The garb of the male Volendamer is about as characteristic as any regalia in Holland. His round, flat-crowned cap permits the exposure of its owner’s bronzed and finely cut features. He wears a loosely tied scarf about his neck, and his shirt or jersey usually displays a large patch cut from another shirt or jersey regardless of any probable ambition to match the patterns. Whenever and wherever the garment wears out, then and there it is patched, and by their patches ye shall know them; that is, you can come within measurable proximity of telling the daily duties of every man by the position of his patches. One will have a livid green patch down the collar bone of a dark maroon jersey; another will display a different colored sleeve from the elbow down. The Volendamer’s trousers extend in a southerly direction to the tops of the ankles only, and are built with a voluminously exaggerated peg-top effect, so much so that each cavernous side pocket must hold at least a peck, and to be able to find with any degree of proficiency such an insignificant article as a penknife in its depths, the wearer would have to go into early training as a contortionist. Week days he wears _klompen_, or the ordinary poplarwood shoes, which may be used for as many different and distinct purposes as the owner’s ingenuity may contrive--such as amusing the little tots by sailing a _klomp_ across the canal as a boat, or tying one on the end of a rod and offering it to the canal boat master as a receptacle in which to drop the toll as he poles his barge through the locks. The _vrouw_ sees that her “man” removes his _klompen_ before he dares enter the house, and upon each doorstep you will invariably behold one or more pairs, including, perhaps, those of a visitor in the kitchen paying his respects in his stocking feet. On Sundays, however, the more fastidious Volendamer will break the monotony by changing the _klompen_ for the more genteel-looking low, leather, pump-like slippers. The most distinguishable feature of the Volendam feminine attire from that found on the Island of Walcheren or at Scheveningen, for example, is the immaculate white cap, somewhat of the shape of a miniature miter, terminating at the sides in two stiffly starched points that curl out from the ears like the horns of a water buffalo. The hair is cropped close and, according to the prevailing rules of decorum, only a fringe of it is allowed to be visible. Never under any conditions should a man see an unmarried member of Volendam’s gentler sex with her head uncovered.