Lands were granted by Thierry d'Alsace on
condition that the owner should construct dykes, and Baldwin of
Constantinople appointed guardians of the shore, charged with the
duty of watching the sea and constructing defensive works. But the
struggle was carried on under the utmost difficulties. In the twelfth
century the sea burst in with resistless force upon the low-lying
ground, washing away the dunes and swallowing up whole towns. The
inroads of the waves, the heavy rains, and the earthquakes, made
life so unendurable that there were thousands who left their homes
and emigrated to Germany.
Later, in the thirteenth century, there was a catastrophe of appalling
dimensions, long known as the 'Great Storm,' when 40,000 Flemish
men and women perished. This was the same tempest which overran
the Dutch coast, and formed the Zuyder Zee, those 1,400 square
miles of water which the Dutch are about to reclaim and form again
into dry land. In the following century the town of Scarphout, in
West Flanders, was overwhelmed, and the inhabitants built a new
town for themselves on higher ground, and called it Blankenberghe,
which is now one of the most important watering-places on the coast.
Ever since those days this constant warfare against the storms
has continued, and the sea appears to be bridled; but anyone who
has watched the North Sea at high tide on a stormy day beating
on the shores of Flanders, and observed how the dunes yield to
the pressure of the wind and waves, and crumble away before his
eyes, must come to the conclusion that the peril of the ocean is
not yet averted, and can understand the meaning of the great modern
works, the _digues de mer_, or sea-fronts, as they would be called
in England, which are being gradually constructed at such immense
cost all along the coast.
Pages:
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130