The meals are cooked in a large iron pot, which hangs from a hook over the open hearth. The fuel consists of huge logs of wood and heather sods, which are also used for covering the roofs of the 'Plaggewoning.' Black or rye bread takes the place of white, and is generally home-made. In Brabant the women bake what is called 'Boeren mik.' This is a delicious long brown loaf, and there are always a few raisins mixed with the dough to keep it from getting stale. Those who have no ovens of their own put the dough in a large long baking-tin and send it to the baker. One of the children, on his way back from school, fetches it and carries it home _under his arm_. You may often see farmers' children walking about in their wooden shoes with two or more loaves under their arms. Both wooden shoes and loaves are used in a dispute between comrades, and the loaf-carrier generally gains the day. The crusts are very hard and difficult to cut, but, inside, the bread is soft and palatable. In Brabant the peasants--small of stature, black-haired, brown-eyed, more of the Flemish than the Dutch type--are as a rule Roman Catholics, and on Shrove Tuesday evening 'Vastenavond,' 'Fast evening' (the night before Lent), they bake and eat 'Worstebrood.' On the outside this bread looks like an ordinary white loaf, but on cutting it open you find it to contain a spicy sausage-meat mixture. All the people in this part of the country observe the Carnival, with its accustomed licence. Times for farming are bad in the Netherlands as elsewhere. The rents are high and wages low, and the consequence is that many peasants sell their farms, which have for a long time been in their families, and rent them again from the purchasers. The relations between landlord and tenants are in some respects still feudalistic, and hence very old-fashioned. On some estates the landlord has still the right of exacting personal service from his tenants, and can call upon them to come and plough his field with their horses, or help with the harvesting, for which service they are paid one 'gulden,' or 1s. 8d. a day, which, of course, is not the full value of their labour. The tenants likewise ask their landlord's consent to their marriages, and it is refused if the man or woman is not considered suitable or respectable.