It was in the smallest Republic of our Continent—Altenet—rich in mines of zinc. It lies, like a tiny wedge, between the great German empire, the small kingdom of Holland, and the still smaller one of Belgium.
Seldom has a stranger set foot here; few know the district even by name; only a single encyclopædia makes mention of it; the atlases have forgotten it,—nay, it has even been forgotten by the political world.
When the separation between Belgium and Holland took place in 1830, the representatives of the various powers could not come to any agreement over this little piece of ground. It was therefore resolved to declare it “neutral territory,” till a later Congress should find a better solution to the problem.
The old schoolmaster of the neighbouring village of Oppenaken always asserted that the learned politicians assembled at the aforesaid Congress had been too drunk to know what they were doing. If his listeners looked at him incredulously, or began to laugh, he would indignantly ask, “Don’t you believe me? Then I’ll prove it!” And then he would fetch an atlas, open it at the map of the Netherlands, and, following with his finger the boundary of our provinces of Limburg and Brabant, continue—“Just look at this line here how it goes—first to the left, then to the right—here crooked, then slanting—then again forward for a bit, then backwards—one minute straight, and then again with a great bend—isn’t it just like the line a tipsy man would take in walking?”
In the year 1866 another European Congress took place; but it seemed as though the gentlemen taking part in it had not recovered from the effects of the drinking bout attributed to them by the Oppenaken schoolmaster, for this time Altenet was forgotten—forgotten for good and all.
“TOO DRUNK TO KNOW WHAT THEY WERE DOING.” ]
Thus the Altenetters lived on, independent of all foreign domination. The miners continued to extract zinc from the ground, and pile it up in the great waggons which transported it to other countries; the peasant ploughed his field and reaped his grain; the wind might be heard sighing in the clumps of trees on the hill-tops, the brook rushing and murmuring between the rocks, and the lark singing high in air—and what could you want more?