Broek

OF THE DUTCH PARADISE

It has long been a matter of discussion and controversy among the pious and
the learned, as to the situation of the terrestrial paradise from whence
our first parents were exiled. This question has been put to rest by
certain of the faithful in Holland, who have decided in favor of the
village of Broek, about six miles from Amsterdam. It may not, they observe,
correspond in all respects to the description of the Garden of Eden, handed
down from days of yore, but it comes nearer to their ideas of a perfect
paradise than any other place on earth.

This eulogium induced me to make some inquiries as to this favored spot in
the course of a sojourn at the city of Amsterdam, and the information I
procured fully justified the enthusiastic praises I had heard. The village
of Broek is situated in Waterland, in the midst of the greenest and richest
pastures of Holland, I may say, of Europe. These pastures are the source of
its wealth, for it is famous for its dairies, and for those oval cheeses
which regale and perfume the whole civilized world. The population consists
of about six hundred persons, comprising several families which have
inhabited the place since time immemorial, and have waxed rich on the
products of their meadows. They keep all their wealth among themselves,
intermarrying, and keeping all strangers at a wary distance. They are a
"hard money" people, and remarkable for turning the penny the right way. It
is said to have been an old rule, established by one of the primitive
financiers and legislators of Broek, that no one should leave the village
with more than six guilders in his pocket, or return with less than ten; a
shrewd regulation, well worthy the attention of modern political
economists, who are so anxious to fix the balance of trade.

What, however, renders Broek so perfect an elysium in the eyes of all true
Hollanders is the matchless height to which the spirit of cleanliness is
carried there. It amounts almost to a religion among the inhabitants, who
pass the greater part of their time rubbing and scrubbing, and painting and
varnishing; each housewife vies with her neighbor in her devotion to the
scrubbing-brush, as zealous Catholics do in their devotion to the cross;
and it is said a notable housewife of the place in days of yore is held in
pious remembrance, and almost canonized as a saint, for having died of pure
exhaustion and chagrin in an ineffectual attempt to scour a black man
white.

These particulars awakened my ardent curiosity to see a place which I
pictured to myself the very fountain-head of certain hereditary habits and
customs prevalent among the descendants of the original Dutch settlers of
my native State. I accordingly lost no time