Evening Star Newspaper, January 28, 1923, Page 72

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C JANUARY 28, 1923—PART 5. | Traveler by Airplane Views Holland as a Busy y Kingdom Afloat I BY FRANK G, CARPENTER. THE HAGUE, Holland. AKE a seat beside me in the airplane of your Imagination while we fly over Holland. We are in one of tho new Dutch Fokker cars, high up in the skies and so near Amsterdam that should we drop a stone overboard It might hit one of those canal boats en- tering the city. We left Brussels two hours ago and passed Rotterdam within twenty minutes, We could see l and Haarlem on The air trip from isterdam takes three hours and that m ur. We car trom | ark in cighty min- have chartered (hcj r through ;| cur d one-half £ coun- | | dam of deputies in 1916 and were passed in 1918. : * ¥ ¥ ¥ T is proposed to divide that sea into two parts by a heavy dyke and then make four great ponds ranging in size from 54,000 to 269,000 acres. These will be pumped out and turned into farms. The job will take seventy years and will cost over seventy millions of dollars. This seems a long time, but a decade in tho sight of these Dutch is yesterday when it is past, and as a watch In the night” This proposed includes Wiertngen, the island on which the Crown Prince of Ger- many is interned, and will make the southern part of the Zee a vast lake vith the polders or reclaimed lands in four great blocks about it. There will be a passage through the dam by locks to Amsterdam. but that city !aiready has a short cut to the ocean mbered by mi n fly across Holland | many in a nd from glum in less than two. ongest d!stance across !ioll;\x\d[ from east to west is only a llll'l? farther than from Philadclphia to | Washington, and from northeast to hwest the distance is not much | % altimore to New | All Holland, including the fresh w its borders, is only about | sachusetts and New Jersey combined. 1t is equal to one- | third of Pennsylvania or one-half of | South Caroling, and if you could cut ie cequal partas each er than the ! great flat land everthe- country supports as many as we have in New England, and next to Belgium it is the most | v populated part of the world.! 2 persons per square mile, €0 if the United States had ame for every inch of its terri- between the two oceans we | shou!d have more than 1,600 millions | or almost as many as all the people | on e ws have come morth we have x% own over all the big cities. Rot- terdam on the wide River Maas, which forms one of the mouths of the Rhine, is about as big as Buffalo, San Fran- cisco or Washington. The Hague s in the same class as Cincinnati, Kan sas City or New Orleans, and Amster- | dam is nearly equal to Pittsburgh or Los Angeles. We shall see many mail cities as we fly over the coun- Two out of every five Dutchmen | live in big towns, and the homes of the others are in villages, in farm- houses or in houscboats and barges on Holland is like Bangkok, 1at it has tens of thousands who spend their lives on the water. *The boats arc frozen tight during the winter, but in summer they move about through the canals, carrying freight far up the Rhine and other rivers. The cargo is loaded in the front of the boat, while the owner and kis family live near the stern and dry their laundry on the roof. We now take our fleld glasses and Jook far and wide over the country. We can see the waves of the North sea rolling in against {he sand dunes and dykes at the west, and on the east pick out villages which we know be- long to the Germans. Almost every- where between there Is water. Those three great rivers at the south filled with shipping are the Rhine, the Maas and the Scheldt. We spy lakes here and. there and lpok down upon great sheets of silver such as the Zulder-Zee, where the ocean runs in at the north. As we look we are reminded of the expression that Holland is a kingdom afloat, yet at anchor. In the time of Julius Caesar it was a swamp, and to- Gay one-third of the whole 18 80 low that, If ft were not for the embank- ments and dykes, it would again be- Jong to the ocean. The fight with the sew continues day and night and every | 2ay throughout the year. The annual cost of patching the dykes Is six or seven million dollars. The govern- ment has a department known as the Waterstaat devoted to the care of the dykes, and a corps of engineers fs kept busy superintending them. The Dutch say, “God made the sea. We made the shore.” This statement is physically true. More than one-half of Holland has been reclaimed from the rivers and ocean by embankments and work of one kind or another. The Dutch be- gan to build dykes more than ten centuries ago and they are still bullding them today. All along the North sea the sand hills have been connected by walls of earth that Leep old Neptune out, and the gov- ernment is now planning a