At Zierikzee in Zeeland a whale has been washed ashore by a
great tide and storm; it is much more than a hundred fathoms
long; no one in Zeeland has ever seen one even one-third as
long, and the fish cannot get off the land. The people would
be glad to see it gone, for they fear the great stink, for
it is so big they say it could not be cut in pieces and the
oil got out of it in half a year.

Stephen Capello has given me a cedarwood rosary, in return
for which I was to take and have taken his portrait. I paid
4 stivers for furnace brown and a pair of snuffers; I gave 3
stivers for paper; made a portrait of Felix, kneeling, in
his book in pen and ink, and Felix gave me one hundred
oysters. I gave Herr Lazarus, the great man, an engraved
"Jerome" and three large books. Rodrigo sent me some wine
and oysters. I paid 7 white pf. for black chalk. I have had
to dinner Tomasin, Gerhard, Tomasin's daughter, her husband,
the glass painter Hennick, Jobst and his wife, and Felix,
which cost 2 florins. Tomasin made me a gift of four ells of
gray damask for a doublet. I have changed a Philip's florin
for expenses.


VISIT TO ZEELAND (December 3-14, 1520)

On St. Barbara's Eve I traveled from Antwerp to Bergen-op-
Zoom; I paid 2 stivers for the horse, and I spent 1 florin 6
stivers here. At Bergen I bought my wife a thin
Netherlandish head cloth, which cost 1 florin, 7 stivers,