Holland, like other countries, is indebted to primitive and classic times for most of its national amusements and children's games, which have been handed down from generation to generation. Many of the same games have been played under many differing Governments and opposing creeds. Hollander and Spaniard, Protestant and Catholic alike have found common ground in those games and sports which afford so welcome a break in daily work.

'Hinkelbaan,' for example, found its way into the Netherlands from far Phoenicia, whose people invented it. The game of cockal, 'Bikkelen,' still played by Dutch village children on the blue doorsteps of old-fashioned houses, together with 'Kaatsen,' was introduced into Holland by Nero Claudius Druses, and it is stated that he laid out the first 'Kaatsbaan.' The Frisian peasant is very fond of this game; and also of 'Kolven,' the older form of golf; and often on a Sunday morning after church he may be seen dressed in his velvet suit and low-buckled shoes, engaged in these outdoor sports. About a century ago a game called 'Malien' was universally played in South Holland and Utrecht. For this it was necessary to have a large piece of ground, at one end of which poles were erected, joined together by a porch. The bail was driven by a 'Mahen kolf,' a long stick with an iron head and a leather grip, and it had to touch both poles and roll through the porch. The 'Maheveld' at The Hague and the 'Mahebaan' at Utrecht remind one of the places in which this game was played.

In Friesland the Sunday game for youths is 'Het slingeren met Dimterkoek'--throwing Deventer cake. Four persons are required to play this game. The players divide themselves into opposite parties, and play against each other. First they toss up to see which of the parties and which of the boys shall begin. He on whom the lot falls is allowed to give his turn to his opponent, which he often does if, on feeling the cake, he notices that it is soft and liable to break easily. If, on the contrary, it is hard, he keeps the first throw for himself. Holding the cake firmly in his right hand, he takes a little run, bends backward, and with a sudden swing throws the cake forward (as one throws a stone) so that it flies away a good distance, breaking off just at the grip. This piece, called 'hanslik,' or handpiece, he must keep in his hand, for if he drops it he must let his turn pass by once, and his throw is not counted. The distance of the throw is now measured and noted down, whereupon one of the opposing party takes the piece of cake and throws it, and so it goes on alternately till each has had a turn. The distances of the throws of every two boys are counted together, and the side which has the most points wins.

There are also games played only at certain seasons of the year, as the 'Eiergaren' at Easter-time. This was very popular even in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. On Easter Monday all the village people betake themselves to the principal street of the 'dorp' to watch the 'eiergaarder.' At about two o'clock in the afternoon the innkeeper who provides the eggs appears upon the scene with a basket containing twenty-five. These he places on the road at equal distances of twelve feet from each other. In the middle of the road is then placed a tub of water, on which floats a very large apple, the largest he has been able to procure. Two men are chosen from the ranks of the villagers. The one is led to the tub, his hands are tied behind his back, and he is told to eat the floating apple; the other has to take the basket in his hand and pick up while running all the eggs and arrange them in the basket before the apple is eaten. He who finishes his task first is the winner, and carries off the basket of eggs as a prize. It provokes great fun to see the man trying to get hold of the floating-apple, which escapes so easily from the grasp of his teeth, but some men are wise enough to push the apple against the side of the tub, and of course as soon as they have taken one bite the rest is easily eaten. When the game is over, the greater number of the villagers go and drink to the good health of the winner at the public-house, and so the innkeeper makes a good thing out of this custom also, and for a game like this it is certainly wise to refresh one's self after the event. Skittles and billiards are very popular with the peasant and working classes on Sunday afternoons, the only free time a labourer has for recreation. Games of chance, also, in which skill is at a minimum, are as numerous in Holland as in any other country.

Children's games naturally occupy a large share in young Netherlands life, especially outdoor romping games. Of indoor games there are very few, a fact which may, perhaps, be accounted for by the custom of allowing children to play in the streets. In former days children of all classes played together in outdoor sports and games, and developed both their muscles and their republican character. Even Prince Frederik Hendrik (who was brother to and succeeded Prince Maurits in 1625), when at school at Leyden, mixed freely with his more humble companions, and was often mistaken for an ordinary schoolboy, and an old woman once sharply rebuked him for daring to use her boat-hook to fish his ball out of the water into which it had fallen. Nor did she notice to whom she was speaking until a passer-by called her attention to the fact that it was the Prince, whereupon the poor old soul became so frightened that she durst not venture out of her house for weeks from imaginary fear of falling into the clutches of the law, and ending her days in prison.

Games may be divided into two classes, those played with toys and those for which no toys are needed; but whatever the games may be they all have their special seasons. Once a man wrote an almanack on children's games, and noted down ail the different sports and their seasons, but, as the poet Huggens truly said,

'De kindren weten tyd van knickeren en kooten,
En zonder almanack en ist hen nooit ontschoten,'

which, freely translated, means that children know which games are in season by intuition, and do not need an almanack, so he might have saved himself the trouble. 'The children know the time to play marbles and "Kooten," and without an almanack have not forgotten.'

