the trip of trips, for the visitor to Holland, everyone you meet advises Marken; the gold-braided hotel porter advises Marken, the posters in the streets proclaim Marken—and rightly so, for it takes you out into the country, away from modern influences, and lands you in an atmosphere of unadulterated Dutchness.
The tourists had hardly had time to make themselves comfortable on the quarter-deck, before the tall, bare masts of the fishing fleet of these amphibious islands showed themselves on the horizon. Before long, the engine slowed down and the little steamer entered the breakwater and glided noiselessly to the landing place. A group of the islanders were waiting to greet the excursionists, in their gayly colored costumes, which they have religiously clung to through all the disturbing influences of Fashion, that irritating, relentless, and arbitrary mistress of modern life. Here she has found no listeners, and the omnipresent advance agent of modern vagaries of the beautiful has not ventured. With their high-crowned hats and loose baggy breeches to the knee, the men, one and all, had their hands pushed well down into their roomy
A Marken fishing-boat.
pockets, and viewed the approach with a calculating and sober air. The women’s caps were red crowned, with a piece of lace in front. Their hair, which was very blond, was worn in two long curls, one hanging down each side of the face, and a stiff if, stubborn little bang curling out from under the head-dress like the visor of a cap. I must hesitate at a description of the waist, as it was made up of so many parts that I have lost myself in its mysteries; but the general impression is that of red sleeves and highly colored and striking patterns of green, red, or brown about the body. The skirts were the bulgy kind, as is found all over Holland, and the feet were encased in wooden ‘“shoon” like those of the men. Their hands, which were not small, seemed to bother them, however, for they had no pockets to hide them in, and seemed to solve the problem by going about in twos and threes, tightly grasping each other’s hands. How crudely Dutch they were, and how far away from everything modern!
The iron steamer was the only jarring note of an overstrung civilization, and that was being left behind, as the party stepped ashore and followed their captain through