great wall with gates across the Zuider- Zee. The Dutch were short of food in the world war and this new work will make 500,000 acres of arable l1and. The bills for the reclamation came before the senate and chamber 1 | small and only den by the North sea. This was completed twenty-six « ago, when it was large enough and deep enough to admit the ships of the ocean. It fs now far too second-class steam- ers can pass through it. The canal iggest | DD Country Which Has Been Created by Conquering the Sea Has Average of 542 Persons for Each Square Mile—Tens of Thousands Spend Their Lives on the Water—Annual Cost of Patching Dykes Is Six or Seven Million Dollars—Great Engineering Project Will Take Seventy Years and Cost More Than Seventy Million Dollars—Food Supply to Be Increased by New Lands—Fishes Which Swim Above Chimneys. TS DS TSI AT AT AT 1s fo be widened and deepened and a new lock 300 fcet longer than our | biggest at Panama Is to be bullt Now the great ocean liners which | come into Holland make Rotterdam | their port of call. When the North ea canal has these Improvements Amsterdam shipping will revive and the port will contend with Antwerp and Hamburg for transatfantic and | other oceanic trade. | A1 of my 1fe I have been reading |about the wonderful dykes of the Dutch. As a schoolboy I cried over the oft-quoted story of the little lad who, when a hole broke in the sea- | wall, thrust in his fist half up to the elbow and stayed there all night, keeping out the great ocean and thus saving his country until the people woke up and repaired the damage. This is one of the many misleading fairy stories on which much of our education Is based. It did not come from the Dutch. The dykes are not built in that way. Most of those along the ocean are sloping walls of stone brought in ships from other lands and dump- ed into the sea, or lald up carefully like the wall of a house, only sloping. Other dykes are of concrete and oth- ers of stone banked with earth in- closed In a network of willows which take the place of iron in reinfofced concrete. In some places great beds of woven basketwork are stretched along the sides of rivers and canals to hold in the land and the mats of willows are sunk on the sides of the waterways to be filled in with the sllt, in the same way as in the jetties that border the passage from the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans. In Incz, 1 venture Capt. Eads planned | | the tmprovement of the Mississippl |after studying these works of the | Dutch. The dykes run not only along the sea, but also along the rivers and| | canals and around the polders. The | beds of the canals are often high over the land on each eide of them, so that the people live, as it, were, in sunken gardens with streams of water flowing along on embank- ments above the tops of their houses. * k% * TOT long ago I came from Ant- werp to Rotterdam by boat to learn something about the canals of |this country, and since then I have | Bone through wany of the Intertor | waterways. Holland has more canals than any region I know, except the Yangtse-Kiang valley about Shang- hai,. Hangchow and Soochow China. There are enough canals here to make a navigable stream from New York to Denver and other waterways sufficient to extend 3,000 miles farther. This Includes the mouths of the Maas, &nd the Rhine and also the Zuider- Zee and other places where the At- lantic ocean runs into the land On my way from Antwerp to Hol- land we steamed across the Belglan boundary through the province of in | it} | are hauled alc the Scheldt | Zeeland at the southwestern end of the country. Most of the land there is below the sea level, walled in by dykes against the waves of the ocean. It is composed of nine is- lands, all protected by great em- bankments. A part of our way was on the River Scheldt. As we approached the Dutch frontler the river was walled with stone held betwen plles. We were high above the rest of the country and roofs of the barns and houses were even with the top of the dykes. There were storks nesting on some of the roofs or standing on one leg on the chimneys. On the other side of the river the top branches of the tall- est trees showed out like bushes even with the banks, and at times we could look down into the flelds under the walls and see the cattle feeding upon them. Every fleld had its little water- way around it, separating it from the others, and the long lines of trees marking the roads made me think of | | Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane, | as described in "Macbeth.” ! Leaving the Scheldt, we came to the | locks leading into the great canal of | South Beveland. Many of the old {locks are still operated by hand by quaint Dutchmen in caps, roundabouts | | and tat pantaloons, and at every stop | picturesque Dutch girls bring out truit and knicknacks