are hidden. The style of gauffering is still the same as is seen in the
muslin caps of so many Dutch pictures of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, especially in those of Frans Hals. When in mourning, the women
wear a plain linen cap without any lace, and the men a black bow in their
caps. It is quite a work of art to make up a peasant woman's head-dress,
and several cap-makers are kept busy at it all day long.

The clothes the men wear are not so elaborate. They used to be short
knickerbockers with silver clasps, but these have entirely gone out of
fashion, and they have been replaced by ordinary clothes of cloth or
corduroy. Both sexes wear wooden shoes, which the men often make
themselves. In the far-famed little island of Marken, the men are very
clever at this work, and they carve them beautifully. In some lonely
hamlets the unmarried women wear black caps with a thick ruche of ostrich
feathers or black fur round the face. The jewellery consists of garnet
necklaces closed round the neck and fastened by golden clasps. The garnets
are always very large, and this fashion is general ail over the
Netherlands. In Stompwyk, a little village between The Hague and Leyden, a
peasant family possesses garnets as large as a swallow's egg.

If the dress of the boers is solid, quaint, and national, the daily food
of the class is in keeping with their conservative temper and traditional
gastronomic ability. It is of the plainest character, but often consists
of the strangest mixtures. When a pig is killed, and the different parts
for hams, sides of bacon, etc., have been stored, and the sausages
made--especially after they have boiled the black-puddings, or
'Bloedworst,' which is made of the blood of the pigs--a thick fatty
substance remains in the pot. This they thicken with buckwheat meal till
it forms a porridge, and then they eat it with treacle. The name of this
dish is 'Balkenbry.' A portion of this, together with some of the