it owes its chief glory. Its handsome streets
are free from the bustle of a great trading city,
but yet are full of large and well furnished shops.
Though one of the largest and most ancient of
the Rhine cities, there is no trace of wretchedness
or squalor in it. Everywhere is an air
of quiet, easy, artistic industry, well according
with the neighbourhood of a seat of learning.
On this occasion there was bustle enough, but
pervading it all, a unity and an absence of
confusion, particularly agreeable. Every inhabitant
of Bonn entered into the spirit of the
celebration, and did his or her best towards it.
Every street was gay with a multitude of flags,
their infinite variety of colour contrasting with
the pure white of the house fronts. Innumerable
garlands, around balcony, window, and door,
diffused an air of freshness abroad.

The students of the university were, of
course, at the heart of all the out-door
celebrations. The ordinary student life supplied
ready machinery for organising the displays.
Most of the students belong to clubs which
are either Corps or Verbindungen. All the
members of these associations wear caps of
various bright colours, red, or mauve, or blue,
or green, according to the colour of the corps;
while the high officers of the body are arrayed
in the full dress of the old student period,
when it was the privilege of the students to
use swords against the staves of the townsmen.
The corps have somewhat of a military
organisation, and on these festive occasions bear
the palm from their more philosophical rivals,
who are above—or below—such vanities as
uniforms and bright colours. The procession
of the corps came off in the evening, when all
the strangers were supposed to have arrived,
and the decorations for the next four days
to be complete. The rich colours of the
flags, the bright uniforms of the students,
the joyous music, the universal good-humour,
and over all the mellow light of an August
sunset, gave a pleasant foretaste of the
spectacles to come.

A large portion of Sunday was devoted to
special services iu honour of the occasion, in
the churches of the different religious
denominations; and in the afternoon to solemn
speechmaking within the university. But towards
evening the students and the townspeople
betook themselves to other enjoyments. The
great green in front of the university
buildings, had been surrounded by poles bearing
garlands for the day time and Chinese lanterns
for the night. At each of the four corners of
this space, was a cask of beer, large enough
to make one reflect that Diogenes might not
have had so very cramped a dwelling after all.
But the contents of the cask, not the cask,
interested the crowd; and from morn until
midnight the drinking, and the feasting, and
the music were continual. Uproar or riot
there was none, and this was the assemblage
of the populace only. The students and their
friends had their meeting in the gardens of an
hotel close by. These gardens are large, and
run down to the bank of the Rhine. Two of
the best Prussian military bands played in
turn, in different corners of the gardens;
admirable concerts were given by parties of
students. There was many a group of white-
haired old fellows toasting each other, or
singing hand in hand with all the excitement
of boyhood. The drinking was prodigious;
many parties of students who either could not
find a seat, or preferred seeing their friends,
dispensed with glasses altogether, and paraded
about, each with a bottle, stopping at the end
of a verse to take a full draught. As the
bottles were emptied—and this was not a tedious
process—they were tossed into the flower-beds,
from which the waiters collected them in
baskets. The arrival of the Crown Prince
actually evoked something like a cheer, singularly
different from the monotonous wail with which
a German crowd usually express their enthusiasm.
By eleven o'clock the majority seemed
to have drunk quite enough; but still here, as
in the popular assemblage outside, there was
no rioting. Everybody was in good-humour,
and took everything in good part. And now,
before the assemblage dispersed, it was delightful
to steal to the edge of the terrace, and,
looking away from the garden, with its Chinese
lanterns and fireworks, its music and merry
occupants, to see the broad Rhine, flowing
peacefully below. The moon had just risen
over the Seven Mountains, and shed her calm
cold light on the exquisite outline and broad
expanse of water, a vision of silent beauty, in
charming contrast with the lively scene.

To enjoy these drinking parties thoroughly,
one must be a student, or at least a German; but
no such condition was necessary to the full
appreciation of the torchlight processions on the
following evening, or the illumination of the Rhine,
with which the festival concluded. The
procession was shared in by all the students of the
university. They started, at about nine o'clock,
from the university, and, going round the
town, came into the market-place through one
of the old narrow picturesque streets. As the
procession streamed along, the lurid flare of
the torches lighted up the innumerable banners
which fluttered, in every variety of hue, from roof
to window. The chief officers of the various
corps rode on horseback, in their gaudy quaint
dresses; and frequent bands drowned the
murmured cheers of the crowd.

But the holiday makers had wisely determined
to turn their great natural glory, the
Rhine, to the best account. For the last night,
preparations were made on the most extensive
scale. The university and municipality bestowed
liberal sums on all the villages on the banks,
from Bonn up to lovely Rolandseck. At the
latter place the illuminations began, and thither,
after sunset, in numerous steamers, went all the
sight-seeing world of Bonn and Cologne. The
fireworks at Rolandseck were abundant, and
about as disappointing as fireworks usually are.
But, as the boats turned back towards Bonn, a
much finer spectacle lay before them. Magnesian