Rollo in Holland

Chapter V.

Walks About Rotterdam

The hotel where Mr. George and Rollo were set down was a very magnificent edifice standing on the quay opposite to a line of steamers. On entering it, both our travellers were struck with the spaciousness of the hall and of the staircase, and with the sumptuous appearance in general of the whole interior. They called for a chamber. The attendants, as they soon found, all understood English, so that there was no occasion at present to resort to the language of signs, as Mr. George had supposed might be necessary. In answer to Mr. George's request to be shown to a room, the servant showed him and Rollo a very large and lofty apartment, with immense windows in front looking down upon the pier. On the back side of the room were two single beds.

"This will do very well for us," said Mr. George.

"Will you dine at the table d'hote?"2 asked the waiter.

The table d'hote is the public table.

"At what time is the table d'hote?" asked Mr. George.

"At half past four," said the waiter.

"No," said Mr. George, "we shall want to be out at that time. We will take something now as soon as we can have it. Can you give us a beefsteak?"

"Yes, sir," said the waiter.

"Very well. Give us a beefsteak and some coffee, and some bread and butter."

"Yes, sir," said the waiter. "Will you have two beefsteaks, or one beefsteak?"

"Two," said Rollo, in an under tone to Mr. George.

"Yes," said Mr. George, "and coffee for two, also."

So the waiter left the travellers in their room, and went down stairs. In about ten minutes Mr. George and Rollo went down too. At the foot of the grand staircase they turned into the dining room, where they saw several tables set, and at one of them, near a window, were the preparations for their meal.

The window looked out upon the quay, and Rollo could see the men at work getting out hogsheads and bales of goods from a steamer that was moored there. Besides looking across to the quay, Rollo could also look up and down the street without putting his head out of the window. The way in which he was enabled to do this, was by means of looking glasses placed outside. These looking glasses were attached to an iron frame, and they were placed in an inclined position, so as to reflect the whole length of the street in through the window. Thus a person sitting at his ease within the room, could look up and down the street, as well as across it, at his pleasure.

Rollo afterwards observed such looking glasses attached to the windows of almost all the houses in town.

The dinner was soon brought in, and Mr. George and Rollo ate it with excellent appetites. Just as they had finished their meal, a neatly-dressed young man came to the table and asked them if they wished for some one to show them about the town.

"Because," said he, "I am a valet de place, and I can take you at once to all the places of interest, and save you a great deal of time."

"How much do you ask to do it?" asked Mr. George.

"Five francs a day," said the man.

"That's right," said Mr. George. "That's the usual price. But we shall not want you, at least for this afternoon. We may want you to-morrow. We shall stay in town a day or two."

The young man said that he should be very happy to serve them if they should require his services, and then bowed and went away.

After having finished their meal, Mr. George and Rollo set out to take a ramble about the town by themselves.

"We will go in search of adventures," said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George, "and if we lose our way, we shall be likely to have some adventures, for we cannot speak Dutch to inquire for it."

"Never mind," said Rollo, "I'm not afraid. We will be careful which way we go."

So they went out and took quite a long ramble through the town. The first aspect of the streets struck them with astonishment. The space was now more than half filled with docks and basins, and with canals in which ships and boats of every kind were moving to and fro. In fact almost every street consisted one half of canal, and one half of road way, so that in going through it you could have your choice of going in a boat or in a carriage. The water part of the streets was crowded densely with vessels, some of them of the largest size, for the water was so deep in the canals that the largest ships could go all about the town.

It was curious to observe the process of loading and unloading these vessels, opposite to the houses where the merchants who owned them lived. These houses were very large and handsome. The upper stories were used for the rooms of the merchant and his family, and the lower ones were for the storage of the goods. Thus a merchant could sit at his parlor window with his family about him, could look down upon his ship in the middle of the street before his house, and see the workmen unlading it and stowing the goods safely on his own premises, in the rooms below.

In some of the streets the canal was in the centre, and there was a road way along by the houses on each side. In others there was a road way only on one side, and the walls of the houses and stores rose up directly from the water's edge on the other. It was curious, in this case, to see the men in the upper stories of these stores, hoisting goods up from the vessels below by means of cranes and tackles projecting from the windows.

There was one arrangement in the streets which Rollo at first condemned, as decidedly objectionable in his mind, and that was, that the sidewalks were smooth and level with the pavement of the street, differing only from the street by being paved with bricks, while the road way was paved with stone.

"I think that that is a very foolish plan," said Rollo.

