Amsterdam, "the Northern Venice."

Amsterdam has been called "The Northern Venice." But ten minutes on the Grand Canal of Venice and ten minutes on the Kalverstraat of Amsterdam will disclose the fact that the Amstel is not the river Brenta of the Grand Canal of Venice; the "Der Dam," the principal square of Amsterdam, is not the Piazza San Marco; and the Dutch Van der Haysen is not the Canalette of Venice.

Amsterdam, like Venice, is built entirely upon sharp-pointed piles, driven from thirty to seventy feet through mud and sand into terra firma; this explains, perhaps, why so many of the houses in Amsterdam have not fulfilled the hopes of their first architects, but have turned to "crooked ways" in their old age, and have ceased to be upright before the world. Very many of the houses in Amsterdam have long since bidden farewell to the perpendicular style and lean, alarmingly, as if close companionship had ended in a mutual desire to embrace. A comparison as to the origin of Venice and of Amsterdam is interesting.

Venice owes its peculiar existence to a panic produced by Attila the Hun, when he invaded Italy in 421 A. D.

Venice was at the height of her glory in 1205, when a few poor fishermen began struggling for a piece of solid ground on which to build their huts beside the Amstel River, inland from the North Sea. The land was a great swamp, overrun at times by the river, when its course to the sea was impeded by the tide. The fishermen erected a dam across the river Amstel, and threw up a bank, or dike, of earth to prevent the sea from flowing in. The little fishing hamlet began to grow beside the Amstel dam, but so uninviting seemed this barren, desolate spot that a century later Amstel-dam was still only an obscure hamlet for seafaring men. Then came the great cataclysm of the thirteenth century, when a great tidal-wave broke down all barriers and swept over North Holland, forming an immense chasm, now covered by the Zuyder Zee, causing also the death of more than eighty thousand people. The little hamlet of Amsterdam escaped to find itself not inland from the sea, but actually upon the borders of an inland sea. The river and lake of Y were formed at this time; but the hardy fishermen, true to their inherited pluck, began again to struggle with their new environments, by diking and digging, and building canals and windmills, until they made their homes secure again from immediate danger.

In the early years of the fourteenth century, when the spirit of commerce and progress was abroad in the land, and every portion of the Netherlands was thrilled with new energy and life, some fugitive artisans from Flanders found in the little village of Amsterdam safety and peace. They brought what wealth they had, and added what was better, manufacturing intelligence, to the humble hamlet, and its subsequent progress was rapid. In 1342 Amsterdam was admitted as a member of the Hanseatic League. The term Hanse in the old Teutonic dialect signified protection and association of cities and men for mutual defence against the pirates of the sea, and the oppression of wealthy Counts and Barons. At one time eighty-five cities on the Rhine, the Elbe, and the Baltic and North Sea were united for mutual defence. This famous and historical League disappeared as the necessities which produced it vanished.

In 1342 Amsterdam had outgrown its primary limits and been enlarged. As this was an expensive process, owing to the driving of piles into surrounding marshes--all of which had to be transported--this enlargement and subsequent enlargements have been recorded with exactness, 1342, 1585, 1593, 1609 and 1621.

More fortunate than her sister cities, Amsterdam escaped the horrors of the wars that devastated so large a portion of the Netherlands in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; but she contributed actively with her means to the success of naval operations. Fleets were built at Amsterdam, and sailed from her harbors to assist in Dutch supremacy at sea, and won immortal honors for her sailors and admirals.

A period of comparative security in 1578 gave opportunity for the extension of her commerce. The siege of Antwerp in 1585, and the closing of the river Scheldt, made Amsterdam the first commercial city of Europe. Half the marine commerce of the world sailed under her flag, and her ships were found in all waters, distributing among the nations products and merchandise. Money from all lands poured into Amsterdam; her Bank or Bourse regulated the rate of exchange for all people. In exchange for coin, gold or silver, the Bank gave credit for the amount of bullion in the coin and issued a note for it. When, at some crisis in the politics of the Netherlands in 1572, a run was started upon the Bank, the City Magistrates of Amsterdam opened their treasury, showing the frightened depositors their coin untouched, and the panic was allayed. A century later, when the Bank of England was established, among the first Directors were Dutch settlers in London, who had brought with them the intelligence, sagacity and integrity of Netherland financiers.