It rained, in the first place, which was very inconsiderate of it; rained on the race-course, on the school-girls in white muslin with wreaths of flowers on their heads, on the peasants in their distinctive dresses, making their full, white sleeves limp and shapeless, spotting the scarlet-and-blue bodices of the maidens from the Steinlach Thal and Black Forest; rained on the monkey-shows and negro minstrels, the Punch and Judys, the beer-shops, booths, and benches, on the country people in their best clothes, the city people in their worst, upon all that goes to make up the Cannstadt Volksfest,—in short, upon the just and the unjust.

It was a beautiful experience to sit there in a waterproof, holding an umbrella and seeing thousands of other people in waterproofs holding umbrellas, on the raised circular seats that extended round the whole great race-course, while, occupying the entire space, within the track was a mass of men standing, also with umbrellas; but on account of our elevated position we could see very little of the men, while the umbrella effect was gigantic. It was like innumerable giant black mushrooms growing in a bog.

And all the time the band opposite the empty royal pavilion played away with great energy, while without this enclosure for the races, among the surrounding booths and “shows,” country people were plunging ankle-deep in the mud, and the violins that call the world to see the Fat Woman, the accordion which the trained-dog man plays, the turbulent orchestras of the small circuses, and the siren tones of the girl who sings for the snake-charmer, united to make an ineffable Pandemonium.

This Volksfest was founded fifty years ago by Wilhelm, father of the present king of WÜrtemberg, who did much to promote the agricultural interests of his people, taking great personal interest in everything appertaining to farming, stock, etc., giving prizes with his own hand for the best vegetables and fruits, the largest, finest cattle,—for excellence, in fact, in any department. Since then, it is an established national event, that happens every year as regularly as September comes; always attracting many foreigners, to whom it is amusing and interesting, in the rare opportunities it affords of seeing many distinctive features of Suabian peasant-life. It should be visited with thick boots and no nerves, for the ground is as if the cattle upon a thousand hills had come down in a great rage and trampled it into pits and quagmires, and the noise is—utterly indescribable. To say that the Volksfest combines the peculiar attractions of the Fourth of July, St. Patrick's Day, a State Fair, and Barnum, gives, perhaps, as correct a notion of the powwow that reigns supreme, as any elaborate description that might be made.

Yes, it is like entertainments of a similar grade with us,—like, yet unlike. The elephant goes round, the band begins to play, the men in front of the different tents roar and gesticulate and try to out-Herod one another, the jolly little children go swinging round hilariously on the great whirligigs, the man with the blacked face is the same cheerful, merry, witty personage who charms the crowd at home. Indeed, they are all quite the same, only they talk German, they are jollier and fatter, they take their pleasure with more abandon, and there is one vast expansive grin over the whole throng. Instead of the tall, thin girl in book-muslin, who comes in from the country to see the circus, clinging tight to her raw-boned lover's hand, both looking painfully conscious and not so happy as they ought, we have here, too, the country sweethearts, but of another type. The peasant-girl and her Schatz, broad, blissful, rosy, the most delicious personifications of unconsciousness imaginable, go wandering about among the clanging and clashing from the tents, the beer-drinking, the shouts and rollicking laughter, and find it all a very elysium. Their happiness is as solid as they themselves; and if there are other eyes and ears in the world than those with which they drink in huge draughts of pleasure as palpably as they take their beer from tall foaming tankards, they, at least, are oblivious of them.

But we left it raining heavily, cruelly blighting our hopes. A Volksfest with rain is a heartless mockery of fate, and a rainy Volksfest, when there is a Kaiser to see, unspeakably aggravating. But the obnoxious clouds being in German atmosphere naturally knew what etiquette demanded of them, and respectively withdrew just as the pealing of the Cannstadt bells announced his majesty's approach; and as he and his suite rode into the grounds, the sun, who had made up his mind to have a day of retirement and was in consequence a little sulky about appearing, had the courtier-like grace to try to assume a tolerably genial expression, since he had burst unwillingly into the imperial presence.

The pavilion for the people of the court was filled with ladies in brilliant toilets, with their attendant cavaliers, as the glittering train rode towards it; the city guard in front, according to an old custom, then the Kaiser and king side by side, and, after them, all the princes and grand dukes, etc., whom we have had the honor of mentioning more than once of late, and of seeing them often enough to look at them critically and search for our individual favorites as they gallantly gallop by. The enthusiasm of the multitude was immense, and the shouting proved that peasants' lungs are powerful organs.

