n front of the cheeks like the
head-gear of Italian oxen. Some women wear golden circles which gird
the forehead also, and are chased and ornamented in relief with
leaves, studs, and buttons. They nearly all dress their hair smooth
and tight, and wear white caps embroidered and trimmed with lace.
These fit the head closely like a night-cap, and cover the neck and
shoulders, descending in the form of a veil, which is also embroidered
and trimmed with lace. These flowing veils, resembling those of the
Arabs, and the peculiar and enormous earrings, give these women an
appearance partly regal and partly barbarous. If they were not so fair
as they are, one would take them for women of some savage land who
had still preserved the ornaments of their native dress. I am not
surprised that some travellers, seeing these earrings for the first
time, have thought that they were at once an ornament and an
instrument, and have asked their use. One might suppose that they are
made thus for another purpose than that of beautifying the
wearer--that they may serve as a defence to female modesty. For if any
impertinent person should attempt to salute a cheek so guarded, he
would encounter these obstacles and be kept at bay some distance from
the coveted object. These earrings, which are worn chiefly by the
peasant-women, are nearly all made of gold, and because of the size of
the spirals and of the other accessories they cost a large sum. But I
saw signs of even greater riches amongst the Dutch peasantry during my
country rambles.

Near the market square stands the cathedral, which was founded toward
the end of the fifteenth century at the time of the decadence of
Gothic architecture. It was then a Catholic church consecrated to St.
Lawrence; now it is the first Protestant church in the city.
Protestantism, with religious vandalism, entered the ancient church
with a pickaxe and a whitewash brush, and with bigoted fanaticism
broke, scraped, rasped, plastered, and destroyed all that was
beautiful and splendid, and reduced it to a bare, white, cold edifice,
such as ought to have been devoted to the Goddess of _Ennui_ in the
time of the _False and Lying Gods_. In the cathedral there is an
immense organ with nearly five thousand pipes, which gives, besides
other sounds, the effect of the echo. There are also the tombs of a
few admirals, decorated with long epitaphs in Dutch and Latin. Besides
these I saw nothing but a great many benches, some