WIERINGEN ISLAND

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 25, 24 October 1921, Page 6

WIERINGEN ISLAND

HOME OF FORMER CROWN PRINCE OF GERMANY ENFORCED RESIDENCE A HEAVY PUNISHMENT It is that island in the Zuyder Zee, in a region of Holland little travelled, in which it has seemed good to the Netherlands Government to intern tho former Crown Prince of Germany (says a writer in the “Christian Science Monitor”). 1 am not greatly concerned to know if my term “intern” is the exact form in which political jurists would phrase this sort of residence: the effect is much the same, if indeed the phraseology may possibly be inexact. At any rate there he has been for nearly three years, and there it seems likely he will remain.

The Dutch are not keenly interested, in this guest. They seemed mildly amused at the idea of anyone being at all curious to see him and his island; and the good folk of. Enkhuizen, from which town I proposed to set forth on a bicycle to discover AVieringen Island, ■were not quite sure how one got there: or what the roads were like. It seemed to them a tremendous enterprise. At a matter of fact, it is 35 miles from Enkhuizen to Ewijksluis, that tiny village on the mainland from which yon take the post-boat, a little steamer, for the island, which is about two miles offshore, at the base of that peninsula whose apex is the Helder. The road begins with a specious and deceptive ease: one of those brick-paved Dutch roads which, like the little girl who "when she was good, she was very, very good: but when she was bad she was horrid," are excellent when in good repair, but ■ when neglected are abominable. You proceed through AVestwond, Benningbrock, Sijbekarspel. AVinkel Koihorn, AVieringerwaard, and Tweeweg, and come thence to Ewijksluis: an amazing course now on high dikes above the Zuyder Zee, and now along roads below it. Tho scenery at Ewijksluis is tho opposite of the picturesque. It is the region of the Ana Pawlowna marshes, and there is a plentiful lack of frees, or any sort of features. AVieringen Island looks picturesque out there, by sheer contrast; for its few trees have at this dietanee tho aspect of woodlands, and the tower of AVesterland church rises strikingly from them. Tho sea is shallow and the navigable channel is marked by gtakes. At the little port of AVieringen, with the usual concourse of boats, a polite pciiceman (one of the four on the island) takes charge of the casual stranger and escorts him to the Burgomaster at Hippolijtu«hoef, one of the four villages; the others being Oostertand, AVesterland, and Oever. If you have a passport all is well. “You have nothing to do with the Kroon Prinz?” asks the Burgomaster; and he, being satisfied that you have no political mission, you are at liberty to seek the hotel at Hippolijtushnef and roam the isle.

It is not a romantic island. The villages are not pretty, nor do the villagers wear quaint costumes. AVieringen Island is about six miles long and three mites and a 'half broad. One might spend half a summer’s day there and exhaust its every interest, and never wish to see the place again. The population is about 3000, and strange to say, there are several motor-cars. To the interests of AVieringen has now been added the new and flourishing industry of selling picture post cards of the former Crown Prince, in the act of standing on the quay, gossiping to the loafers, walking with an occasional visiting friend; or in company with his wife and children on the only occasion on which they seem to liave been there. A popular picture card shows him in the act of making horseshoes at the village smithy of Hippolijtushocf. His residence is at Oosterland, in a modest little house, No. 10; a house by no means so large or so good as the modern farmhouse close by. It was the parsonage of the village. I saw the former Crown Prince there. In the picture post cards he smiles. But ‘he has no smite when not facing the camera. His interests are petty. They are just to keep himself from _ being bored; and he does it in a variety of little ways. Most of the villagers possess a signed portrait postcard of him. To many he has presented leather pocketbooks with a gilded "AV.” I obsei ye tho imperial crown still surmounts it. The very favoured persons have 'horseshoes fashioned by these august hands, and incised with the like initial AV ; and with sealed string and card attached, proclaiming that really and truly he did veritably hammer out these Shoes. And the landlord of the De Haam Hotel has a portrait of his daughter in coloured chalks by the former Crown Prince; by which it may be gath. ered that William Hohenzollern is very well as an amateur artist but not likely to rival professionals. In short the chief present aim in life of this eldest son of the "All-Highest is to maXe Tillhself popular with the peasants of this out-of-the-way Dutch island. When we consider the position That once he held and the situation in which he~now finds himself, we may well imagine that the experience of an enforced residence here, all the yesr round, in tho amused tolerance of the Wieringers, must lie almost worse than any penalty the Allies might enforce, if they had him.