to sell to pas- sengers. The girls wear short skirts, white clogs and black stockings. Some have bright vests, and horns coming out of their foreheads. The horns are spirals of gold wire twisted about, after the styie of an old-fash- | loned bed spring. Onec of these little | | horns stands out over cach eye, being | fastened with a gold or sflver helmet | fitted tight over their hair a show'- ing out through their lace caps. T trjed to buy one of these metal head- dresses, but the girl would not sell Many of the craft on the canals are towed by tugs and some are still p: ed by men and women, who walk on the banks harnessed to ropes. Others | £ by horses. We also passed u saillng vessel now and then. With my glass I could sce schools of | black seais on the sand flats, and in the flelds hundreds of black 1 white Holstein cattle lying out in the sun,| grazing or cating chop feed out of| § | found that eac! big vellow tubs. ! the of the canals are crossed by draw- bridges, which are raised after the cattle go in and let down again when they are driven home to the barns. Some of the flelds had wheat, oats and flax, others were covered with pota- toes or turnips, but everywhero there were willows, while along the roads | there were long lines of poplars, their trunks often trimmed so that the sprouts at the top branched out like those of a palm tree. Here, there and everywhere I hundreds of sprouts. If you wiil pu: & green hogshead on the top of a gate post and imagine the hogshead a green porcupine showing all of his quills you may have some {dea of hov: a Dutch willow tree looks. There arc mitlions of these willows all ove: Holland. Their roots aid in holdine together the banks of the canals and the sprouts are cut off year after year for weaving the mats and other materfal used in relnforcing the dvkes. OF THE COUNTRY THROUGH WHICH THEY PASS. It was strange to me to see gates standing alone in the fields without fonces or anything to show why they were t As we came closer I that the water was the that bounded the fields, farms and even th on: Many h gate was built on a | ! little bridge that crossed a canal and | | !saw willows, lining stretching out in long row places they met the horizon. Th willow trees here are like nothing we have at home. Their trunks are as the canals and ig around as a two-gallon crock and | »ften not as high ur ulder; but at the top they bulge out into | gigantic drum-major green caps of ¥ Masai Warrlors, Armed With Spears, Conquer Lion BY ER SHELLEY. X HILE taking motion pie- 7 tures of African animals \ T had a rather pecullar| oxperience that suggested a new idea in training dogs tor big game. Mr. Hement of New York had wmc‘ to Africa and brought eight potlicke! |hounds. They originally came from Misuissippl, and were mostly ‘cobi nd opossum dogs. Mr. Hement did | inot have an opportunity to use the| | doge, so I bought the lot from him A. J. Klein of Nairobi and I made a | trip in the upper Konkadong valley for the purpose of taking motion pictures, and T took the dogs along. They were absolutely green, with no | experience in African hunting. While we were in the Konkadong we ran across a bunch of Masai war- riors. They offered to combat with and kill a grown lion with their spears and allow us to take a plcture |of the performance. A price was agreed upon, and we set out to find the lion, but they were all In a place where the picture could not be made, 8o we decided to build a trap and catch one alive. We did this by making a trap out of green poles, six to eight inches through and twelve feet long. A {trench was first made and the poles stood up side by side in the trench. The trap, when completed, was five feet wide, fourteen feet long and ten foet high. All of the poles were se- curely wired together. We took the end gate oug of the ox | cart for the door. Thly was held about four feet above the ground by standing a stick of that length un- der it. To this stick we tled a rope which ran through a small pulley tn the upper corner of the trap and to & l1eg of fresh zebra meat, which was allowed to stand In one corner. By this arrangement the zebra leg had only to be moved slightly to pull the prop from under the door, allowing the door to drop to the ground, closing the entrance. There were a couple of big lions staying in the vicinity of our camp, and we kept them baited with zebra meat while we were constructing the, trap. A lién is” peculiar in this respect— tbat he will not hunt if he can find all of the fresh meat he wants. These two lions were cleaning up the bait every night. The last night they had taken bait from both sides of the trap. * ok ¥ ¥ HEN it was finally completed and the warrlors were ready for business, we baited the trap and set it. Eerly the next morning, as soon as it was light, a boy came in and sald there was