observe rather
than to be enthusiastic. If that first impression was not very
pleasant to my artistic taste, I consoled myself by the thought that
doubtless all those peasants could read and write, and that possibly
on the previous evening they had learned by heart a poem of their
great poet, Jacob Catz, and that they were probably on their way to
some agricultural convention of which the programme was in their
pockets, where with arguments drawn from their modest experience they
would confute the propositions of some scientific farmer from Goes or
Middelburg. Ludovico Guicciardini, a Florentine nobleman, the author
of an excellent work on the Netherlands printed in Antwerp in the
sixteenth century, says that there was hardly a man or woman in
Zealand who did not speak French or Spanish, and that a great many
spoke Italian. This statement, which was perhaps an exaggeration in
his day, would now be a fable, but it is certain that amongst the
rural inhabitants of Zealand there exists an extraordinary
intellectual culture, far superior to that of the peasants of France,
Belgium, Germany, and many other provinces of Holland.

The ship rounded the island of Philipsland, and we found ourselves
outside of Zealand.

Thus this province, mysterious before we entered it, seemed doubly so when
we had quitted it. We had traversed it and had not seen it, and we left it
with our curiosity ungratified. The only thing we had perceived was that
Zealand is a country hidden from view. But one is deceived who thinks it
is mysterious for the sole reason that it is invisible--everything in
Zealand is a mystery. First of all,--How was it formed? Was it a group of
tiny alluvial islands, uninhabited and separated only by canals, which, as
some believe, met and formed larger islands? Or was it, as others think,
terra firma when the Scheldt emptied itself into the Meuse? But, even
leaving its origin out of the question, in what other country in the world
do things happen as they happen in Zealand? In what other country do the
fishermen catch in their nets a siren whose husband, after vain prayers to
have her restored, in vengeance throws up a handful of sand, prophesying
that it will bury the gates of the town--and lo his prophecy is fulfilled?
In what other country do the souls of those lost at sea come as they come
to Walcheren, and awaken the fishermen with the demand that they be
conducted to the coasts of England? In what other country do th