The Prater abuts on the faubourgs of Vienna. It is situated on one of the islands of the Danube, which virtually constitutes its boundary. It is throughout planted with century-old trees, affording a majestic shade, and preventing the huge greensward from being scorched by the sun. It is crossed in every direction by imposing avenues. As at Schönbrunn, and at the majority of like resorts in Germany, herds of deer browse peacefully on the heights or disport themselves in the flatter parts, thus imparting life and motion to the delicious solitude. These are properly the aspects of a mild and virgin nature, but at the same time they are embellished by all the resources of cultivation and art. To the left of the Prater, on entering it from the city, there is an immense lawn, set apart for the display of fireworks; to the right there is a circus capable of accommodating several thousands of spectators; facing one, a large avenue of chestnuts, bordered on each side by elegant constructions, including a number of shops, cafés, and casinos where the Viennese can indulge to their hearts’ content in their well-known love for music. In the avenue of chestnuts, constantly filled with sumptuous carriages and with riders managing their mounts of all breeds with that peculiar Hungarian skill, the wealth and display of all the neighbour-states of Austria seem to have forgathered. The emperor himself drives an unpretending ‘turn-out’ with the simplicity of a well-to-do tradesman bent upon an airing; while a hackney-cab, taken by the hour, and fearing no competition, gets right into his imperial majesty’s road, and is itself overtaken by the vehicle of a Bohemian magnate or by a Hungarian palatine tooling a four-in-hand. In a lightly-built _calèche_, drawn by horses with manes streaming in the breeze, are seated women with complexions like lilies and roses, and presenting the appearance of baskets of flowers. The constant variety of the scenes, the animation of the pedestrians, the general bustle, increased by the presence of numberless strangers, but tempered by the constitutional gravity of the Germans themselves, constitute a most lovely and stirring picture; it is a scene by Teniers, framed in a landscape by Ruysdael.