"I should not have expected so crude a remark as that from so old and experienced a traveller as you," said Mr. George.

"Why, uncle George," said Rollo. "It is plainly a great deal better to have the sidewalk raised a little, for that keeps the wheels of the carts and carriages from coming upon them. Besides, there ought to be a gutter."

"People that have never been away from home before," said Mr. George, "are very apt, when they first land in any strange country, and observe any strange or unusual way of doing things, or of making things, to condemn it at once, and say how much better the thing is in their country. But I thought that you had travelled enough to know better than that."

"How so?" asked Rollo.

"Why, you see that after people have travelled more, they get their ideas somewhat enlarged, and they learn that one way of doing things may be best in one country, and another in another, on account of some difference in the circumstances or the wants of the two countries. So, when they see any thing done in a new or unusual manner, they don't condemn it, or laugh at it, until they have had time to find out whether there may not be some good reason for it."

"But I don't see," said Rollo, "what possible good reason there can be for having the sidewalks made so that every cart that comes along can run over you."

"And because you don't in a moment see every reason, does that make it certain that there cannot be any?" said Mr. George.

"Why, no," replied Rollo.

"Then if you had travelled to much purpose," said Mr. George, "you would suspend your judgment until you had inquired."

It was not long before Rollo saw what the reason was for making the sidewalks in this way. Indeed, with a little reflection, he would probably have thought of it himself.

The object was to make it easy to wheel and convey the goods from the ships across to the warehouses. For, as the ships and boats go into almost all the streets in the town, goods have to be wheeled across every where, from the margin of the quay to the warehouses of the merchants, and a range of curbstones and gutter would make an obstacle that would be very much in the way.

Besides, contrary to Rollo's hastily formed opinion, there ought not to be any gutters in such a town as this, as far as the streets are perfectly level, from end to end; if gutters were made the water would not run in them. The only way to have the rain water carried off, is to form a gentle slope from the houses straight across the quay to the margin of the canal, and this requires that the connection between the sidewalk and the road way should be continuous and even. So that on every account the plan adopted in Rotterdam is the best for that town.

I advise all the readers of this book, whether old or young, if they have not yet had an opportunity to learn wisdom by actual experience in travelling, to remember the lesson that Rollo learned on this occasion; and whenever, in their future travels, they find any thing that appears unusual or strange, not to condemn it too soon, simply because it is different from what they have been accustomed to at home, but to wait till they have learned whether there may not be some good cause for the difference.

Rollo wished to stop continually, as he and his uncle walked along, to watch the operations of loading and unloading that were going on between the ships and the warehouses. At one place was a boat loaded with sails, which had apparently come from a sail maker's. The sails were rolled up in long rolls, and some people in a loft of a warehouse near were hoisting them up with tackles, and pulling them in at the windows.

At another place two porters were engaged wheeling something in wheelbarrows across from a slip to the warehouse, stopping by the way at a little platform to have every wheelbarrow load weighed. One of the porters wheeled the loads from the ship to the platform, and the other, after they were weighed, wheeled them to the warehouse. At the platform sat a man with a little desk before him and a big book upon it, in which he entered the weight of each load as it came. As soon as the load was weighed the warehouse porter would take it from the platform, wheel it across the street to the warehouse, empty it there, and then bring back the empty wheelbarrow and set it down by the side of the platform. In the mean time the ship porter would have wheeled another load up to the platform from the ship, and by the time that the warehouse porter had come back, it would be weighed and all ready for him. The ship porter, when he brought the loaded wheelbarrow, would take back to the ship the empty one. The whole operation went on with so much regularity and system, and it worked so well in keeping all the men employed all the time, without either having to wait at all for the other, that it was a pleasure to witness it.

At another place Mr. George himself, as well as Rollo, was much interested in seeing the process of tobacco inspection. There were a number of hogsheads of tobacco, with a party of porters, coopers, inspectors, and clerks examining them. It was curious to see how rapidly they would go through the process. The coopers would set a hogshead up upon its end, knock out the head, loosen all the staves at one end, whisk it over upon the platform of the scales, and then lift the hogshead itself entirely off, and set it down on one side, leaving the tobacco alone, in a great round pile, on the platform. Then when it was weighed they would tumble it over upon its side, and separate it into its layers, and the inspectors would take out specimens from all the different portions of it. Then they would pile up the layers again, and put the hogshead on over them, as you would put an extinguisher on a candle; and, finally, after turning it over once more, they would put it on the head, and bind it all up again tight and secure, with hoop poles which they nailed in and around it. The porters would then roll the hogshead off, in order to put it on a cart and take it away. The whole operation was performed with a degree of system, regularity, and promptness, that was quite surprising. The whole work of opening the hogshead, examining it thoroughly, weighing it, selecting specimens, and putting it up again, was accomplished in less time than it has taken me here to describe it.

