uipage (for it was a little the worse for wear) which the fairy
produced from the gourd for the service of Cinderella--a sort of Phaeton
lined with red flowered velvet, the whole moulding beautifully carved
and gilt, the panels well painted with flowers, birds, urns, &c., the
wheels red and gold. It contained two seats for four persons, and a
coach box painted, carved, and gilt like the body of the carriage; the
whole was in a Lilliput style drawn by two gigantic black horses, whose
tails reached above the level of our heads. It was exactly suited to the
place where we were going, the village of Brock, which, like our
vehicle, was unlike anything I had seen before. I have, in former
letters, talked of Dutch cleanliness and neatness, but what is all I
have said compared with Brock? Even the people have their jokes upon its
superiority in this particular, and assert that the inhabitants actually
wash and scrub their wood before they put it on the fire. Lady Penrhyn's
cottages must yield the palm, they are only internally washed and
painted, but in Brock, Tops and bottoms, Outside and in, bricks and all,
are constantly under the discipline of the paint brush, and as if Nature
was not sufficiently clean in her operations, the stems of several of
their trees were white washed too! In fact, nothing seemed to
escape--the Milk pails were either burnished brass or painted buckets,
and the little straw baskets the women carried in their hands came in
for their share of blue, red, or green. They have such a dread of dirt,
that entrance is limited to the back door only, the opening of the
front door being reserved for grand occasions, such as weddings,
funerals, &c. It is not accessible by carriages and horses, on account
of several canals which intersect it; these sometimes widen, and in one
part the houses stand round a pretty little lake. I can give you no
better idea of the scene than a Chinese paper, whose neat summer houses
and painted boats are all mixed together. Most houses have each a
separate garden, kept in style equally clean. I really believe my own
dusty shoes were the most impure things in the whole village.

We returned to Buiksloot and then proceeded to Saardam, on the top of a
Dyke, which keeps the sea from inundating the vast levels of North
Holland. Saardam might be held up as the pattern of neatness had I not
visited Brock first; as it is, I can only say that, though four times as
large, it seems to be its riva