13S HORTICULTURAL TOUR. 



us much. They arc commonly large ; the glass is of fine 

 quality, and kept bright and transparent ; uniformly dis- 

 playing within curtains of snowy whiteness, either neatly 

 fringed or in rich folds. At the windows of the first floor, 

 the ladies of the house may generally be seen seated, employ- 

 ed in knitting or sewing, or other vensterwerken (window- 

 works), and now and then taking a peep into the little mir- 

 ror placed on the outside, as at Bruges and Ghent. The 

 ladies, we believe, seldom walk out excepting to the church 

 or the fair ; we have seen scarcely any abroad but on Sun- 

 day. 



Although the kermis was past, the market-places were 

 still partly occupied by vertoonplaatzen or temporary theatres 

 of various descriptions, all of them most formally announ- 

 cing, at the top of their bills, the special permission of the 

 " Vcl Edele Achtbare Heeren Burgemeesteren" of Rotter- 

 dam. The phantasmagoria was announced, with true 

 Dutch sincerity, as " Begoocheling van het Gezigt," De- 

 ceptions of Sight. A small tent contained some figures of 

 ingenious mechanism ; among others an imitation of a ca- 

 nary-bird, which the advertisement mentioned, with equal 

 simplicity, as a " doode (dead) kanarievogel," which 

 whistled fourteen airs. — The few kraams for merchandise 

 which still remained were furnished with goods evidently 

 of first rate quality, and many of them of English manu- 

 facture. A Dutch kermis is very different from a modern 

 Scottish fair : the former is attended not only by all the 

 principal people of the town in which it is held, but by all 

 the families of distinction to a great distance around. Many 

 wafel kraams, or small tents for the manufacture and sale 

 of wafel-cakea and kermiskoeks, still remained, and seemed 

 to In- well frequented. 



The Dutch appear to deserve the character given them 

 of being an ordi rfy, sober, and quiet people, remarkable 



