November 29, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
13 
The Beauty of Zeeland Waters 
By a British Prisoner of War 
BEFORE the war every owner of a small cruising 
yacht, while poring over maps and charts, must 
have found often his attention drawn to the maze of 
islands in the estuarj' of the Scheldt and Rhine. This 
applies, of course, not to the racing yachtsman, but to the 
possessor of the seaworthy vessel, comfortable rather than 
swift, and designed for sheltered waters and coast-hugging 
cruises. 
There could, indeed, be few places more perfect for a sailing 
expedition than these Zeeland estuaries, so broad that from 
mid-channel the land is only a thin bar dividing water and 
sky. It is a quaint primitive countrv with cloan harbour 
and \'illages and friendly population of farmers and fisher- 
men. There are old towns, beautiful but not squalid ; with 
names faintly familiar in history. Ancient dress and customs 
survive, not at the instigation of financiers for the benefit of 
tourists, as in some of the sliow places of Holland, but simply 
and sincerely because the people have no desire to change the 
ways of their ancestors. 
In these days the whole district is under strict mihtary 
supervision, and only . recognised traders are allowed to 
pass unchallenged. There are forts and minefields guarding 
the mouth of the Scheldt, and Vlissingen, or Flushing as we 
call it, which stands at the mouth of the estuary, is not only 
a landing place for Continental travellers, but also the second 
naval port of Holland. 
It was for these reasons that two of us, interned British 
officers, were pleasurably surprised to receive permission to 
join a sailing party, whose course lay between Dordrecht 
and Flushing. Perhaps the knowledge that we had left the 
regular service several years before the war, as well as the 
confidence placed in our hostess, influenced the authorities 
in their generous decision. Friends in the Dutch army told 
us that it was all a mistake and that we should never be allowed 
in a military area so vigilantly guarded. But our passes 
gave us the freedom of all Zeeland, and on the strength of 
that we made our preparations and journeyed down to 
Dordrecht, where the boat awaited us. 
A Sleepy Port 
Dordrecht is a sleepy inland port, whose salient features, still 
unchanged, are familiar from the canvasses of Albert Cuyp. 
Some of the streets are narrow and winding, and the tall houses 
that lean together over the waters of a muddy canal give a 
Venetian effect. But it is a grey and northern Venice, and 
one soon emerges from these tumble-down antiquities into 
rows of modern shops or large ornamental villas. We went 
on board the evening before we started, arid spent the night 
in a stagnant little, harbour, surrounded by yachts and 
barges, and overshadowed by the great church with its famous 
stunted tower and a spread of «late-roofed ^isles. 
A huge volume of traffic still passes the sleepy quay's, whc re 
farm produce and the wares of several factories are per- 
petually being laden. Dordrecht stands at a crossway of 
canals that bear the commerce of Rotterdam and the Rhine. 
The modern activities and enterprise of Dordrecht were 
indeed forcibly impressed upon us at the outset of our travels, 
l-'irst we were held up before the big railway bridge over the 
River Maas that only opens five or si.x times a clay, and a 
small canal just behind us discharged into the main waterway 
the greasy reiuse of a butter factory that stood on its banks. 
We passed the steel obstruction, only to be met by another 
equally unyielding. The skipper suddenly announced that 
he must wait the turn of the tide, and made fast alongside a 
deserted quay opposite a sprawling oil factory. However 
at last we found ourselves tacking down the Dorde Kil 
towards the Hollandsche Diep. 
The Dorde Kil is a broad- canal with green banks neatly 
paved at the water's edge. Tall reeds grow in shallow creeks, 
and silver poplars throw their shadow across tlie water. The 
hrecze was light, and such as it was it blew against us, making 
progress slow. Our craft was a stout sailing vessel of about 
fifteen tons with a good spread of mainsail and a single jib. 
In a fair breeze her sailing powers were better than critics 
might have suppos^-d. She had started life as a humble 
trader, but now her cargo space was divided into a pair of 
<Hbins and a large saloon. Her sides and mast were var- 
nished and the state of the decks and bright-work would 
have been creditable at Cowes. ' 
It wasahot day and,'as'the afternoon wore on , less and less 
wind found its way to the sheltered canal. Some of the 
sailing barges, especially those deep laden, had wisely 
anchored, but others drifted to and fro, their*pars gybing and 
their course uncertain. The seamanship of the Dutch barge- 
men has an appearance of almost negligent indifference. 