There were a great many other operations of this sort that arrested the attention of Mr. George and Rollo, as they walked along the streets. Much of the merchandise which they saw thus landing from the ships, or going on board of them, was of great value, and the ships in which it came were of immense size, such as are engaged in the East India trade. Mr. George said that they were the kind that he had often read about in history, under the name of Dutch East Indiamen.

Rollo was very much amused at the signs over the doors of the shops, in those streets where there were shops, and in the efforts that he made to interpret them. There was one which read Scheep's Victualij, which Mr. George said must mean victualling for ships. He was helped, however, somewhat in making this translation by observing what was exhibited in the windows of the shop, and at the door. There was another in which Rollo did not require any help to enable him to translate it. It was Tabak, Koffy, und Thee. Another at first perplexed him. It was this: Huis und Scheep's Smedery. But by seeing that the place was a sort of blacksmith's shop, Rollo concluded that it must mean house and ship smithery, that is, that it was a place for blacksmith's work for houses and ships.

Over one of the doors was Oosterhouts und Breda's Bier Huis. Mr. George said that Breda was a place not far from Rotterdam, and that the last part of the sign must mean house for selling Breda beer. Rollo then concluded that the first word must mean something connected with oysters. There was another, Koffer en Zadel Makerij. At first Rollo could not make any thing of this; but on looking at the window he saw a painting of a horse's head, with a handsome bridle upon it, and a saddle on one side. So he concluded it must mean a trunk and saddle makery. He was the more convinced of the correctness of this from the fact that the word for trunk or box, in French, is coffre.

Rollo amused himself a long time in interpreting in this way the signs that he saw in the streets, and he succeeded so well in it that he told Mr. George that he believed he could learn the Dutch language very easily, if he were going to stay for any considerable time in Holland.

Another thing that amused Rollo very much, was to see the wooden shoes that were worn by the common people in the streets. These shoes appeared to Rollo to be very large and clumsy; but even the little children wore them, and the noise that they made, clattering about the pavements with them, was very amusing.

In a great many places where the streets intersected each other, there were bridges leading across the canals. These bridges were of a very curious construction. They were all draw bridges, and as boats and vessels were continually passing and repassing along the canals, it became frequently necessary to raise them, in order to let the vessels go through. The machinery for raising these bridges and letting them down again, was very curious; and Rollo and Mr. George were both glad, when, in coming to the bridge, they found it was up, as it gave them an opportunity to watch the manœuvre of passing the vessel through.

Every boat and vessel that went through had a toll to pay, and the manner of collecting this toll was not the least singular part of the whole procedure. While the bridge was up, and when the boat had passed nearly through, the helmsman, or helmswoman, as the case might be,—for one half the boats and vessels seemed to be steered by women,—would get the money ready; and then the tollman, who stood on the abutment of the bridge, would swing out to the boat one of the wooden shoes above described, which was suspended by a long line from the end of a pole, like a fishing pole. The tollman would swing out this shoe over the boat that was passing through, as a boy would swing his hook and sinker out over the water if he were going to catch fish. The helmsman in the boat would take hold of it when it came within his reach, and put the money into the toe of it. The tollman would then draw it in, and, taking out the money, would carry it to his toll house, which was a small building, not much bigger than a sentry box that stood on the pier close by.

In one case Rollo came to a bridge, which, instead of being made to be raised entirely, had only a very narrow part in the centre, just wide enough for the masts and rigging of the ship to go through, that could be moved. When this part was lifted up to let a vessel pass, it made only a very narrow opening, such as a boy might jump across very easily.

In some places where the passing and repassing of ships was very great, there was a ferry instead of a bridge. In these cases there was a flat-bottomed boat to pass to and from one side to the other, with a pretty little landing of stone steps at each end. Rollo was much entertained by these ferries. He said it was crossing a street by water. And it was exactly that, and no more. The place where he first crossed one of these ferries was precisely like a broad street of water, with ships and boats going to and fro upon it, instead of carriages, and a very wide brick sidewalk on each side. The ferry was at the crossing, at the place where another street intersected it.