"In the mean time, if it should ever so happen that they could not succeed in letting the water out fast enough, it would, of course, accumulate, and rise in the rivers, and press against the dikes that run along the banks of it, till at last it would break through in some weak place; and then, unless the people could stop the breach, the whole polder on that side would be gradually overflowed. The inundation would extend until it came to some other dike to stop it. The polder that would first be filled would become a lake. The lake would be many miles in extent, perhaps, but the water in it would not usually be very deep-not more than eight or ten feet, perhaps; though in some cases the polders are so low, that an inundation from the rivers and canals around it would make the lake twenty or thirty feet deep.
"Of course, in ancient times, when a portion of the country became thus submerged, it was for the people to consider whether they would abandon it or try to pump all that water out again, by means of the wind mills. They would think that if they pumped it out it would be some years before the land would be good again; for the salt in the water would tend to make it barren. So they would sometimes abandon it, and put all their energy into requisition to strengthen the dikes around it, in order to prevent the inundation from spreading any farther. For water, in Holland, tends to spread and to destroy life and property, just as fire does in other countries. The lakes and rivers, where they are higher than the land, are liable to burst their barriers after heavy rains falling in the country, or great floods coming down the rivers, or high tides rise from the sea, and so run into each other; and the people have continually to contend against this danger, just as in other countries they do against spreading conflagrations.
"In the case of spreading fire, water is the great friend and helper of man; and in the case of these spreading inundations of water, it is wind that he relies upon. The only mode that the Dutch had to pump out the water in former times was the wind mills. When the rains or the tides inundated the land, they called upon the wind to help them lift the water out to where it could flow away again.
"There was a time, two or three hundred years ago, when all the wind mills that the people could make, seem not to have been enough to do the work; and there was one place, in the centre of the country, where the water continued to spread more and more-breaking through as it spread from one polder to another-until, at last, it swallowed up such an extent of country as to form a lake thirty miles in circumference. This lake at last extended very near to the gates of Haarlem, and it was called the Holland Lake. You will find it laid down on all the maps of Holland, except those which have been printed within a few years. The reason why it is not laid down now is, because a few years ago, finding that the wind mills were not strong enough to pump it out, the government concluded to try what virtue there might be in steam. So they first repaired and strengthened the range of dikes that extended round the lake. In fact, they made them double all around, leaving a space between for a canal. They made both the inner and outer of these dikes water-tight; so that the water should neither soak back into the lake again, after it was pumped out, nor ooze out into the polders beyond. The way they made them water-tight was by lining them on both sides with a good thick coating of clay.
"When the dikes enclosing the lake were completed, the engineers set up three very powerful steam engines, and gave to each one ten or twelve enormous pumps to work. These pumping engines were made on such a grand scale that they lifted over sixty tuns of water at every stroke. But yet so large was the lake, and so vast the quantity of water to be drained, that though there were three of the engines working at this rate, and though they were kept at work night and day, it took them a year and a half to lay the ground dry. The work was, however, at last accomplished, and now, what was the bottom of the lake is all converted into pastures and green fields. But they still have to keep the pumps going all the time to lift out the surplus water that falls over the whole space in rain. You may judge that the amount is very large that falls on a district thirty miles round. They calculate that the quantity which they have to pump up now, every year, in order to keep the land from being overflowed again, is over fifty millions of tuns. And that is a quantity larger than you can ever conceive of.
"And yet the piece of ground is so large, that the cost of this pumping makes only about fifty cents for each acre of land, which is very little.
"Besides these great spreading inundations, which Holland has always been subject to from the lakes and rivers in the middle of the country, there has always been a greater danger still to be feared from the ice freshets of the Rhine, and other great rivers coming from the interior of the country. The Rhine, you know, flows from south to north, and often the ice, in the spring, breaks up in the middle of the course of the river, before it gets thawed in Holland. The broken ice, in coming down the stream towards the north, is kept within the banks of the stream where the banks are high; but when it reaches Holland it is not only no longer so confined, but it finds its flow obstructed by the ice which there still remains solid, and so it gets jammed and forms dams, and that makes the water rise very fast. At one time when such a dam was formed, the water rose seven feet in an hour. At such times the pressure becomes so prodigious that the dikes along the bank of the river are burst, and water, sand, gravel, and ice, all pour over together upon the surrounding country, and overwhelm and destroy every thing that comes in its way.
"Some of the inundations caused in Holland by these floods and freshets have been terrible. In ancient times they were worse than they are now; because now the dikes are stronger, and are better guarded. At one inundation that occurred about sixty years ago, eighty thousand persons were drowned. At another, three hundred years earlier, one hundred thousand perished. Think what awful floods there must have been.
"But I cannot write any more in this letter. I have taken up so much space and time in telling you about the inundations and freshets, that I have not time to describe a great many other things which I have seen, that are quite as curious and remarkable as they. But when I get home I can tell you all about them, in the winter evenings, and read to you about them from my journal.
"Your affectionate brother,
"GEORGE."
ROLLO'S LETTER.
"LEYDEN, Tuesday, September 27.
"MY DEAR MOTHER:
"Uncle George and I are having a very fine time indeed in travelling about Holland; it is such a funny country, on account of their being so many canals. The water is all smooth and still in all the canals, (except when the wind blows,) and so there must be excellent skating every where in the winter.
"I wish it was winter here now, for one day, so that uncle George and I could have some Dutch skating.
"There must be good skating every where here in the winter, for there is water every where, and it is all good water for skating. In the fields, instead of brooks running in crooked ways and tumbling over rocks, there are only long and narrow channels of smooth water, just about wide enough to skate upon, and reaching as far as you can see.
"The people here speak Dutch, and they cannot understand me, and I cannot understand them. And that is not the worst of it; they can't understand that I can't understand them. Sometimes the woman that comes to make my bed tells me something in Dutch, and I tell her that I can't understand. I know the Dutch for 'I can't understand.' Then she says, 'O!' and goes on to tell me over again, only now she tries to speak plainer-as if it could make any difference to me whether she speaks plain or not. I shake my head, and tell her I can't understand any thing. I tell her in French, and in English, and in Dutch. But it does not do any good, for she immediately begins again, and tells me the whole story all over again, trying to speak plainer than ever. I suppose she thinks that any body can understand Dutch, if she only speaks it plain enough to them.