a big lion in the trap. We finished our breakfast,.took the camera outfit over, and, sure enough, there was a big beauty, with a full mane, in the trap. He began growl- ing a8 s0on as he saw us coming. We had planned to set the camera on top of the cage, and first a long ladder had to be built 50 we could reach the top of the cage and at the same time keep far enough away so the Ifon could not reach us with his paws. ‘We finally got on top with the out- fit. Thon we had to make a thick bed of grass and bushes to stand on, so that the lion could not seo us, as he was continually jumping for our feet. Once he grabbed a pole just under our feet and hung to'it for some time by his teeth. All of this time, while we were gotting things in readiness, the ten warriors were marching in a cfrcle, single file, chanting and singing. One of our boys explained that they did this to keep up their courage, Finally we adjusted the door so we chuld Talse it and shouted to the war- ‘ 5 ST | e ) l/ 13 Picture. riors that we were ready. up in single file, chanting. I had no idea of seelng a show anything like what followed. Teceseary to kill a llon with spears, and I was amazed when the full reali- any ten black men would face such a hazard and stand by these men did. the finest piece of work I had ever seen pulled off by men. the work was done by a well-defined a man was left without spear or shield, and was at complete meércy of the lion, to be saved only by an armed man running in at the critical | moment. %ok ¥ % FTER much dificulty we managed from the top of the cage. The war- riors closed in, within fifteen yards of the cage. The lion up to this time had been trying his best to break his way out of the cage, but now that the door was up, leaving one-half of the en- tiro end of the cage open,'he did not the warriors ran up alongside the cage and speared him between the poles. This put fight into him. He flew out with a roar and made a dash for the man that speared him. As he came bounding through the cage door the spear in his side was knocked out. Another wgrrior threw a spear as he passed, striking the lion on the shoulder. The weapon bent nearly double. This caused the lon to change his course abruptly and take after the man who threw the second spear. The latter had just time enough to drop on his knees and stand his shield in front of him, The lton grabbed the top of the shield In his mouth and wrenched it away, leaving the warrior without spear or shield. Before the beast could get hold of him, however, another warrior threw his spear into the lion, and with the dexterity of a trained athlcte dropped on his knees behind his shield be- tween the lion and the man just un- armed. From then on pandemonium reigned. In a few seconds seven or eight of the ten warriors were disarmed be- fore the lion finally came down. He had taken shlelds away from seven of them. All ten spears were badly bent. L IT was the most marvelous -bit of primitive big-game fighting Imag- inable and the greatest plece of team- work that:could be concelved. A remarkable part of it all was that not & single warrior was hurt. | Kleln, who was to operate the camera, became excited, gun and forgot to take the picture. Small wonder under these circum- stances, but it was the picture that we came out for. The warriors were paid for their work, and they offéred to take another job and second chance to get ths picture. zation of it dawned upon me—that | each other as| It was absolutely and unequivocally | The outstanding feature was that system. At least eight different times to raise the door with the rope forming a circle scem to want to come out One of | grabbed & ve us af T T TSI T D D T AT > I had | no conception of the skill that was That day & friend of mine, a Mr Hunt, came to visit me. He came from Lake Naivashi, and had five or six cur dogs and one Australian sheep dog. She was a timid-looking little thing, similar {n appearance to a red fox, and was but little larger. ‘We planned on having a hunt for lions with Hunt's dogs and mine after we wore through with the ple- tures. We again set the trap, as there had been two llons around and one had dug at the outside while his “pal” was in the trap. We did not know but that he would have enough sense to stay away after seeing his mate caught in the trap, but the next morning, to our surprise, there was the other lion inside. He Jooked al- most exactly like the first one. They must have been litter brothers. This time we made the warriors stand farther back. It proved to be too far, for as the lion came out he dodged between two of the warriors and got away. It was then nearly 8 o'clock In the morning, and camp was about four miles away. We sent a bunch of boys to camp to bring all of the doga They came with all except the little Australian sheep dog, whose name was