The^' are wary and experienced, but they take no pride In an 
e.xercise of skill. No rivalry exists between them. Their 
duty is to convey cargo from port to port, and with the bare 
performance of their duty they are content. 
We passed through a prosperous country. The roofs of 
neat farms and houses were' visible over the high banks ol 
the canal, but the view beyond was often obscured by tlie 
trees near the water's edge. At about five o'clock a steady 
breeze filled our sails, and the barges th;it liad lain sleepily 
on the glassy water during the stifling liours now awoke, antl 
as we passed we heard the steady clank of winches weighing 
anchor and hoisting sail. 
Narrow Waters 
Tacking across a narrow stretcli uf water is tedious work. 
It is tedious for the steersman ever wondering if he dare trust 
the wind and attempt to weather such and such a point, or 
pass ahead of such and such a craft, that for half an hour has 
hovered in front of his bows. It is tedious for the hand at 
the fore sheet, and even for the passengers, roused every few 
minutes by the heeling of the boat and the swinging of tlie 
boom. When, however, traffic is passing to and fro, then the 
task of the man at the helm is magnified tenfold. On this 
occasion a tug with an interminably long tow of three barges 
held a steady course down mid-Channel at a speed, that seemed 
neither to draw ahead nor drop behind. We drifted for a 
while till the obstruction had passed us, and then we could 
tack once more across the full breadth of the canal. At length 
a long stretch, now lively with moving craft, was left behind 
and open water lay ahead. The flat land on the far horizon 
was misty blue in the distance, and the surface of the grey 
waste was lashed into tiny waves by the wind that the trees 
had deflected from the canal. We stood out till only a small 
scar of land was visible between the sky and water. 
The wind dropped again towards evening, and \va 
approached the shore. The trees and meadows that had 
been a grey monochrome became green once more ; deep 
green for the elms and poplars, and light emerald for the sun- 
lit grass. The tide was ebbing fast and sand banks lifted 
their backs like monsters rising out of the deep. We sailed 
on steadily, the tide with us and the water gossiping idly 
to the planks, .\head of us the sun was sinking through 
fleecy clouds surrounding an island of the palest blue, and tlie 
glow of the slanting rays lit up the east, where the clouds 
became half transparent like amethyst. There was a silence 
here which seemed, because we were in sight of land, more 
deep and more intense than the silence of the ocean in 
moments of calm. The distance swallowed up all sound from 
, the shore, and in the presence of land and ships the stillness 
that our voices broke became more real and vivid. 
After a while the spell was broken." We had been watching 
a tug with two long hulks that had been steering eastward. 
Suddenly, with a harshness mellowed by the space between us, 
we heard the roar of a surging cable* They had anchored for 
the night, and as the two long hulls swung round with tjie 
■ tide, for a few moments the tarred sides suemed to gatJier all 
the failing sunlight into' twin glistening gems. It was gone as 
they yielded to the moving water, and their shapes grew vague 
and shadowy against the sombre clouds. Then we heard the 
steady beat of a propeller, the shearing of a steamer through 
still water, and like an echo came the fall of the bow wave 
upon the shore. . The reflection of the bows gave a false im- 
pression of their height, and we thought that a large ship was 
approaching. But as it passed it sank to insignificance and 
hurried out to sea as though ashamed of the deception. The 
light was fading and the water had the grey brightness xjf liigji- 
polishcd steel. Here and there we saw the rolling backs of 
porpoises, and seals were just discernible on the sandbanks. 
The sun was soon lost beliind a heavy bank of cloud, but once 
it shone dimly through the obscuring curtain. It was dull 
red, like heated iron, and a dark bar lay across its face. 
Tlien in the midst of the darkening waters wc cast anchor 
for the night. The tide had turned and was soon racing 
inland. It stretched the cable taut and swirled noiselessly 
])ast our sides. Two of us bathed from the dinghy, ami raced 
back to the sirij) with the current. To swim against it was 
impossible. The water was warm, for the sea keeps its heat 
in the night, and it liad a brackish taste. 
Tliere was strange softness in nature, in the qi^ict colour uf 
the clouds and the pale reflecting water. Light breezes, soft 
us velvet, passed gently througli the night and made no stir. 
