Since what man has done man can do, there is little doubt but that the Dutch will carry through this great project.
Concerning Stavoren there is now but one thing to say, and no writer on Holland has had the temerity to avoid saying it.

That thing is the story of the widow and the sandbank.

It seems that at Stavoren in its palmy days was a wealthy widow shipowner, who once gave instructions to one of her captains, bound for a foreign port, that he should bring back the most valuable and precious thing to be found there, in exchange for the outward cargo.

The widow expected I know not what--ivory, perhaps, or peacocks, or chrysoprase--and when the captain brought only grain, she was so incensed that, though the poor of Stavoren implored her to give it them, she bade him forthwith throw it overboard.

This he did, and the corn being cursed there sprang up on that spot a sandbank which gradually ruined the harbour and the town.