One day a heavy sea came over one of the ships, flooding the ’tween decks and spoiling the provisions. The crew became in need of bread, but there was no flour with which to bake it. The men grew mutinous. The captain saw that neither gold nor silks nor precious jewels could outweigh the value of bread, and the occurrence led him to believe that bread was the most expensive thing in the world. He reported the matter to the commander, who agreed with his specious argument, and the whole fleet hurried to the nearest port, which happened to be Danzig. They loaded the vessels with the finest wheat, and set sail direct for Stavoren. When the merchant’s wife heard of the nature of the cargo the fleet had brought home, she ordered the wheat thrown into the sea. The poor of the town begged and implored, stormed and reproached, but of no avail; the order of the woman was executed to the letter. By and by myriads of blades of grainless wheat commenced to appear above the surface of the water. Their stocks and roots collected the sand as it was washed up by the tides of the German ocean, forming a great sand dune that blocked the port so that vessels could neither enter nor leave. The inhabitants of the place were suddenly brought face to face with the fact that commerce, the source of their wealth, had to be abandoned. Poverty and want reigned where riches ruled before. The wife of the once wealthy merchant wandered about from village to village, begging the bread which no one who had heard of her improvidence would give her. She suffered death from utter starvation. Then one night the sea began to boom and, bursting over the dunes, buried the town forever. To this day the more superstitious of the fisher-folk who ply their vocation along that coast of the Zuyder Zee talk of the wonderful sunken city of Stavoren and how its pinnacles and palaces at the bottom glitter up through the pellucid waters under the rays of a summer’s sun. [Illustration: The most characteristic feature of the Frisian costume is the metal skull cap worn as the headdress of Friesland’s women] XII FRIESLAND AND ITS CAPITAL