Great Cities Through Travelers' Eyes Read online

  For their shipping, traffic and commerce by sea, I conceive no place in the world comes near it. There being at once come into the Texel at my being there 26 ships: from East India 8, from West India 9, and 9 from Guinea, etc.… The number of other ships which perpetually ebb and flow to this city, etc., is incredible, by which means, as by their industry and labour, they have made of this land, which naturally…is unprofitable and unuseful for man or beast.… Notwithstanding these inconveniences, they have by their ingenious labours and cleanliness so corrected them, that they have made a place where they live in health and wealth, ease and pleasure. For although the land, and that with much labour, is brought only to pasture, and that but in summer neither, yet by means of their shipping, they are plentifully supplied with…corn, pitch, tar, flax, hemp, etc.; from Danzig, Konigsberg, etc. in the Baltic Sea; masts, timber, fish, etc., from Norway; from Denmark, cattle; and from any part of the world besides, either in Europe, Asia, Africa or America, where any trade is, with the most precious and rich commodities of those parts, with which supplying other countries they more and more enrich their own.…

  The want of walking fields and meadows which others enjoy in other places, have made these to seek to countervail it in home delights, as in their streets, houses, rooms, ornament, furniture, little gardens, flower pots, in which later very curious or rare roots, plants, flowers, etc.; incredible prices for tulip roots. Also manufactures and rarities of foreign countries, of which this place doth abound and wherein they take delight.

  1789 SAMUEL IRELAND

  The British artist and engraver Samuel Ireland (1744–1800) produced many topographical views of Britain and northern Europe, assembled in books with accounts of his journeys. He was an enthusiastic proponent of the theatre, particularly of Shakespeare’s plays.

  At night we were entertained with a Dutch play, which for aught I know was well enough: the house is very plain, and but ill-lighted. I felt myself unfortunate in not arriving here one night sooner, to have enjoyed the sight of the Dutch Hamlet, a character which was performed last Saturday; and, according to the country report, is better filled and much superior to ours.…

  In our return we visited one of the musico’s or licensed brothels. Our stay was but short, the ugliness and impudence of the women soon causing us to make a precipitate retreat. The number of those houses is incredible. A chandelier is lighted up in the middle of the room, at the farther end of which are placed a sleepy fiddler and harper, who play, if necessary, till morning; you pay a florin at entrance, and see all that is necessary through immense clouds of tobacco smoke. No indecency is permitted and I am told it is not uncommon to meet a sober citizen and his wife (particularly at the time of the annual fair) introducing a virtuous young woman, their daughter, merely to view the horrid tendency of immorality imagining with the poet, that: ‘Vice is a monster of so frightful mien / As to be hated, needs but to be seen.’

  This may be Dutch policy, but the experiment is surely dangerous; as the following couplet of the same elegant author more fully illustrates: ‘Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, / We first endure, then pity, then embrace.’

  It is true that the Spartans publicly exhibited their slaves when drunk, to expose the deformity of drunkenness and deter their youth from the practice of it. With a loathsome object before their eyes, the dignity of our nature humiliated and nothing to invite, no passion could be inflamed: but the case of intoxication and the species of licentiousness before alluded to is widely different.

  The situation of these wretched females is lamentable beyond description; immured within the walls for life, and only permitted to breathe a purer air one day in the year, they are then attended by their tyrant keeper, who never suffers them out of his sight. But somewhat too much of this. We retired to our hotel.

  The Rasp-house or Bridewell is worthy notice: here the wretched culprit is chained to a block, and employed in cutting and rasping Brazil wood. In passing we saw a miserable creature, who asked charity through a barricadoed [sic] cellar window; he had before been imprisoned in the house and was now sentenced to six weeks additional confinement in this cellar for stealing some of the wood, piled in the yard to make his fire, where he was incessantly to pump or drown, as the water was generally up to his shoulders.…

  The workhouse contains near twelve thousand persons, who are admitted of all nations; the neatness and good management of this place is beyond description. In one of the apartments is a large picture, very finely painted, by Rembrandt, containing portraits of the first promoters of this charity; and another equally fine, of the same size and subject, intended as a companion, by Van Dyck. Part of this building is devoted to the reception of poor females; not those who have only deviated from the nicer rules of virtue and whose stars, perhaps, ‘were more in fault than they;’ but those who lost to all sense of shame, had abandoned themselves to an open state of prostitution.

  In the Surgeons Hall is a fine picture by Rembrandt; the subject, a dissection. It contains portraits of the professors and principal members of the college, large as life, in half-length; and is executed in his best manner. The effect of it is astonishing; and yet, judicious and indeed indispensable as it was to make such a subject the ornament of such a place, we cannot but regret that so noble a specimen of art cannot be dwelt upon without disgust by any other than a medical eye.…

  1836 JOHN MURRAY III

  The British writer and publisher John Murray III (1808–1892) published a series of popular handbooks from the 1830s, packed with practical information on travel and accommodation, as well as details of the major sights of Europe. He himself wrote volumes on Holland, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and France.

