The word “hansa” signifies a guild or association, and the Hanseatic League was an association of towns for the purposes of trade, Bergen, London and Bruges being its principal foreign markets in the North Sea. From the twelfth to the sixteenth century this trading league existed, and, like Venice, had its rise to pre-eminence and then gradually lost its supremacy. And, like Venice, too, the Hanseatic League kept a tight hand over its merchant ships. Thus as far back as 1391 there was an ordinance by the Diet that no merchant should sail from a North Sea to a Baltic port, or vice versa, between Martinmas and Candlemas, and the only exceptions were that ships carrying beer and herrings might sail as late as St. Nicholas Day, December 6. For centuries a merchant had signified a townsman, but when, from the beginning of the twelfth century, the herring suddenly arrived in great shoals in the Baltic, the inland dwellers of Germany came down to the sea, ousted the Slav and thus began to get rich. The movements and migrations of the herring are little more understood nowadays than they were then, but it was sufficient for the Hanseatics that this silvery wealth had arrived. Thus Kolberg became a famous emporium for salted herrings, and this fishing industry was responsible for the Hansa towns obtaining so much of their riches and power. And so it went on until, in 1425, the erratic herring decided to forsake the Baltic and spawn in the waters of the North Sea. This at once took away from the Hanseatics a large portion of their means to wealth, though they were still busy with their carrying trade. But what is one country’s loss may be another’s gain, and it was so with the herring. For from the Baltic the herring had moved down to the Dutch coast, and so the Netherlands found themselves with the good fortune of a silver mine outside their own doors. Riches were there for the asking, and they wisely availed themselves of the opportunity. They built more ships, and the whole waterside went forth in clumsy, seaworthy craft, and thus gradually the fishermen laid the foundation-stone of the Dutch nation. It is an old saying that Amsterdam was built upon herrings; and as the Venetian palaces were built on Eastern pepper and silks, so the Northern capital arose out of the efforts on sea. It is impossible to appreciate all that the herring-fishery has meant to Holland until one has been through all the picture galleries in the Low Countries and explored its harbours. In the former you find the herring busses riding to their nets as the subject of any number of paintings, for the reason that it was the most important aspect of Dutch livelihood; and around the quays to-day you have only to notice the fine architecture in order to see the relics of a wealth that came and passed away by means of the sea high-road.