spire full of bells, badly out of the
perpendicular. The town has also some interesting old houses, one or
two of great beauty, and many enriched by quaint bas-reliefs.

The stadhuis is comparatively modern and not externally
attractive. Within, however, Edam does honour to three fantastic
figures who once were to be seen in her streets--Peter Dircksz,
Jan Cornellissen and Trijntje Kever, portraits of whom grace the
town hall. Their claims to fame are certainly genuine, although
unexpected. Peter's idiosyncrasy was a beard which had to be looped
up to prevent it trailing in the mud; Jan, at the age of forty-two,
when the artist set to work upon him, weighed thirty-two stones and
six pounds; while Trijntje was a maiden nine feet tall and otherwise
ample. Peter and Trijntje were, I believe, true children of Edam,
but Jan was a mere import, having conveyed his bulk thither from
Friesland. Like our own Daniel Lambert, he kept an inn. One of
Trijntje's shoes is also preserved--liker to a boat than anything else.

I have by no means exhausted Edam's roll of honour. Shipowner Osterlen
must be added--a burgher, who, in 1682, when his portrait was painted,
could point (and in the canvas does point, with no uncertain finger,)
to ninety-two ships of which he was the possessor. And a legend of
Edam tells how once in 1403, when the country was inundated by the
sea, some girls taking fresh water to the cows saw and captured
a mermaid. Her (like the lady in Mr. Wells's story) they dressed
and civilised, and taught to sow and spin, but could never make
talk. Possibly it is this mermaid who, caught in a fisherman's net,
is represented in bas-relief (as the fish that pleases all tastes)
on one of the facades of Edam, with accompanying verses which must
not be translated, embodying comments upon the nature of the haul by
various typical and very plain-spoken members of society--a soldier
and a schoolmaster, a monk and a fowler, for example.

Edam has yet another hero. On the Dam bridge are iron-backed benches
which never grow rusty. "One owes this particularity," says _Through
Noord-Holland_, "to the invention of an Edamer about 1569, who also
took his secret with him into the grave."

To the little fishing village of Volendain, paradise of quaint
costumes and gay prettinesses, artists invariably resort. Like much
of Monnickendam, and indeed almost all Dutch seaside settlements, the
village is, if not below sea-level, almost invisibl