In the eighteenth century driving a hoop was as popular an amusement with children as it is now, only then it was also a sport, and prizes were given to the most skilful. In fact, hoop-races were held, and boys and girls alike joined in them. They had to drive their hoops a certain distance, and the one who first reached the goal received a silver coin for a prize. This coin was fastened to the hoop as a trophy, and the more noise a hoop made while rolling over the streets the greater the honour for the owner of it, for it showed that a great many prizes had been gained. In Drenthe the popular game for boys is 'Man ik sta op je blokhuis,' similar to 'I am the King of the Castle,' but there is also the 'Windspel.' For the latter a piece of wood and a ball are necessary. The wood is placed upon a pole and the ball laid on one side of it, then with a stick the child strikes as hard as possible the other side of the piece of wood, at the same time calling 'W-i-n-d,' and the ball flies up into the air, and may be almost lost to sight.

'Boer lap den Buis,' an exciting game from a boy's point of view, is a general favourite in Gelderland and Overyssel. For this the boys build a sort of castle with large stones, and after tossing up to see who is to be 'Boer,' the boy on whom the lot has fallen stands in the stone fortress, and the others throw stones at it from a distance, to see whether they can knock bits off it. As soon as one succeeds in doing so he runs to get back his stone, at the same time calling out 'Boer, lap den buis,' signifying that the 'Boer' must mend the castle. If the 'Boer' accomplishes this, and touches the bag before he has picked up his stone, they change places, and the game begins anew.

Little girls of the labouring classes have not much time for games of any sort, for they are generally required at home to act as nursemaids and help in many other duties of the home life, but sometimes on summer afternoons they bring out their younger brothers and sisters, their knitting and a skipping-rope, which they take in turns, and so pass a few pleasant hours free from their share (not an inconsiderable one) of household cares, or in the evenings, when the younger members of the family are in bed, they will be quite happy with a bit of rope and their skipping songs, of which they seem to know many hundreds, and which might be sung with equal reason to any other game under the sun for all the words have to do with skipping.

After a long spell of rain the first fall of snow is hailed with delight, for it is a sign that frost is not far off. Jack Frost, after several preliminary appearances in December, usually pays his first long visit in January (sometimes, however, this is but a flying visit of two or three days), and, as a rule, a Dutchman may reckon on a good hard winter. As soon, therefore, as he sees the snow he thinks of the good old saying--'Sneeuw op slik in drie dagen ys dun of dik' ('Snow on mud in three days' time, thin or thick'). Ice is to be expected, and he gets out his skates with all speed. This is one of the few occasions when the people of the Netherlands are enthusiastic. Certainly skating is the national sport. The ditches are always the first to be tried, as the water in them is very shallow, and naturally freezes sooner than the very deep and exposed waters of river and canal, over which the wind, which is always blowing in Holland, has fair play; but when once these are frozen, then skating begins in real earnest. The tracks are all marked out by the Hollandsche Ysvereeniging, a society which was founded in 1889 in South Holland, and which the other provinces have now joined. Finger-posts to point the way are put up by this society at all cross-roads and ditches, with notices to mark the dangerous places, while the newspapers of the day contain reports as to which roads are the best to take, and which trips can be planned. For people living in South Holland the first trip is always to the Vink at Leyden, as it can be reached by narrow streams and ditches, and it is quite a sight to see the skaters sitting at little tables with plates of steaming hot soup before them. The Vink has been famous for its pea soup many years, and has been known as a restaurant from 1768. When the Galgenwater is frozen (the mouth of the Rhine which flows into the sea at Kat wyk), then the Vink has a still gayer appearance, for not only skaters, but pedestrians from Leyden and the villages round about that town, flock to this cafe to watch the skating and enjoy the amusing scenes which the presence of the ice affords them. Then the broad expanse of water, which in summer looks so deserted and gloomy as it flows silently and dreamily towards the sea, is dotted ail over with tents, flags, 'baanvegers,' and, if the ice is strong, even sleighs.

