of England appointed Van Dyck
court-painter and knighted him. Van Dyck's ambition was to excel in
historical works, but the demand upon him for portraits never left him
much leisure for other subjects. How often "man proposes, but God
disposes."
Alfonso and Leo reached Dort or Dordrecht, which in the middle ages was
the most powerful and wealthy commercial city in Holland. Huge rafts
float down from the German forests, and at Dordrecht the logs are sawed
by the many windmills. The Dutch province of Zealand is formed by nine
large islands on the coast of the North Sea, and it has for its heraldic
emblem a swimming lion with a motto _Luctor et Emergo_.
Most of the province, which is created by the alluvial deposits of the
Scheldt, is below the sea-level, and is protected against the
encroachments of the sea by vast embankments of an aggregate length of
300 miles. Willows are planted along the dykes, the annual repairs of
which cost $425,000. An old proverb says, "God made the land, we Dutch
made the sea."
This fertile soil produces abundant crops of wheat and other grain. Near
Dort is a vast reed-forest, covering more than 100 islands, which is also
called, "Verdronken land," drowned land.
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