Gooseberry. For some reason they did not bring her. None of those dogs had ever seen a lion or smelled one's trail, and I hardly expected to- have any luck. An old 'coon dog, after some delay, begun working on the trail and opened DT TS Hunter in Africa Describes Encounter As Finest Piece of Work by Men Evzr Obscrved. Marvelous Exhibition of Primitive Big-Game Fighting in Which Team Work Is Notable—Eight Different Times One of Warriors Is Left Without Spear or Shield at Mercy of Beast, Only to Be Saved by Armed Man Running in at Critical Moment—Camera Man Forgets to Take ?omQQ«<><>Q,Q@%%Q@@Q/smm&mw’@w%@% DT They came | AS THE TWO POWERFUL DOGS PULLED HIM, INCH BY INCH, STRAIGHT TO THE LION, WAS SHOUTING IN HIS NATIVE TONGUE “HURRY, a few times. We encouraged him, and he began running, giving tongue freely. others followed along close by, but did not seem to take hold. We rode along behind and the old 'coon dog was trailing nicely. When we were nearly to the timber another hound got the scent of the trail and began opening also. The dogs disappeared in the thick bushes, where the scent must have been bet- ter, as the sun did not shine upon the tracks. At any rate, seven or eight of the dogs began opening as |soon as they got in the cover. In a thicket close to a river we heard the lon growl. All of a sudden he brokelcover and came stralght to us, with all of the dogs in full cry close behind. 'He almost ran over Klein and me. * % x X UNT had unloaded our ‘guns when the lion first got away, but had forgotten to tell us. He con- sidered it was dangerous to leave the guns loaded on top of the trap. The lion almost ran over Klein, and passed so close to me that the muzzle of my gun nearly touched him, both of our guns enapping. He got into a thick pocket in the jungle, and the dogs seemed unable to move him. They fought him for an hour or two. We threw in stones, but the lion would not move. Hunt sald that if Gooseberry, the iittle sheep’ dog, were there, she S ¢ ¢ \ » S THE BOY WHITE MAN; HERE IS THE LION!” Copyright, 1923 would move him, so we sent for Gooseberry. g As soon as she had time to get to the spot the lion let out a bellow and ran to the north end and skulked again. Gooseberry must have crept up and grabbed him by the tail. He did not hold his new position more than a minute, when Gooscberry moved him again. This time he made a wiid rush and broke cover near us, just enough to glve us a shot. Two bullets pass- ed through him, just back of the 1 shoulder. It is wonderful what a big thing a little dog will sometimes accom- plish. This timid little thing could move ‘the lion at will, when ten or cleven big dogs were unable to do 20. I afterward bought all of Hunt's dogs, Including Gooseberry, and when I left Africa I left all of them at Mr. Rainey's place In the charge of his man. Mr. Rainey afterward told me that he used Gooseberry as a sort of fer- ret to bring & lion or leopard out when the other dogs had him bayed in a reed bed. She was a wonderful little dog. Killing this lon after the dogs had trailed Him four or five miles, run- ning from one thicket to another, baying at him all day, made lion ex- perts of these green dogs at once. [leopards with th (/| an easy and sure way of g ) | dogs entered on the game Dbur did splendid wor It occurred to me then often thought since, why ol of dogs, and and T have is this not tting your hunt? Lions, leopar lio; bear. jaguar or t can all | caught in a trap of this & with fresh meat. No doubt it would be more sportsmanlike for a break his dog in ordinar. {but from the one nfident it is an absolutely surs way get the dogs entered u the very | game vou wish to hunt with them On one occaston. while we were | hunting Ilons on the Kapiti plains, a | boy was given two dogs to lead and | tnstructed under no circumstances to { turn the dogs loose until told to do so | by one of the white men We were trailing a lion through a | bush country and the Loys with the | fighting dogs were behind. As the trail got fresher, the dogs kept picking up speed and the dog boys got somewhat scattered in the bush. be nd. baited ered an to| I am one rode back and fnstr to turn the fighting dog the boys got word except tl was leading Duke, V’l‘lri(‘\'l‘r. and Mack e aifredale, saw him, t he Kept on as | fast as he could in the direction the| 'hounah were running. > llon made a large circle or IY\O and came to bay | * S oon e et muntere o they heard a bo: top of his voice an | from among the dogs ing the lion Some of the hunters rushed to the | place and there was the lon in some high grass and bushes, cdmpletely ted the b loose. Al who | | | | | the pproached y shouting at the only a few yards aws with Duke and Mack. He had got too close before he dis- covered the lion was at bay. He was pulling with all his might to hold the dogs, but they were too