Among the peasant classes of South Holland it is the custom, as soon as the ice will bear, to skate to Gouda, men and women together, there to buy long Gouda pipes for the men and 'Goudsche sprits' for the women, and then to skate home with these brittle objects without breaking them. As they come along side by side, the farmer holding his pipe high above his head and the woman carefully holding her bag of cakes, every passer-by knocks against them and tries to upset them, but it seldom happens that they succeed in doing so, as a farmer stands very firmly on his skates, and, as a rule, he manages to keep his pipe intact after skating many miles. The longest trip for the people of South Holland, North Holland, and Utrecht, is through these three provinces, and the way over the ice-clad country is quite as picturesque as in summer-time, the little mills, quaint old drawbridges, and rustic farmhouses losing nothing of their charm in winter garb. All along the banks of the canals and rivers little tents are put up to keep out the wind; a roughly fashioned rickety table stands on the ice under the shelter of the matting, and here are sold all manner of things for the skaters to refresh themselves with--hot milk boiled with aniseed and served out of very sticky cups, stale biscuits, and sweet cake. The tent-holders call out their wares in the most poetical language they can muster--

'Leg ereis an! Leg ereis an!
In het tentje by de man.
Warme melk en zoete koek
En een bevrozen vaatedoek.'

['Put up, put up
At the tent with the man;
Warm milk and sweet cake,
And a frozen dish-cloth.']

and they tell you plainly that you may expect unwashed cups, for the cloth wherewith to wipe them is frozen, as well as the water to cleanse them.

Under the bridges the ice is not always safe, and even if it has become safe the men break it up so that they may earn a few cents by people passing over their roughly constructed gangways, and so boards are laid down by the 'baanvegers' for the skaters to pass over without risking their lives. Besides making these wooden bridges, the 'baanvegers' keep the tracks clean. Every hundred yards or so one is greeted by the monotonous cry of 'Denk ereis an de baanveger,' so that on long trips these sweepers are a great nuisance, for having to get out one's purse and give them cents greatly impedes progress. The Ice Society has, however, minimized the annoyance by appointing 'baanvegers' who work for it and are paid out of the common funds, so that the members of the society who wear their badge can pass a 'baanveger' with a clear conscience, while as the result of this combination you can skate over miles of good and well-swept ice without interference for the modest sum of tenpence, this being the cost of membership of the society for the whole season.

Skating to Church.
Skating to Church.

The Kralinger Plassen and the Maas near Rotterdam are greatly frequented spots for carnivals on the ice, but the grandest place for skating and ice sports of all kinds is the Zuyder Zee. In a severe winter this large expanse of ice connects instead of dividing Friesland with North Holland. Here we see the little ice-boats flying over the glossy surface as fast as a bird on the wing, and sleighs drawn by horses with waving plumes, while thousands of people flock from Amsterdam to the little Isle of Marken, and the variety of costume and colour swaying to and fro on the fettered billows of the restless inland sea makes it seem for the moment as though the Netherlander's dream had come true, and Zuyder Zee had really become once more dry land. In winter every one, from the smallest to the greatest, gives himself up to ice-sports, and even the poor are not forgotten. In some villages races are proclaimed, for which the prizes are turfs, potatoes, rice, coals, and other things so welcome to the poor in cold weather. A racer is appolnted for every poor family, and where there are no sons big enough to join in the races, a young man of the better classes generally offers his services, and, when successful, hands his prize over to the family he undertook to help.

Skating is second nature with the Dutch, and as soon as a child can walk it is put upon skates, even though they may often be much too big for it. Moreover, when the ice is good, winter-time affords recreation for the working as well as the leisured classes, for the canals and rivers become roads, and the hard-worked errand-boys, the butchers' and the bakers' boys manage to secure many hours of delightful enjoyment as they travel for orders on skates. The milkman also takes his milk-cart round on a sledge, and the farmers skate to market, saving both time and money, for then there is no railway fare to be paid, and a really good skater goes almost as fast as a train in Holland--especially the Frisian farmers, for Frisians are renowned for their swift skating, and the most famous racer of the commencement of the nineteenth century, Kornelis Ynzes Reen, skated four miles in five minutes.

But although the ice affords, and always has afforded, so much pleasure, there are periods in history when the frost caused great anxiety to the people of the Netherlands. The cities Naarden and Dordrecht are easily reached by water, and when that is frozen it would give any one free access to the town, and so in time of war frost was a much-dreaded thing. In the year 1672 this fear was realized, for when the ships of the Geuzen round about Naarden were stuck fast in the ice, and the Zuyder Zee was frozen, the enemy, armed with canoes and battle-axes, came over the ice from the Y and across the Zuyder Zee to Naarden. The best skaters among the Geuzen immediately volunteered to meet the Spaniards on the ice. They took only their swords with them, and while the ships' cannon had fair play from the bulwarks of the vessels over the heads of the Geuzen into the Spanish ranks, the Geuzen could approach them fearlessly and unmolested for a hand-to-hand fight. The Spaniards, who, besides being very heavily armed were very bad skaters, were soon defeated, for they kept tumbling over each other. The Geuzen pursued them to Amsterdam, and then returned to their ships, where they were greeted with great enthusiasm, and, as the thaw set in the next day, they were happily saved from a renewed attack.

Chapter XII