This river isn’t in Holland, it’s in Africa. This is the Nile –there are two crocodiles in the foreground to emphasise the point. The city is Damiate in Egypt, now Dumyat. European crusaders captured Damiate in 1219. According to a popular but fictional story, it was a warship from Haarlem that broke the chain blocking the river’s entrance. Four hundred years later, Haarlem’s Calivermen civic guard commissioned Cornelis van Wieringen to paint this work. It was a reminder of the city’s former glory, although we tend to view that differently now.