After the horsemen came a line of open carriages, in the first of which was the empress and her majesty Queen Olga; the latter looking, as usual, pale, stately, gracious, and truly a queen. Princess Vera, the Grand Duchess of Baden, and other ladies followed, and they all went into the pavilion, while the Kaiser and king rode about among the people, looking at models, machinery, animals,—and being scrutinized themselves from the top of their helmets to their spurs, it is needless to say.

Upon joining the ladies the crown prince took off his helmet, kissed the queen's hand, then his mother's, which amiable gallantry we viewed with deep appreciation and interest. The next thing to see was the prize animals, which were led over the course past the pavilion, wearing wreaths of flowers. Some vicious-looking bulls, their horns and feet tied with strong ropes, and led by six men, regarded the scarlet of the officers' uniforms very doubtfully, as if they had half a mind to make a rush at it, ropes or no ropes. There were pretty, white cows, who wore their floral honors with a mild, bovine grace: and sheep with ribbons floating from their tails, and a coquettish rose or two over their brows, were attractive objects; but pig perversity and ugliness so adorned was too absurd.

The event of the day was the “gentlemen's races,” as they are called, being under the direction of a club, of which the Prince of Weimar is president, and Prince Wilhelm a member. They were interesting, and the whole picture gay and pleasing,—the flying horses, with their jockeys in scarlet, yellow, and blue silk blouses; the pavilion full of bright colors, the hundreds of banners waving in the breeze; beyond the grounds, pretty groves, and the little Gothic church at Berg, well up on the hill: but, as the Shah of Persia said when they wanted to have some races in his honor at Berlin, “Really, it isn't necessary. I already know that one horse runs faster than another.”

There were two structures there which deserve special notice. When I tell you that they were composed of ears of corn, apples, onions, etc., you will never imagine how artistic was the result, and I quite despair of conveying an idea of their beauty. One was the music-stand, having on the first floor an exhibition of prize fruits; above, the military bands from the Uhlan and dragoon regiments; yet higher, a platform with tall sheaves of wheat in the corners, and in the centre, upon a large base, a column sixty feet high, perhaps, bearing on its summit a statue of Concordia. But the walls of this little temple, and the lofty column too, were all of vegetables, arranged with consummate skill on a firm background of wood covered with evergreen. Imagine, if you can, a kind of mosaic, with arabesques in bright colors; sometimes a solid white background of onions, with intricate scrolls and waving lines of deep-red apples, seemingly exactly of a size, ingeniously designed and perfectly executed. It was quite wonderful to observe how firm and compact and precise this vegetable architecture was; and surprising enough to discover old friends of the kitchen-garden looking at us proudly from this thing of beauty. Golden traceries of corn, elaborate figures in cranberries, Æsthetic turnips and idealized beets,—all the products of WÜrtemberg soil, in fact,—utilized in a masterly way, and all as firm and sharp in outline as if carved out of stone. A broad triumphal arch fashioned in the same way was quite as much of a marvel, and most effective as one of the gates of entrance.

After the races the Kaiser rode away in an open carriage with the king, and that was the last we saw of this attractive old gentleman, with his genial, kindly, honest face, and simple, soldierly ways,—in his freshness and strength certainly a wonderful old man, whatever newspapers and political writers may say of him. They say his private life is simple in the extreme; that his library is only a collection of military works; that he carefully keeps everything that is ever given him, even sugar rabbits that the children in the family give him at Easter. It is said that once, in Alsace, in the midst of the excitement over him and the celebration, he noticed a little boy all alone in the streets crying bitterly, and called to him. “What's the matter, little man?” said the Kaiser.

“Matter enough,” replies the exasperated child. “This confounded emperor is the matter. They're making such a fuss about him, my ma's gone and forgotten my birthday.” The next day the boy received a portrait of the Kaiser, richly framed, with the inscription,—

“From the Emperor of Germany to the little boy who lost his birthday.”

After the line of carriages drove off, the cavalcade formed again, led this time by the crown prince and the Grand Duke of Baden; and they galloped over the course and out of the west gate in a very spirited way, to the great delight of the people, who shouted and cheered most frantically. Is anybody weary of hearing about these distinguished riders? We are a little tired of them ourselves, it must be confessed, goodly sights though they be. But now they are quite gone, and the last remembrance we have of them is the fall of their horses' hoofs, the glittering of metal, and the waving of plumes as they swept through the pretty arched gateway, stately and effective to the last.

The rollicking spirit of the Volksfest at evening, stimulated by unlimited beer, was a wonderful thing to observe. We stayed to see it by lantern-light, in order to be intimately acquainted with its merriest phases, and the noise of it rings in our ears yet, though now the Fest is quite over, the Volks are gone to their homes, the hurly-burly's done.

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