e whole coast from
Flanders to Friesland. Not the memorable deluge of the thirteenth
century, out of which the Zuyder Zee was born; not that in which the
waters of the Dollart had closed for ever over the villages and churches
of Groningen; not one of those perpetually recurring floods by which the
inhabitants of the Netherlands, year after year, were recalled to an
anxious remembrance of the watery chaos out of which their fatherland had
been created, and into which it was in daily danger of resolving itself
again, had excited so much terror and caused so much destruction. A
continued and violent gale from the north-west had long been sweeping the
Atlantic waters into the North Sea, and had now piled them upon the
fragile coasts of the provinces. The dykes, tasked beyond their strength,
burst in every direction. The cities of Flanders, to a considerable
distance inland, were suddenly invaded by the waters of the ocean. The
whole narrow peninsula of North Holland was in imminent danger of being
swept away for ever. Between Amsterdam and Meyden, the great Diemer dyke
was broken through in twelve places. The Hand-bos, a bulwark formed of
oaken piles, fastened with metal clamps, moored with iron anchors, and
secured by gravel and granite, was snapped to pieces like packthread. The
"Sleeper," a dyke thus called, because it was usually left in repose by
the elements, except in great emergencies, alone held firm, and prevented
the consummation of the catastrophe. Still the ocean poured in upon the
land with terrible fury. Dort, Rotterdam, and many other cities were, for
a time, almost submerged. Along the coast, fishing vessels, and even
ships of larger size, were floated up into the country, where they
entangled themselves in groves and orchards, or beat to pieces the roofs
and walls of houses. The destruction of life and of property was enormous
throughout the maritime provinces, but in Friesland the desolation was
complete. There nearly all the dykes and sluices were dashed to
fragments; the country, far and-wide, converted into an angry sea. The
steeples and towers of inland cities became islands of the ocean.
Thousands of human beings were swept out of existence in a few hours.
Whole districts of territory, with all their villages, farms, and
churches, were rent from their places, borne along by the force of the
waves, sometimes to be lodged in another part of the country, sometimes
to be entirely engulfed. Multitudes of m