Sovereign Dancing. "De Soeverein", Noordhollandsch Kanaal, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
In the hail and snow and rain and the Fiercely Cold Wind, I took the perpetual ferry across Het IJ from the Central Station to North Amsterdam. Moored there is "De Souverein", a replica of a Spiegelretourschip, a Transom Return Ship, such as sailed for the Dutch East Indies Trading Company in its heyday. "De Souverein" measures 59 by 7,20 metres, and is thus rather larger than the ships of the seventeenth century, which seldom measured more than about 42 metres. It's hard to imagine how a crew and passengers lived for many months on these ships, crowded in with commercial products, livestock, and victuals. Philipp Franz von Siebold - see yesterday's photo - was one of the people who braved ships like this one.
But contemplating "De Soeverein" and the windblown daffodils I recalled William Wordsworth (1770-1850), and "... my heart with pleasure fills / and dances with the daffodils."
Sovereign Dancing. "De Soeverein", Noordhollandsch Kanaal, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
In the hail and snow and rain and the Fiercely Cold Wind, I took the perpetual ferry across Het IJ from the Central Station to North Amsterdam. Moored there is "De Souverein", a replica of a Spiegelretourschip, a Transom Return Ship, such as sailed for the Dutch East Indies Trading Company in its heyday. "De Souverein" measures 59 by 7,20 metres, and is thus rather larger than the ships of the seventeenth century, which seldom measured more than about 42 metres. It's hard to imagine how a crew and passengers lived for many months on these ships, crowded in with commercial products, livestock, and victuals. Philipp Franz von Siebold - see yesterday's photo - was one of the people who braved ships like this one.
But contemplating "De Soeverein" and the windblown daffodils I recalled William Wordsworth (1770-1850), and "... my heart with pleasure fills / and dances with the daffodils."