The cookery of the Dutch is pretty nearly on a par with their flesh-meats; their beef, mutton, veal, and pork, being rarely of tolerable quality, and invariably made to float in strong sauce, of which butter and spices are the chief ingredients. The table is, in most houses, laid in a central hall, looking into a garden; the floors are all painted, that they may not absorb the damp when washed, as they are almost daily: the beds are tolerably good, and the apartments of a moderate size. Before every house, is an elevated terrace, on a level with the ground-floor, having at each end a seat, usually of masonry also. On this terrace, called the _steupe_, the Dutch promenade half the day in fair weather, enjoying their pipes, and occasionally taking their _sopkies_; which are small glasses of raw spirits, for the most part hollands, their servants tender to them at intervals, as a matter of course. The extensive gardens of the late Dutch Company, through the centre of which is a broad gravel-walk full half a mile in length, are crowded every Sunday evening, and on all festive days, by a promiscuous group, who walk in parties, to and fro, under the shade of the oaks and other trees planted on either side. There is also an institution, but of a more private nature, and frequented, with few exceptions, by the Dutch only. It is held at a neat house, where wines, &c. are sold, having attached to it a spacious garden; not unlike some of our tea-drinking places in the vicinity of London. This is called _Concordia_; a name perfectly unsuited to the scenes occasionally disgracing the interior, which has more than once excited the attention of our government, in consequence of the seditious principles of its visitors.