northern rampart of the Thuringian range, a range whose outer summits attain a height of about two thousand feet above the sea level, while in the interior its highest points, the Inselsberg, the Schmucke, &c., rise to more than three thousand. The whole of this mountain range, extending over seventy or eighty miles in length, and with a variable breadth of from ten to forty miles, is covered with a luxuriant growth of forest trees, whose cultivation and protection afford occupation to a large number of the inhabitants of the neighbouring lowlands, while the profit derived from the sale of the timber forms no inconsiderable portion of the revenues of the various dukedoms in which the forest lies.

Merely from the point of view of the lover of natural scenery this Thuringian forest is well worth a visit. Within the space of a walk of two or three hours, the variety of scenery is something which requires to be seen in order to be believed. Starting, for instance, from the Schiesshaus, the principal inn at Tabarz, to walk up the Laucha Grund, the tourist leaves the open plain and extensive views, and passing through meadows where in September the ground is purple with the autumn crocus, soon finds himself in a narrow valley scarcely wider than is necessary to allow space for the carriage road and its brawling neighbour, the rapid, foaming Laucha, which gives the name to the glen. The mountain sides, so steep that it seems almost a miracle that trees can find a restingplace, are nevertheless covered from top to bottom with Fichten and Tannen, and all the various kinds of pine and fir. On one projecting crag these darker growths are replaced by the majestic beech and quivering birch, and ever and anon there juts up a steep precipitous rock, reminding the spectator of a gigantic Egyptian obelisk only partly hewn out and left to stand in its native wilderness by the disappointed workmen. A turn to the right will take us up a narrow valley, down which a babbling brook runs with many a waterfall, and whose moist rocky sides are overgrown with ferns and mosses of many kinds and colours. Suddenly the glen opens out into a broad expanse of mountain meadow whose greenness rivals the far-famed verdure of Ireland. Behind this is a long slope of beech and pine woods reaching right up to the top of the Inselsberg, on which, nestling among the trees, we can see the two hostelries which allure the traveller to spend the night in hope of seeing the sunrise which is as fickle here as on Snowdon or the Righi. Or if, instead of turning up this Felsenthal, we follow still further the high road that skirts the Laucha, we shall ascend by turns and zigzags, which remind one of the final steps in an Alpine pass, and presently find ourselves on an elevated table-land from which we can catch glimpses of the gentle slopes and fertile valleys of the south of Thuringia, and in the blue distance the hills of the Rhön Gebirge. Up here, too, we can walk among glades of beech-wood such as those under which Robin Hood and his outlaws may have danced and drank, while the appearance at times of an antlered head between the trees may serve to complete the resemblance. Steep crag and mountain pasture, beechen wood and dark

pine forest, the broad highway and the narrow track which it requires some of the agility of the goat to climb-all that the pedestrian who can be contented without snow or lakes requires, is to be met with in the Thuringian forest.

Historically, the district is by no means uninteresting: ruined castles on many a lofty point tell of manners and times and valiant deeds for ever passed away. For the Protestant Englishman one name, however, overshadows all other interests-the name of the great and brave Martin Luther. It was at Eisenach, just on the borders of the forest, that he begged his bread as a chorister, and at Erfurt, not many miles across the plain, that for many years he lived as a monk. The Wartburg, where he was confined by friendly violence, is a conspicuous object from many of the higher hills in the region, standing as it does on an isolated point just above Eisenach. In this old castle the curious stranger may still see the room which Luther occupied, and gaze out of the window on the glorious view, which, while so much has changed, must be in its main aspects the same which Luther saw. It was in one of these forest glades that the hare running from its pursuers found a refuge in the arms of the great Reformer. Here was the birthplace of the German Bible, the most precious gift of all that Luther gave to his country.

Still the name of Luther pervades the place: Luther's Catechism is learnt by the boys and girls in the village schools; Luther's portrait hangs in the most conspicuous place in the one church which serves for the associated villages of Tabarz and Cabarz, and in many others too. Whether to any great extent the spirit of Luther survives in the hearts of his countrymen is another matter, but even at this day his influence may perhaps be traced in the great contrast between the intellectual and spiritual freedom of the Thuringian peasantry and the abject superstition of such a population as the Bretons of Finisterre.