  The principal city of Holland is situated at the confluence of the river Amstel with the arm of the Zuider Zee called the IJ…. It has 225,000 inhabitants. Its ground-plan has somewhat the shape of a crescent, or half-bent bow; the straight line, representing the string, rests on the IJ and the curved line forms its boundary on the land side. Its walls are surrounded by a semicircular canal or wide fosse, and within the city are four other great canals, all running in curves, parallel with the outer one.… They are lined with handsome houses; each of the first three is at least two miles long, and in their buildings as well as dimensions may bear comparison with the finest streets in Europe. The various small canals which intersect the town in all directions are said to divide it into 95 islands, and to be traversed by no less than 290 bridges. It has been calculated that the repair of bridges, cleansing and clearing canals, and repairing dykes, in Amsterdam alone, amounts to several thousand guilders daily. This will be better understood when it is known that, were it not for the most skilful management of sluices and dykes, the city of Amsterdam might be submerged at any moment. All things considered, it is one of the most wonderful capitals in Europe; in the bustle of its crowded streets, and in the extent of its commercial transactions, it is surpassed by very few.… In the strange intermixture of land and water it may be compared to Venice; and the splendour of some of its buildings, though not equalling that of the Sea Cybele [Venice], may be said to approximate to it, but the houses are almost all of brick, and the canals differ from those of Venice in being lined with quays.

  The whole city, its houses, canals and sluices, are founded upon piles; which gave occasion to Erasmus to say that he had reached a city whose inhabitants, like crows, lived on the tops of trees. The upper stratum is literally nothing more than bog and loose sand; and until the piles are driven through this into the firm soil below, no structure can be raised with a chance of stability. In 1822 the enormous corn warehouses, originally built for the Dutch East India Company, actually sank down into the mud, from the piles having given way. They contained at the time more than 70,000cwt of corn: a weight which the foundation beneath was incapable of supporting.… It has been often said that a police regulation restricts the use of wheels, from fear lest the rattling of heavy carriages over the stones should shake and injure
the foundation of the buildings: this, however, is not true. Heavy burdens are almost entirely transported along the canals, and from thence to the warehouses on similar sledges. Omnibuses ply through the town and to the railway station.

  The havens and canals are shallow, being about 8ft deep at ordinary water. They are, therefore, fit for the Rhine vessels and Dutch coasters, but do not admit vessels for foreign trade. These lie along the booms and in front of the town, and the goods are transferred by means of the numerous canals of the city. There is a good deal of mud deposited at the bottom of the canals, which when disturbed by the barges produces a most noisome effluvia in hot weather, when the water is said to ‘grow’. Dredging machines are constantly at work to clear out the mud, which is sent to distant parts as manure. Mills have also been employed to give an artificial motion to the waters and prevent their becoming stagnant; but the same object is now attained by more simple means. To effect a circulation in the canals is most essential to the health of the inhabitants.

  The vast dams thrown up within a few years in front of the town, for a great distance along the side towards the IJ, resist the influx of the sea into the mouths of the canals, and are provided with floodgates of the strongest construction, to withstand the pressure of high tides.

  The Palace, formerly the Stadhuis, is a vast and imposing edifice of stone, standing upon 13,659 piles driven 70ft deep into the ground. The architect was Van Campen; the first stone was laid 1648, and the building finished 1655. It was originally occupied by the magistracy, for town councils, judicial tribunals and the like. During the reign of Louis Buonaparte it became his palace, and the late king resided in it whenever he visited Amsterdam. The main entrance is behind. The treasures of the once-celebrated bank of Amsterdam, which used to regulate the exchanges of Europe, were kept in the vaults below the building. It is chiefly remarkable for one grand Hall, occupying the centre of the building, lined with white Italian marble.… Many [sculpted bas-reliefs] in the interior are appropriate and well executed: over the door of the room which was the Secretary’s is a dog watching his dead master, and a figure of Silence with her finger on her lips, as emblems of fidelity and secrecy. The Bankrupt Court contains a group representing Daedalus and Icarus – in allusion to rash speculations and their ruinous consequences.… It is worthwhile to see the view from the tower on the summit of the building. This is the best place to obtain a tolerably correct idea of this wonderful city, with its broad canals, avenues of green trees running through the heart of the town, houses with forked chimneys and projecting gables, many of them bowing forward or leaning backwards, from subsidence in their foundations.

  1945 JOZEF HILEL BORENSZTAJN

  Jozef Hilel Borensztajn (1898–1985) was a Polish Jew who emigrated to Amsterdam in early life and was sent to the death camps by the Nazis in the Second World War. He described his eventual return to Amsterdam in his diary (published 1998).

  Tuesday, 12 June We finally arrive in Amsterdam at ten in the evening. There are cheering people and flags everywhere, but the platform is dark. Following the sole light, we reach the waiting room where there is soup for us. We can have as much as we want. Then the usual registration; finally, food stamps. At last we can leave.

  It is late – at least half past twelve – and I do not know where to go. There are no trams, and Amsterdam is shrouded in darkness. I think of my friend Meier, but I can hardly turn up unannounced in the middle of the night. I hear that a car is coming to take us [to the] PIZ (the Portuguese Israelite Hospital). I decide to wait. Eventually the bus arrives and we get in. It is so dark I can barely see my hand in front of my eyes.

