The houses are roofed with red tiles, which exhibit many different shapes and styles, and we perceive numerous flags floating from the windows, and decorations of gay bunting. Upon asking the reason of this festive appearance in the isolated and usually quiet city, we are informed that they are in honor of a wedding which is to take place within a few days. A wedding in this town is an occasion of great rejoicing, and every household enters into the spirit of the entertainment with enthusiasm, as the whole community resembles one large family, and from the least to the greatest, they are all well known to each other. The affairs of one are the affairs of all, hence a single marriage becomes the festive occasion of the entire population. This is not strange when one recollects that the people have no other means of entertainment, such as theatres, concert halls or libraries, whist or euchre parties. They have nothing save the individual happenings in the domestic lives of the different families.
A woman whose children are sitting quietly upon the curb stone near us, looks hurriedly around the door of her house, and seeing the commotion which our arrival excites, calls anxiously for her “kids” to come to her protecting arms, in mortal fear lest one of her brood should be carried off by these strange and unexpected visitors. As I look around, and behold the robust and muscular physiques of both men and women, I think any one would be daring indeed who would attempt to carry off a child or any other possession from these people in opposition to their wills.
| “The houses are roofed with red tiles.” (See page 243.) |
The women and children here are richly endowed with the blessings of health and strength. The whole population of thirteen hundred people employ but one doctor, who has time to grow rusty in his profession, so few are the demands upon his skill. I suggest to him on the occasion of a meeting, that he adopt the Chinese plan of remuneration, that is that the people pay him an annuity as long as they are well, and that when they are sick, they be entitled to his services gratis.
The natives of Holland are not inclined to excesses of any kind, and they thus enjoy the full benefit of naturally sound constitutions, and are able to transmit to their children perfect, unimpaired health. As we stroll along this backbone of a street without name or pretensions, we stop at many of the doorways to talk with the residents, and soon become impressed with the hospitality of the people, who are arrayed in all the glory of their Sunday finery, and appear at the fronts of their homes happy in the consciousness that they as well as all their surroundings are in “apple pie order.” We are as much interested in them as they are in us, and that is saying a great deal.
The great, stalwart fellows with their broad shoulders and rugged faces are indeed true types of all that is brave and manly. A loose shirt and baggy trousers, with a small cloth cap is the ordinary costume of the men, many of whom wear wooden shoes; leather slippers are also worn. The women are equally brave and strong in appearance, and as large in proportion as the men. Their sturdy forms and healthy faces are rare models for the artist’s brush. Their dress is of homespun linen, generally dyed blue, and is composed of several pieces; sometimes these are of various colors combined in a picturesque and effective arrangement. The head-dress is of lace and is pretty and becoming: indeed many of our fashionable belles might greatly improve their appearance by adopting the charming coiffure of these pretty and apparently unconscious Holland girls and women. These people represent a higher type of humanity than the inhabitants of Marken: their intelligence and refinement are more marked, but they have the sunny temperaments and contented dispositions characteristic of the Hollanders, and though ignorant of the customs of the outside world, and limited in their lives to a narrow sphere, they are a happy and satisfied people. They seem in that happy state of mind, so rarely possessed, in which they can say I have enough. Happiness consists not in possessing much, but in being content with what we possess. He who wants little always has enough.
These men, like those in the neighboring Island of Marken, obtain their livelihood by fishing. They leave their homes in small boats or yachts every Monday morning, and do not return until late Saturday night, allowing them but one day in the week, Sunday, to spend in their homes. Close by us is the anchorage, so called from the fact that dozens of fishing boats anchor within its harbor. I suppose that fully a hundred of these yachts are lying there now, and, shifting from side to side as the wind stirs the waters of the Zuyder Zee, present the appearance of a city of masts in a hurricane.