The writer and his family lodged for some weeks in a little house on the outskirts of Gross Tabarz. The windows of our Stube, or sitting-room, looked out across a meadow to the wooded ridge of the hills with the opening of the Laucha Grund just opposite. Close alongside was the village school where the Herr Schullehrer and the Fräulein Schullehrerinn instilled the three R's, the catechism, and the practice of singing into the village youth. At seven every morning they began by singing, and by two in the afternoon the school work was done. The Schullehrer was a tall, dignified gentleman, who spent most of his leisure time in recalling his geese from committing trespasses on his neighbours' patches of grass, and on Sundays superintended in a majestic manner the singing of the choir in church. The whole of the meadow between us and the mountain was divided into narrow strips, each strip being the portion originally allotted from a clearing of the forest land by the Gemeinde or Commune to some one family, who enjoy the perpetual right of use, subject to certain customs of cultivation. During a certain

number of weeks in summer all trespass on the neighbours' strips of grass is strictly forbidden, but after about the middle of September, when the second crop of grass is cut and gathered in, the cows of the village, under the charge of the village Hirt, are taken to feed over the whole pasture land indiscriminately. The geese of the Schullehrer appeared to have a thorough dislike of law, and always contrived three or four times in the morning to escape across into some neighbour's land, all the nicer because forbidden.

To the right of this meadow was a path leading to the forest, and again to the right a sloping field also divided into narrow strips, but arable land. One strip would have a crop of oats, the adjacent one would be filled with potatoes; the slender stalks and blue flowers of flax covered a third, while barley and wheat were the produce of others. The appearance of the cultivated land, as seen from some of the heights adjacent, reminds the spectator forcibly of one of those patchwork quilts sometimes seen in the cottages of thrifty housewives, in which the colour, order, and size of the different patches appear to be regulated by no law except that of the material that happens to be at hand.

The economic state of the village, which is only a type of many others in the district, is decidedly primitive. Every well-to-do family has its little strip of ground, or sometimes several such strips have been accumulated in one family by inheritance or intermarriages. The village butcher, with whose family ours was soon on tolerably intimate terms, was the owner, or at least the cultivator with perpetual rights, of many little fields situated in almost as many parishes. On these fields they raise the corn of which their bread is made, the potatoes, turnips, beet-root, &c., which help to provide them with food, and the flax which forms. the raw material of their linen underclothing. The flax is spun at home by the women during the winter months when field work is impossible, and is woven into long pieces of linen by village weavers in old-fashioned looms, such as could be seen fifty or sixty years ago in the homes of manufacturing villages in England. Each family also has its cow and its three or four geese. The latter, in addition to the profit derived by selling or eating their flesh, furnish a perennial source of revenue from their feathers, which are plucked at regular intervals from the living breasts and sold for the purpose of making pillows and feather beds for the inhabitants of more luxurious climes.

During the spring and summer, while the grass in the meadows is allowed to grow for hay, or for Grummet, as the second crop is called, the cows and geese are alike banished from the private land, and are taken under the charge of a Hirt on to the common land, the borders of the roads, or the small bits of mountain meadow among the forests not allotted by the Gemeinde to private owners.

Early every fine morning we were awaked by the blowing of the Kuh-hirt's horn as he passed through the village, and any one watching his progress would see a cow turned out from one out-house, two more

out of a second, and so on, the procession gradually increasing until, on leaving the village, the Hirt and his assistant would have from eighty to a hundred and twenty cows and bulls under the charge of themselves and their two dogs. In wandering in the daytime through the forests we often heard from a distance the tinkling of the large bells which the cows carry, and in a few minutes would meet the whole procession coming gently along the high road or narrow lane, somewhat to the alarm of the more timid members of our party, but by no means to the diminution of the picturesqueness of the scene. By six o'clock in the evening the Hirt had gathered his flock together and driven them back to the village, where the ox knows its owner, and, unbidden, each turns into its own stable.

