Monnickendam affords our first sight of what are called very misleadingly the “Dead Cities of the Zuyder Zee,” meaning merely towns which once were larger and busier.  Monnickendam was sufficiently important to fit out a fleet against the Spanish in 1573, under Cornelius Dirckszoon (whose tomb we saw at Delft) and capture Bossu in the battle of Hoorn.

To-day Monnickendam suggests nothing so little as a naval engagement.  People live there, it is true, but one sees very few of them.  Only in an old English market town on a hot day—­such a town as Petworth, for example, in Sussex—­do you get such desertion and quiet and imperturbability.  Monnickendam has, however, a treasure that few English towns can boast—­its charming little stadhuis tower, one of the prettiest in Holland, with a happy peal of bells, and mechanical horses in action once an hour; while the tram line running right down the main street periodically awakens the populace.

When last I visited Monnickendam it was by steam-tram; and at a little half-way station, where it is necessary to wait for another tram, our engine driver, stoker and guard were elaborately photographed by an artist who seemed to be there for no other purpose.  He placed his tripod on the platform; grouped the officials; gave them—­and incidentally a score of heads protruding from the carriages—­a sufficient exposure, and was preparing another plate when an incoming tram dashed up so unexpectedly as to cause him to jump, and, in jumping, to overturn his tripod and precipitate the camera under the carriage wheels.  Now here was a tragedy worthy of serious treatment.  A Frenchman would have danced with rage; an Englishman would have wanted to know whose fault it was and have threatened reprisals.  But the Dutchman merely looked a little pained, a little surprised, and in a minute or two was preparing a friendly group of the officials of the tram which had caused the accident.  I do not put the incident forward as typical; but certainly one may travel far in Holland without seeing exhibitions of temper.  I mentioned the nation’s equability to the young Dutchman in the canal boat between Rotterdam and Delft.  “Ah!” he said, “you should go to Brabant.  They fight enough there!” I did go to Brabant, but I saw no anger or quarrelsomeness; yet I suppose he had his reasons.

The steam-tram to Monnickendam runs on to Edam, whence one may command both Volegdam and Purmerend.  Edam is famous for its cheese, but the traveller in Holland as a rule reserves for Alkmaar cheese market his interest in this industry; and we will do the same.  Broadly speaking Edam sends forth the red cheeses, Alkmaar the yellow; but no hard and fast line can be drawn.  Were it not for its cheese market Edam would be as “dead” as Monnickendam, but cheese saves it.  It was once a power and the water-gate of Amsterdam, at a time when the only way to the Dutch capital was by the Zuyder Zee and the Y. Edam is at the mouth of the Y, its name really being Ydam.  The size of its Groote Kerk indicates something of this past importance, for it is immense:  a Gothic building of the fourteenth century, cold and drear enough, but a little humanised by some coloured glass from Gouda, often in very bad condition.  In the days when this church was built Edam had twenty-five thousand inhabitants:  now there are only five thousand.