Over in Marken the proper thing to do to complete the delusion is to allow one of the many children who pester the passengers upon landing from the boat to lead you to his home, reimbursing him financially to the extent demanded--not a very vast sum, in any event. It will be a scrupulously clean little place of one, and not often more than two rooms. It will contain the usual amount of brass-work and a nondescript collection of Delft ware. The floor will be brick, the fireplace will have its ingle nooks, and its pot of whatever-it-is suspended over the fire from a crane, will be simmering gently. In the side walls will be built the sleeping accommodations, like bunks on a ship, draped with curtains at night and closed to view--and air--in the daytime by means of paneled wooden doors. This will be about all to see in Marken, and you will be happy enough to be led back to the boat to escape further mercenary moves on the part of the populace. The shirt of the male Markener can show as many patches as that of the male Volendamer, but instead of the little round cap he sees fit to favor a sort of derby hat having a two-inch crown. His breeches are of the knickerbocker type, but still very much peg-topped, and his _klompen_ are sometimes varnished yellow and carved in more or less delicate tracery. Unlike those of Volendam, the women of Marken let the hair grow, plaiting it into two braids which hang down, one from each ear, in defiance to any custom that may obtain across on the mainland. X ALKMAAR AND THE HELDER It is as imperative that the traveler through Holland should journey from Amsterdam to Alkmaar by canal as it is that he should not overlook the steam tram trip between The Hague and Leyden. The twenty-four and a half miles between the commercial metropolis and the cheese capital of North Holland is made in a little less than three hours. Taking all things into consideration, it is one of the most enjoyable steamboat excursions in the kingdom. Bearing up through the North Sea Canal and the River Zaan, the packet makes its first stop at Zaandam; then on up the river it winds between the bristling windmills, turns from one canal into another, crosses a small lake, and finally negotiates the waterway that leads eventually to Alkmaar. The _polders_ on either hand are far below the level of the water you are steaming over, so that you see no more than the tops of the farmhouses. Although the wake of the passing boat rattles the reeds along the banks, the fishermen concealed here and there among them seem not the least perturbed, but continue to fish with all their might and main, allowing the steamer to play what havoc it will with the movements and inclinations of their prey.