Edmondo De Amicis

“ With the milk of these animals is made that exquisite cheese called Edam, after the town of that name in North Holland. On market days, all the towns in this province are overflowing with these handsome reddish forms piled up like cannon-balls in the streets and piazzas, and pointed out to the stranger with a sentiment of national pride. Alkmaar sells more than four millions of kilogrammes per year, Horn three millions, Purmerende two, Medenblick and
Enkhuysen from seven to eight hundred thousand, the whole of North Holland more than fifteen millions of francs worth. ”

“ It is all meadow-land, and all the other polders are like the Beemster. The only salient objects upon those verdant plains are the posts which support the storks' nests, and here and there some enormous bone of a whale, the antique trophy of Dutch fishermen, planted upright in the earth, and serving for the cows to scratch themselves against. All transportation of produce from farm to farm is done by boat; the houses are entered by a drawbridge which is raised at night, like the bridge of a fortress; the herds pasture without any herdsmen; ducks and swans swim freely in the long canals ”

“ Public opinion is divided upon the point. There are some who favor it, because it amuses them both as actors and spectators; and these deny or excuse the disorders, and insist that a prohibition of the kermesse would cause a revolution. There are others who wish to see it suppressed, and desire the substitution, of honest and decent public entertainments, the want of which, in their opinion, is the principal reason for the excesses to which the people abandon themselves on the occasion of the kermesse. ”

“ The servant-women, to whom extraordinary liberty is conceded at that time, and who would take it if it were not given, are the principal performers in the festival. Each one is accompanied by her betrothed husband, or her lover, or by some young fellow hired for the occasion, the price varying according as he wears a hat or a cap, or if he be handsome or ugly, a clown or a smart fellow. The peasants come into the town or village, to enjoy the kermesse, on some fixed day, which is called the peasants' day. ”

“ Besides the tufts of curled hair, the earrings like a horse's blinders, the gold band across the forehead, and the white cap concealing the ears and the nape of the neck, they wear upon their heads a great straw hat of an almost cylindrical form, with a broad brim lined with green or yellow silk, turned up in front, and having a large gap between the forehead and the brim, reminding one of the open mouths of those monsters which Chinese soldiers used to wear to strike terror into their enemies. ”

“ At the time of kermesse there rises within a Dutch city another city, composed of cafés, theatres, shops, tents, and kiosks, which vanish at the end of the festival, break up like an encampment, and are piled in boats and carried off to some other place. The inhabitants of this vagabond city are traders, musicians, actors, jugglers, giants, colossal women, monstrous children, deformed animals, wax figures, wooden horses, automata, monkeys, trained dogs, and wild beasts. ”

“ In some towns measures have been taken to restrain license; in others an hour is fixed, after which all shops and booths are closed; in others the booths are erected away from the centre of the city. The authorities of Amsterdam have fixed a certain number of years, after which no preparations will be allowed for the festival. It may therefore be affirmed that the time is not far distant when the famous kermesse will be reduced to a cheerful and temperate carnival, with great advantage to public morality and national dignity. ”

“ Habitually serious, economically modest, and domestic, in the time of the kermesse they become boisterous, laughing at decency, and passing the whole night away from home, while they spend, in one day, the fruit of a whole month's labor. ”

“ These are, in fact, the provinces where flourish, in all its beauty, that famous race of cattle to which Holland, in great part, owes her riches; those large, pacific cows, which give as much as thirty quarts of milk a day, descendants of those glorious animals which, in the middle ages, were sent to ennoble the race in France, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, and Russia ”

“ Some of the larger squares are entirely paved with small red and yellow bricks, disposed in symmetrical designs, and looking at a distance like a carpet; and the streets have two sidewalks, one of bricks for passengers, and one above it of stone, projecting from the walls of the houses, upon which no one must place his foot if he wishes to avoid the angry looks of the inhabitants who may observe him from the windows. Many of the houses are whitewashed, no one can tell why, halfway up; some are painted black as if in mourning, and some are varnished like coaches from top to bottom. ”

“ As I wandered about among the shops and shows, I met a few peasant women slightly overcome with liquor, a little shaky on their legs, and singing in cracked voices; saw a few couples exchanging amorous glances, and met some groups of women who were preluding the nocturnal exercises by giving shoves with hip and shoulder strong enough to throw each other down ”

“ Before each one stood a crowd of lookers-on, from which two or three peasants would every now and then emerge and enter the booth to see the spectacle. I never have seen gentler or simpler mannered people, or more easy to amuse. ”

“ Then I seized my valise in my hand, and went down-stairs. The citizens below, warned by the waiter of my eccentric behaviour, had come out of the dining-room, and were standing in the hall as I came down, looking at me as if I were some patient escaped from a madhouse. I grew red as fire, at which they were still more astonished; and dropping my heavy valise, stood with my eyes fixed on the floor. Everybody looked at me, and no one spoke. I was more humiliated than I had ever been in my life before. Why? ”

“ There are in the whole polder almost three hundred farms, possessing about six thousand beef cattle and more than four hundred horses. The only trees to be seen are poplars, elms, and willows, grouped about the houses as a defence against the wind. ”

“ For long distances in the streets you meet no one; and, what is unusual in a town of more than ten thousand inhabitants, the few people, men. women, and. children who pass, or stand in the door-ways, all salute the stranger courteously. ”

“ Their hips are absurdly high, either made so by the fashion of the petticoat or by nature, and the bust, which is very large at the girdle, grows smaller as it rises, contrary to our women, who make their chests broad and their waists small. ”