The
little houses beset it as the pigmies beset Antaeus. After some
difficulty I found my way in, and wandered for a while among its white
immensities. It is practically a church within a church, the region
of services being isolated in the midst, in the unlovely Dutch way,
within hideous wooden walls. It is very well worth while to climb the
tower and see the great waterways of this country beneath you. The
prospect is mingled wood and polder: to the east and south-east,
shaggy hills; to the west, the moors of Brabant; to the north,
Arnheim's dark heights.
Nymwegen has many lions, chief of which perhaps is the Valkhof,
in the grounds above the river--the remains of a palace of the
Carlovingians. It is of immense age, being at once the oldest building
in Holland and the richest in historic memories. For here lived
Charlemagne and Charles the Bald, Charles the Bold and Maximilian
of Austria. The palace might still be standing were it not for the
destructiveness of the French at the end of the eighteenth century. A
picture by Jan van Goyen in the stadhuis gives an idea of the Valkhof
in his day, before vandalism had set in.
As some evidence of the town's pride in her association with these
great names the curfew, which is tolled every evening at eight o'clock,
but which I did not hear, is called Charlemagne's Prayer.
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