"P. S. This is the longest letter that I ever wrote."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE COMMISSIONER.
AS may well be imagined, the best use to which the green fields of Holland can be put, is the raising of gra.s.s to feed cattle; for the wetness of the land, which makes it somewhat unsuitable to be ploughed, causes gra.s.s to grow upon it very luxuriantly. Accordingly, as you ride through the country along the great railway lines, you see, every where, herds of cattle and flocks of sheep feeding in the meadows that extend far and wide in every direction.
The cattle are kept partly for the purpose of being fatted and sent to market for beef, and partly for their milk, which the Dutch farmers make cheese of. Dutch cheeses are celebrated in every part of the world.
In the neighborhood of Amsterdam there are a number of dairy villages where cheeses are made, and some of them are almost always visited by travellers. They are great curiosities, in fact, on account of their singular and most extraordinary neatness. Cleanliness is, in all parts of the world, deemed a very essential requisite of a dairy, and the Dutch housewives in the dairy villages of Holland have carried the idea to the extreme. The village which is most commonly visited by strangers who go to Amsterdam, is one called Broek. It lies to the north of Amsterdam, and at a distance of about five or six miles from it.
One day when Mr. George and Rollo arrived in Amsterdam, Mr. George, just at sundown, looked out at the window of the hotel, and said,--
"Rollo, I think it is going to be a superb day to-morrow."
"So do I," said Rollo.
"At least," said Mr. George, "I should think so if I were in America.
The wind has all gone down, and the western sky is full of golden clouds shining in roseate splendor."
Mr. George enunciated these high-sounding words in a pompous and theatrical manner, which made Rollo laugh very heartily.
"And, to descend from poetry to plain prose," said Mr. George, "I think we had better take advantage of the fine weather to go to Broek to-morrow."
"Very well," said Rollo, "that plan suits me exactly."
Rollo was always ready for any plan which involved the going away from the place where he, was, to some new place which he had not seen before.
"But how are we going to find the way there?" said Rollo.
"I shall take a commissioner," said Mr. George. "I am going to Saandam, too, where Peter the Great learned ship carpentry."
"I have heard something about that," said Rollo, "but I don"t know much about it."
"Why, Peter the Great was emperor of Russia," said Mr. George, "and he wished to introduce ship building into his dominions. So he came to Holland to learn about the construction of ships, in order that he might be better qualified to take the direction of the building of a fleet in Russia. Saandam was the place that he came to. While he was there he lived in a small, wooden house, near the place where the ship building was going on. That house is there now, and almost every body that comes to this part of the country goes to see it."
"How long ago was it that he was there?" asked Rollo.
"It was more than one hundred and fifty years ago," said Mr. George.
"I should not think a wooden house would have lasted so long," said Rollo.
"It would not have lasted so long," replied Mr. George, "if they had not taken special pains to preserve it. They have built a brick house around it and over it, to protect it from the weather, and so it has been preserved. Now I think we had better go to-morrow and see Broek, and also Saandam, and I am going to take a commissioner."
Mr. George had employed a commissioner once before, as the reader will perhaps recollect, namely, at the Hague; and perhaps I ought to stop here a moment to explain more fully what a commissioner is. He is a servant hired by the day to conduct strangers about the town where they reside, and about the environs, if necessary, to show them what there is that is curious and wonderful there. These men are called, sometimes commissioners and sometimes _valets de place_, and in their way they are very useful.
If a traveller arrives at a hotel in the morning, at any important town in Europe, before he has been in his room fifteen minutes he generally hears a knock at his door, and on bidding the person come in, a well-dressed looking servant man appears and asks,--
"Shall you wish for a commissioner, sir, to-day?"
Or if the gentleman, after remaining in his room a few minutes, takes his wife or his daughter, or whomever he may have travelling with him, and goes out from the door of the hotel, he is pretty sure to be met near the door by one or more of these men, who accost him earnestly, saying,--
"Do you want a commissioner, sir?" Or, "Shall I show you the way, sir?"
Or, "Would you like to see the museum, sir?"
When a traveller intends to remain some days in a place, he has generally no occasion for a commissioner; since, in his rambles about the town, he usually finds all the places of interest himself, and in such a case the importunities of the commissioners seeking employment are sometimes annoying to him. But if his time is very short, or if he wishes to make excursions into the neighborhood of a town where he does not understand the language of the people, then such a servant is of very great advantage.
Mr. George thought that his proposed excursion to Broek and Saandam was an occasion on which a commissioner could be very advantageously employed. Accordingly, after he and Rollo had finished their dinner, which they took at a round table near a window in the coffee room, he asked Rollo to ring the bell.
Rollo did so, and a waiter came in.
"Send me in a commissioner, if you please," said Mr. George.
"Very well, sir," said the waiter, with a bow.
The waiter went out, and in a few minutes a well-dressed and very respectable looking young man came in, and advancing towards Mr. George, said,--
"Did you wish to see a commissioner, sir?"
"Yes," said Mr. George. "I want to make some inquiries about going to Broek and to Saandam, to-morrow. I want to know what the best way is to go, and what the expenses will be."
So saying, Mr. George took out a pencil and a piece of paper from his pocket, in order to make a memorandum of what the commissioner should say.
"In the first place," asked Mr. George, "what is your name? I shall want to know what to call you."
"My name is James," said the commissioner.
"Well, now, James," said Mr. George, "I want you to tell me what the best way is to go, and what all the expenses will be. I want to know every thing beforehand."
"Well, sir," said James, "we shall go first by the ferry boat across to the Y,[7] and there we shall take the _trekschuyt_ for a short distance on the ca.n.a.l."
[Footnote 7: The Y is the name of the sheet of water which lies before Amsterdam. It is a sort of harbor.]
"And how much will that cost?" asked Mr. George.
"For the three, forty-five cents," said James.
He meant, of course, Dutch cents. It takes two and a half Dutch cents to make one American cent.
"There," continued James, "we take a carriage."
"And how much will the carriage be?" asked Mr. George.
"To go to Broek and back, and then to Saandam, will be ten guilders."