One peculiarity of the Dutch home is the arrangement for storing and washing household linen. From the moment of a little girl’s birth her female relatives begin to collect the household linen she will have as a portion of her dowry; and the large cupboards and presses of every well-to-do home are stored with linen and damask. As the family washing is done but four times a year, great hampers are used as receptacles for the soiled linen. These are lowered by ropes from the cranes at the top of the house, placed in the canal boats, and carried to the meadows, where they are washed in the canals and laid on the grass. There they are sprinkled by means of curiously shaped wooden spoons with long handles that are dipped in the canal. The clothes, again packed in the hampers, are carried to the house, where they are mangled. The mangle and the napkin-press are found in every house, and the press is not unfrequently a decorative piece of furniture. One of the most interesting provinces in Holland is Friesland—as yet unspoiled by tourists and rich in old buildings, quaint villas and picturesquely costumed inhabitants. Workum and Hindeloopen (celebrated for its gaily-painted houses) both contain some good buildings of the seventeenth century; while at Leeuwarden, the residence of the governors of Friesland (of the Nassau-Dietz family, and ancestors of the reigning house of Holland), the Frisian Museum, with its fine collection of antiquities and porcelain, repays more than a brief visit. Here are two rooms from Hindeloopen, correctly furnished; and many houses with similar rooms still exist in that town. The walls of the smaller room are encased with blue and white Dutch tiles, ornamented with Scriptural or other subjects. The floor is laid with red and brown tiles. A cabinet containing articles of porcelain and curious little silver ornaments hangs upon the wall; and, hidden behind the painted woodwork, is a bed, like a bunk in a steamer, to which access is gained by means of a small and gaily painted ladder. The tables, chairs and other furniture are of simple form, and are painted with bright flowers on a cream or white background. The other room is similarly furnished, and has a number of wax figures of men, women and children dressed in the Hindeloopen costume. The Rijks Museum also contains a Hindeloopen room with characteristic furniture. We may, perhaps, be permitted to quote an extract from _On Dutch Waterways_, by G. Christopher Davies, as a vivid picture of the modern Frisian home.