strong and were dragging him stralght to the lion, then only a few feet away. He remembered his orders to hold to the dogs until one of the white men told him to release them. was doing his best, but thé two powerful dogs were pulling him inch by inch, stralght to the lion. The boy was shouting in his native tongue: “Hurry, white man; here s the lion.” As soon as the hunters came up, they shouted to the boy to turn the dogs loose, but the baylng dogs made €0 much nolse the boy could not hear them. All of this time he was being pulled closer and closer. Finally one of the hunters went around, 80 as to attract the boy's at- tention and made motions to him to unfasten the dogs. Within ten steps of the lion, the young negro released the dogs and got away safely, I have often wondered how many of us would have obeyed orders as im- plicitly as this darky under conditions of this kind! The boy's salary was flve rupees a month, then $1.66 in our money. * ko N one expedition—notable in my memory, because I was for the first time unaccompanied by white men—I was looking over the country carefully through my glasses when | presently I saw a myaterious looking horn sticking out from under a fig tree. As I looked more closely, T saw two ears standing perpendicularly. until in | ou wish to | hunting. | big English | the sound came | that were bay- | surrounded by the baying dogs, and | v was the boy | He | [ and by we entered the Holla dische Diep and then th IYht\‘«\lh of the Maag and finally ca to anchor in the midst of the g { canal eity of R The farms v the 1 | the sea and canals make up a | part of the country. In many fish in the canals and the swim about al)”"( the chimney | whole countrs is flat, but the | castern portion slopes upward to | altitude which in places is twice a { high as the Washington Monume | but even this section 1s cut v ‘ great rivers { North sea. The remainder 1 ‘EIVD ng that even from one can see no clevations e | embankments w polders. or join the carry the highway | acros | work shine | and run = under the great patehe » fields and the farms 3 have used the word polder. Thi is a term employed by the Dutch land redeemed from the water. Ther are two clastes of polders, sca ers and pond polders. The sea pold | comprise the lan iich have | reclaimed from th ¢a by the e bankments that keep out the ocean One-third of all Holland is of th chary 1 you cut dow the & dunes break dyk?s, s nethin lex, ighth the size pear under the | t w be could and ke tract of Ohio, up five thousand of land would disap- 2 one following close | | s we must leave our airplaine and to keep our | teet dry we may even don woode | clogs which in some places are | the footgear of the shall find most of the polder lever, as dry as a bone. They kept so by continual pumpi by hundreds of windmills and iby the most nfodern centrifugal | steam pumps. The pumping g . | day and uight, all the vear t rough {In making a sea poder, af ! dykes have been built the s | must be pumped out o bas {canals and carried away. F { water will keep on seeping in and this must be taken out right alon while the land is being built u Is the same with pond polders, wh are the reclaimed lands of ti swamps and the lakes made 1 taking off the fresh water from the small streams and rivers. In each cage it means the bullding of a wall or solid embankment around space to he reclaimed and pump out the water. But the building up of a polder, its division Into farms so that eac will be at the right level to carry the water into the basin or canal, from which it goes by two or thicc pumpings into higher canals and finally gets off to the seca, the trans- tormation of the mud into arap soil, and the building up of live agri cultural and municipal communitics into a kingdom like this, forms & story that would take volumes to tell I can only say that the Dutch under- stand this eclence better perhaps than any other peoule, and that their great department known as the Waterstaat merits the most careful study of the river and harbor cc mit{ges of Congress and of our other offleials who ere planning the drain- age of our enormous swamp-lands and the improvement of the Missis- shippi and other rivers. “CARPENTER'S WORLD TRAVELS." Copy righted 1923 by Frank G. Carpenter.) som The Decay of Glass. IT o probable that but few perso: who admire the iridescence of a clent glassware know that the pris matic hues displayed are a result of the decay of the glass. When disin- tegration sets In the substance of the glass splits into exceedingly thin laminac, which, as the sunlight tra- verses them, give rise to a splendid play of colors. As in the instance of the lcaves of a forest, these delicate glasses signalize their approaching dissolution by becoming more beauti- Later on, we killed several lons and ,~ (Contlnued on Seventh Fage.) (ful ¥ g «