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As soon as we stepped on the banks of one of these grodens, and I set my eye on one of these retired abodes, I felt no longer at a loss where we should go or what we should do. It opened suddenly on my mind as clear as the sun at noon-day, that we must remain here a day or two and visit these new settlers in their dwellings. Accordingly we drove to the inn at Carolinen Siel.
Something else, too, immediately caught my eye, and that was a stream running to Bensersiel. I knew it at once for the muddy stream or drain we had seen at the harbour, issuing through the sluice or siel from which Bensersiel took its name. But it arrested my attention now because it looked more prominent than I should have expected.
Siel means either a sewer or a sluice, the latter probably in this case, for I noticed that each village stood at the outlet of a little stream which evidently carried off the drainage of the lowlands behind. A sluice, or lock, would be necessary at the mouth, for at high tide the land is below the level of the sea.
The suffix siel repeated itself all round the coast-line. Five miles eastward of Bensersiel was Neuharlingersiel, and farther on Carolinensiel. Four miles westward was Dornumersiel; and farther on Nessmersiel and Hilgenriedersiel. That was six on the north coast of the peninsula alone. On the west coast, facing the Ems, there was only one, Greetsiel, a good way south of Norden.
It had been dawning on me in the last half-hour that this canal was only one of several; that in concentrating myself on Esens and Bensersiel, I had forgotten that there were other villages ending in siel, also furnished on the chart with corkscrew streams; and, moreover, that Böhme's statistics of depth and distance had been marshalled in seven categories, A to G. The very first match brought full recollection as to the villages.
Glancing idly at the names of these villages, I noticed that they most of them ended in siel a repulsive termination, that seemed appropriate to the whole region. There were Carolinensiel, Bensersiel, etc.
After having thus travelled some days, as it were in the dark, we arrived at Friedrichen Siel, near Carolinen Siel, in which neighborhood, on the border of the North Sea, lie Friedrichgroden, New Augustengroden, and New Friedrichgroden.
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