the marshes.

In the meantime we take runs with our bikes on the excellent roads to Oldenburg, Westerstede, Rastede, Brake, along the Weser to Rechtenfleth, near Bremerhaven, where we visited the 81 years old Frisian bard Hermann Allmers, who, like Bobbie Burns, of Scotland was a farmer on the marsh lands bordering the Weser River, and by his soul-stirring songs and poems, which are sung everywhere where the German language is spoken, he has become very celebrated and popular; but being now in his 81st year, he is suffering from old age and weakness. His house is like a museum of art and literature, recollections of his brothers in literature and art. Although it is an old-fashioned farm house, the views from the upper rooms overlook grandly the mighty Weser River.

On our tour to Oldenburg we often met about half a dozen grizzly looking but very respectably dressed old gentlemen, taking their constitutional walks. As we repeatedly saw them, we got closer connected. They are of different social standing, but forming a club, called the “Icebears.” They bathe in the water in free open country all the year through, and in the coldest winter time they open the thick ice of the river with axes, undress themselves, and take baths. Afterwards they walk for several hours. Having practised this since their young years, they think it is through this hardening practice of ice bear life that they have got so old as they now are.

Before spring we do not intend to continue our bicycle tours, and therefore herewith conclude these reports, of which we have sent a translation in the German language to the journals of our Touring Club Munchen.