The Ganse Hirt is usually a little boy or girl, to two or three of whom the village geese, often numbering two or three hundred, are confided for a similar, though not commonly so distant, an excursion. It is exceedingly amusing to see one of these winged armies returning at night and to notice the manner in which these birds, in England esteemed so foolish, turn from the main road in small parties down the lanes which lead to their respective homes. Woe to the gooseherd if any are missing or have been injured in any way during the expedition! He had better keep out of the way of the angry words, or worse, of the Bauerinn who owns them.

After the second crop of hay has been all gathered in, which is supposed to be achieved by the beginning of September, and for the gathering in of which the village schools have a special holiday, the meadows are open to the cattle and geese of all the inhabitants, and the Hirts have no longer such an arduous task. The pasture land becomes again for the time the property of the Commune, the "common land" which it originally was, and is dotted with red oxen or snow-white geese. During the months of July and August, the whole population, male and female, is for the most part occupied in getting in the crops of different kinds, which seem to form a continuous series, beginning with the first crop of hay, at the beginning of July, and ending with the Grummet, or second crop, carly in September. The women are by no means behind the men in the severity of their labours. During this time work begins at four A.M., and lasts till dusk. The crops are gathered without the assistance of the machinery which an English farmer would consider essential. A very short scythe, of primitive shape and make, is used for the grass and corn. The men employ a great part of their evenings in hammering these scythes, so as to give them a harder and sharper edge, and the continuous clang of the hammers is by no means an attractive or soothing feature of life in a German peasant proprietor village to a stranger in search of quiet. Mowing, we may notice, appears to be the one dignified agricultural work which a woman cannot do. Occasionally I have seen a woman use the scythe for a few minutes, but it was always with a sort of apology on the part of the

woman for intruding upon masculine functions, and seemed to be regarded by the men with compassionate toleration. Women and girls are competent in Thuringia to carry burdens of sixty, eighty, or even a hundred pounds weight in great baskets for miles to the nearest market town, but they cannot mow, or at least public opinion decrees that they shall not.

The produce of the small strips of land is taken to the poorer homes, either in curious baskets suspended like a knapsack by two straps passed over the shoulders, and carried always by women or children; or on wheelbarrows, which have the advantage of taking a rather larger quantity at once. The wealthier inhabitants employ rudely-constructed wagons, and generally in this case the men superintend the operation. The whole process of gathering in the harvest is carried on by each family for itself. A few hired labourers there are, but very few, and these cannot be got to work for so long hours or so energetically as the farmers themselves. Of course any volunteer assistance is eagerly welcomed. During our stay in the village, a regiment of infantry passing through on its way to some autumn manœuvres was einquartirt in the village. Each house-owner had to entertain with bed and board so many Männer, and sometimes a Pferd as well, the number of each being chalked up ostentatiously on the doors of the houses a day or two previously by a commissariat officer, who had come on in advance. There was some grumbling at the prospect on the part of the villagers, many of whom thought sixpence a day scarcely sufficient remuneration for feeding and housing a stalwart soldier. However, the day was fine, and the soldiers, as soon as their necessary military duty was done, set to work. to assist their hosts in getting the harvest in. There was little. grumbling in the village the next day, but only regrets that the regiment could not stop still longer.

To our children the gathering in of the harvest was a source of unmitigated satisfaction. The help, which it was amusement to them to. give, was a serious gain to the peasantry; and so the result was mutuall satisfaction and the formation of pleasant acquaintances between the English children and the German Bauermädchen, which resulted in many bouquets of flowers and much weeping when the necessity arosc for us to leave Thuringia and return to home duties.

The wants of the villagers for food and clothing are thus nearly supplied by their own labour on the small patches of land they cultivate. Black bread and a piece of Wurst or sausage furnish the staple of the ordinary peasant's meal. On Sundays, and the few holidays which they take, the fare is varied by the flesh of a home-reared kid, or rabbit, or hare, with which latter the woods and fields abound, and for the protection of which no game laws exist. A German never kills anything for the purpose of eating when it can be used for any other purpose, and thus their cows and oxen are either killed as very young veal, to save the trouble of rearing them, or reserved till their days