ir ancient customs, and live contentedly in prosperity and
peace. Zealand is a hidden paradise."

While the captain was speaking the ship entered the Keeten Canal,
which divides the island of Tholen from the island of Schouwen, and is
famous for the ford across which the Spanish made their way in 1575,
just as the eastern side of the Scheldt is famous for the passage they
forced in 1572. All Zealand is full of memories of that war. Because
of its intimate connection with William of Orange, the hereditary lord
of a great part of the land in the islands, and by reason of the
impediments of every kind that it could oppose to invaders, this
little archipelago of sand, half buried in the sea, became the
theatre of war and heresy, and the duke of Alva longed to possess it.
Consequently terrible struggles raged on its shores, signalised by all
the horrors of battles by land and sea. The soldiers forded the canals
by night in a dense throng, the water up to their throats, menaced by
the tide, beaten by the rain, with volleys of musketry pouring down
the banks, their horses and artillery swallowed in the mud, the
wounded swept away by the current or buried alive in the quagmires.
The air resounded with German, Spanish, Italian, and Flemish voices.
Torches illuminated the great arquebuses, the pompous plumes, the
strange, blanched faces. The battles seemed to be fantastic funerals.
They were, in fact, the funerals of the great Spanish monarchy, which
was slowly drowned in Dutch waters, smothered with mud and curses. One
who is weak enough to feel an excessive tenderness for Spain need only
go to Holland if he wishes to do penance for this sin. Never,
perchance, have there been two nations which have had better reasons
than these to hate each other with all their strength, or which tried
with greater fury to establish those reasons. I remember, to mention
one alone of a thousand contrasts, how it impressed me to hear Philip
II. spoken of in terms so different from those used in the Pyrenees a
few months before. In Spain his lowest title was _the great king_: in
Holland they called him a _cowardly tyrant_.

The ship passed between the island of Schouwen and the little island
of St. Philipsland, and a few moments later entered the wide branch of
the Meuse called Krammer, which divides the island of Overflakkee from
the continent. We seemed to be sailing through a chain of large lakes.
The distant banks presented the same appearance