“Most frequently the same room serves at once as bedroom, kitchen and storehouse for the fishing utensils. Some houses, however, have a second and separate room, called here the saloon, in which furniture and clothes are kept, but that is almost aristocratic luxury. The rooms which are flush with the ground have no ceiling, and communicate with the garret, over which the tile or thatch roof rises at right angles. The houses are equally deficient in chimneys as a rule, but before the principal window there is a large flat stone surrounded by a row of bricks. A piece of iron is fastened at the back of this stone, against which the fire is kindled. An opening in the roof allows exit to the smoke, which, before emerging, spreads through the loft, where the nets are dried. Only thirty houses are remarkable for possessing chimneys. Several times a year the interior is cleaned and whitewashed. A table surrounded by very low chairs, an old escritoire loaded with pretty china, an eight-day clock, milk tubs whose copper rings shine like gold, produce in the houses of the island an alliance of facts rarely found among other races, namely, of cleanliness with poverty. This taste for china, old glass, curtains and flowered counterpanes is a delicate feature in the Batavian character. Art sits down by the side of Misery at the fireside, which it enlivens with a consolatory beam.”
Plate [LVII], entitled In Bruitlaen, by Artz, in the Rijks Museum, shows the modern artist’s conception of a peasant room and furniture. First we notice a large kas or armoire, with heavy ball feet and pieces of china arranged on the top. More china adorns the chimney-shelf, and the chimney-piece with its valance is characteristic. The heavy carved beams, the windows with small leaded panes decorated with coats-of-arms, the tiled floor spread with a carpet, give an air of comfort to the room. The chairs are of the four-backed variety, the table is square, the stool has turned legs and stretchers, and there is a Bible on a stand and a Friesland clock on the wall.
The old farmhouse of which the modern traveller sees so many examples, with its red-tiled or thatched roof visible beneath its sentinel poplars, usually consists of a large living-room, a kitchen, a cheese-room, a dairy, two small bedrooms in the garret, a big cow-stable at the back, and an outside kitchen called the “baking-house.”
A native writer says:
“The ‘baking-house’ is often used as a living-room in summer, which is more cheerful than the solemn apartment into which the visitor is invariably ushered. A wide chimney lined with tiles stretches nearly across one side of this room; but the open fire on the hearth has long ago disappeared and given place to an ugly stove. Quaint brass fire-irons hang behind it, and on either side is an armchair, differing from its humbler brethren only in the possession of wooden arms. If there is a baby in the family, it is likely to be reposing in a cradle with green baize curtains as near as possible to the fireplace, in defiance of all laws of health. Two or three large cupboards, sometimes handsomely carved, always kept well polished, stand against the whitewashed walls. One of them generally has glass doors in the upper part; and on its shelves the family china—often of great value—is exposed to view. Unfortunately, these heirlooms in old families have been largely bought up by enterprising Jews. Sometimes, however, sentiment has proved stronger than the love of money, and the farmer has not parted with his family possessions. In a corner of the room a chintz curtain, or sometimes a double door, shows where the big press-bed is—an institution of pre-hygienic times which, to the peasant mind, has no inconveniences whatever. In the middle of the room a table stands on a carpet; and, as people take off their shoes at the door and go about in their thick woollen stockings, neither it nor the painted floor ever shows signs of mud. Another table stands near one of the windows, of which there are two or three. The linen blinds so closely meet the spotless muslin curtains, which are drawn stiffly across the lower panes on two horizontal sticks, that a stray sunbeam can hardly make its way into the room, even if it has been able to struggle through the thick branches of the clipt lime-trees that adorn the front of the house. On one of the tables a tray stands, with a hospitable array of cups and saucers, teapot, etc., and is protected from the dust by a crochet or muslin cover. The huge family Bible, with its huge brass clasps, has an honourable place, often on a stand by itself. Rough woodcuts or cheap prints, and a group of family photographs, which do not flatter the originals, are hung on the walls. The framed and glazed sampler, worked in wools by the farmer’s wife in her young days, usually makes a dessus de porte. The alphabet is the principal part of this extraordinary work of art; but it bears various other figures, which, on patient investigation, appears to have some resemblance to certain birds and flowers.”
The country home of wealth is usually built of small, hard, reddish-brown bricks resembling those used in the Elizabethan houses in England. The front entrance is often embellished with a handsome pediment and a stone loggia and steps. Flower beds, canals and woods surround the house, which has a dignified and attractive air. It is no less so within, for many Dutch houses, both in the country and city, are beautifully finished. The woodwork, whether of oak or mahogany, is often exquisitely carved and highly polished, and consists of broad staircases with ornate banisters, doors, panelled walls, mantelpieces and mirror frames. Many of the doors and windows are decorated with carvings of garlands of fruits, flowers and other devices, according to the period in which the house was built. In some of the old houses the walls are still hung with the old gilt leather of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Suburban houses as well as country seats bear fanciful names; and on the outskirts of The Hague, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and other large cities you may read Lust en Rust (Pleasure and Repose), Buiten Zorg (Without Care), Myn Rust (My Repose), Mon Bijou (My Jewel), Rosen Lust (Rose Pleasure), Honigbij (Honey Bee), Mijn Lust en Leven (My Pleasure and Life), Vriendschap en Gezelschap (Friendship and Sociability), and other such names. These retreats are often covered with creepers, and are situated in the centre of a lawn made gay with flower beds, arbours and sometimes strange ornaments of painted clay—gnomes trundling wheelbarrows, curious vases, windmills, etc., etc.
The town houses and such country houses as are built on reclaimed land are constructed on piles. They begin to build in Holland by digging to the depth of two or three feet. This excavation soon fills with water. Piles are then driven into the ground, and the ends are cut off evenly; and on this level surface beams of oak are laid. The back and front of the house are not added until long after the roof is laid on, so that the air may pass through and dry the walls thoroughly. The houses are lightly constructed of brick, iron or wood, with outer casings of stone or marble, intended for show and not for solidity. At the back of the house there is usually a little garden, to which it is necessary to bring every year earth and gravel to replace the soil that the water has carried away.
Frequently the Dutch town house consists of two apartments; for land is dear, and so are house rents in the cities. The lower apartment is called benedenhuis, which comprises a cellar and the ground floor; while the second apartment, called bovenwoning, is composed of the first and second floors and a garret. Each apartment has its separate entrance.
The houses are deeper than they are wide, and the ordinary arrangement consists of a drawing-room in the front, a dining-room in the back, and a dark room in the middle. The latter is the family sitting-room, particularly in winter evenings, for its complete isolation from the outside protects the inhabitants from the cold air. Of late years this middle room has become less popular, and every room in recently built dwellings contains one or two windows. The houses are comfortable, and are heated throughout.