A single row of trees
runs down each of its long streets, and on the other side of each
are illimitable fields intersected by ditches which on a cloudless
afternoon might be strips of the bluest ribbon.
We sat for an hour in the garden of "De Zon," a little inn on the west
bank half-way between the dam and the bridge. The landlady brought us
coffee, and with it letters from other travellers who had liked her
garden and had written to tell her so. These she read and purred over,
as a good landlady is entitled to do, while we watched the barges
float past and disappear as the distant lock opened and swallowed them.
South of the dam the interest is centred in the hut where for a
while in 1697 Peter the Great lived to see how the Dutchmen built
their ships. The belief that no other motive than the inspection of
this very uninteresting cottage could bring a stranger hither is
a tenet of faith to which the Zaandamer is bound with shackles of
iron. The moment one disembarks the way to Peter's residence begins
to be pointed out. Little boys run before; sturdy men walk beside;
old men (one with a wooden leg) struggle behind. It was later that
the Czar crossed to England and worked in the same way at Deptford;
but no visitor to Deptford to-day is required to see his lodging there.
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