  The bus drives through the quiet, dark night. To my astonishment I see the lights are on in the hospital – I learn later it is the only building for miles around with electricity. I am given a bed with sheets that are cleaner, whiter than any I have seen for a long time. The next day I am given a food card (number 73542) and an address, Weteringschans 104, where I can learn what to do next, and the address of an aid organization.

  Wednesday, 13 June Next morning I check whether my old friend Lewinsohn is still in Amsterdam. I go to his apartment…and he is indeed there, as if nothing had happened. What joy!

  After leaving him I go to the Kerkstraat where I meet another friend, Fuks, and then my cousin Frits Mindlin.…

  I walk everywhere, because there are no trams. And there is no light. Amsterdam is not yet back to life. It seems full of broken houses. The winter was tough, and the people took over the buildings that once housed Jews, demolished them and burned the wood. The food supply is not perfect, but I am told it’s better than it was a few weeks ago. In the hospital we get quite decent food to eat. The time of celebration is over, and life somehow has to go on. Things are getting better every day. There are strange newspapers with amateurish content as if they are published by children. They have just two pages. People are mainly interested in articles about the distribution of ration cards. But today there is some really important news: the trams should work again next week, even if just for a few hours a day.

  There is white bread…but I cannot eat it. But people mainly eat canned food from America and England. These cans – empty ones – lie around all over the streets. There are ration cards for chocolate, and people can’t wait to swap them for a real chocolate bar. A few vegetables and a little fruit are available here and there – strawberries for example. Soon there will be fish in the market again. If you are lucky, you might find beer, on sale at 35 cents for a glass of pils.

  People look exhausted. They talk constantly about last winter, which was terrible. It is called the ‘hunger winter’. Thousands died of starvation. But now we have to look optimistically to the future.

  ATHENS

  The golden age of Athens in the 5th century BC was, from the point of view of writers about the city, always in the past. Ever since the Roman era, writers on Athens have evoked the echoes of the greats in literature, theatre, philosophy, science, politics, painting, sculpture and many other fields, and the unparalleled architecture legacy on the Acropolis. Though loved and beautified by the Roman emperor Hadrian in the early 2nd century AD, the city was otherwise denuded of much of its talent and interest by the Romans and Byzantine empires, and though conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1456, still failed to thrive.

  The 19th century saw a revival of interest in Athens and its unique heritage, in no small part thanks to Lord Byron, who almost singlehandedly inspired a Romantic interest in the cause of Greek independence, which was eventually won in 1832. From that time, it has become a major stop on the tourist circuit.

  c.100 BC HERACLEIDES OF CRETE

  Little is known of this author; his text was originally attributed to Dicaearchus of Messana.

  The road to Athens is a pleasant one, running between cultivated fields the whole way. The city itself is dry and ill supplied with water. The streets are nothing but miserable old lanes, the houses mean, with a few better ones among them. On his arrival a stranger could hardly believe that this is the Athens of which he has heard so much. Yet he will soon come to believe that it is Athens indeed. A Music Hall, the most beautiful in the world, a large and stately theatre, a costly, remarkable and far-seen temple of Athena called the Parthenon rising above the theatre, strike the beholder with admiration. A temple of Olympian Zeus, unfinished but planned on an astonishing scale: three gymnasiums, the Academy, Lyceum and Cynosarges, shaded with trees that spring from greensward; verdant gardens of philosophers; amusements and recreations; many holidays and a constant succession of spectacles – all these the visitor will find in Athens.

  The products of the country are priceless in quality but not too plentiful. However, the frequency of the spectacles and holidays makes up for the scarcity to the poorer sort, who forget the pangs of hunger in gazing at the shows and pageants. Every artist is sure of being welcomed with applause and of making a name: hence the city is crowded with statues.

  Of the inhabitants some are Attic
and some are Athenian. The former are gossiping, slanderous, given to prying the business of strangers, fair and false. The Athenians are high-minded, straight-forward and staunch in friendship.… The true-born Athenians are keen and critical auditors, constant in their attendance at plays and spectacles. In short, Athens as far surpasses all other cities in the pleasures and conveniences of life as they surpass the country. But a man must beware of courtesans lest they lure him to ruin.

  c.AD 150 PAUSANIAS

  Pausanias (AD 110–180) was a geographer and antiquarian from Asia Minor who wrote a detailed Description of Greece, much of it from his own observations. The Athens he saw was some half a millennium past its Periclean prime, but shortly after the Roman emperor Hadrian had spent time in the city and re-beautified it.

  On entering the city there is a building for the preparation of the processions. Next is a temple of Demeter, with images of the goddess and of her daughter, and of Iacchus holding a torch. On the wall, in Attic characters, is written that they are works of Praxiteles. Not far from the temple is Poseidon on horseback, hurling a spear against the giant Polybotes. But the inscription of our time assigns the statue to another, and not to Poseidon. From the gate to the Ceramicus there are porticoes with brazen statues of such men and women as had some title to fame.…