| “We walk along the narrow streets.” (See page 177.) |
The Ancient Town of Monnikendam.
Marken Homes—Beds in the Wall—Family Heirlooms—An Ancient Clock—Precious Treasures—Quaint Customs—Betrothed Couples—The Hotel—Its Interior—A Lack of Patrons—Costumes of a By-gone Age—Farewell to Marken—Remote Districts—Monnikendam—Ancient Houses—Hotel de Posthoorn—The Postman of the Past—A Difficult Stairway—We Stroll about the Town—Our Retinue—In Front of the Hotel—Such Curious Children—Supper—We Visit the Shops—Pantomime—A Novel Experience—They Cannot Understand—No Candles—We Attract a Crowd—The Clothing Store—A Marken Suit—“Too High”—Bargaining—A Stranger to the Rescue.
E walk along the narrow streets, some of which are paved with little footways, and now and then visit one of the whitewashed frame houses with their red tiled roofs. These houses are built after one pattern, and resemble each other so closely in their crude architecture, that a stranger might easily make a mistake, and enter the wrong door, without having previously taken anything stronger than a glass of water. The interior consists of four small rooms, which are kept scrupulously clean and orderly. One of these is used as a living-room, and one as dining-room and kitchen. The beds of the family are simply close, dark recesses in the wall, in which there are bunks or shelves, and on these the mattresses and bed clothing are placed, the occupants mounting by means of wooden steps to this ill-ventilated and most uninviting resting-place. We shudder as we glance into these dismal closets, and feel a touch of nightmare at the thought of sleeping in one of them.
In every house there seems to be reserved a special apartment, as a storage-place for the family heirlooms, and here are preserved articles which have been handed down from generation to generation for centuries. Dolls of various primitive shapes, broken and torn, with black, dusty clothing; clocks long since arrested in their career by age or accident; chairs of rude manufacture, with perhaps a broken leg or back; watches and jewelry of ancient design; odd furniture and pieces of china, besides other relics which would be useful only in an exhibition of the antique. All these things are sacred in the eyes of their owners, who would as soon think of parting with one of their children as of allowing one of these treasures to pass out of the family.
At one of the houses I see stored among the heirlooms a clock, which the owner informs me has been in the family for two hundred and fifty years. I do not doubt the assertion, for it looks as though the dust of a thousand years has silently but steadily accumulated upon its venerable face. I am about with my handkerchief to brush off some of this precious dust, in order to see the wood and brass in their peculiar coloring and design, but am quietly stopped by the hand of my host.