It will be, peradventure, imagined by those who are not strong in their geography, or who have not studied the Book of Dresses, or who entertain little curiosity concerning one of the most noticeable and original districts in Europe,—that these touchy Friesland folk themselves don or doff nothing worth an Englishman turning his head to admire; carry aloft what all the well-bred world carries,—and therefore cannot afford to let any one thrive, save under the shadow of the ‘regulation beaver,’ to which all polite Europe subscribes. Yet the case happens to be, that if there be a land in which perpetual wonderment could make the traveller wry-necked, that land is North Holland. Hong-Kong can hardly be stranger, either in its composition or its maintenance. _So Sci_ herself (in Mr. Sealy’s capital Chinese tale) did not boast a head-tire more ‘express and surprising,’ than the gentlewomen of all ages, through whose active decision and passive contempt the Brown Hat had to run the gauntlet. Let us see if we can sketch this—though by no means catholically sure, that some stratum of use or ornament, may not have been overlooked in our specification. First, it is conceived that the hair upon the head of the Frieslander, must be cut as close as though subject to the pumpkin-shell barbarity of the pilgrim-fathers, when their scissors were intent on shearing off love-locks. Upon this closely cropped poll, comes first a knitted cap (Mrs. Loudon, perhaps, can tell whether there be an aristocratic or established stitch formula for its knitting), over that a silk scull cap. These tightly put on, the serious business of the head-gear begins. The victim is next hooped, bound, lined, circled and otherwise clasped up within gilt metal—various in its cut, provided it only fits close, ‘as some one said,’ for headaches, to throb against. The mistress of _Keetje_, the maid, is fond of having her kettle-cap made of gilt silver, sometimes—if she be of old family—of pure gold; and you will see her in the market-place, wearing, in addition to this precious piece of trepanning, a metal tiara, such as Grecian Queens wear upon the stage, stuck over with coarse jewels; nay, more, dangling at the sides of her face, a pair of inconceivable gilt pendants, at a distance looking like bunches of queer keys, or that minikin household furniture our English ladies now choose to suspend from their girdles. But this is not all. At the extreme angles of her forehead, _Keetje’s_ mistress—if a person of high fashion—must stick in two little square plots or tufts of frizzled silk, to pass for curls. This done, she may put on her cap of the finest lace, with its deep border or flap behind, fashioned like the brim of the dustman’s hat, but from the costly daintiness of its material, and the creamy whiteness of the throat it lies against, somewhat more picturesque. Finally, if _Keetje’s_ mistress be a Friesland _Miss Flamborough_ of ‘first water’—a lady who knows the