In German towns where there is water, the traffic on it both for business and amusement is as busy as with us, and in some respects better managed. Hamburg life, for instance, is largely on the basin of the Alster; either in the little steamers that carry you from city to suburb, or in the small craft that crowd its waters on a summer night. It is as usual in Hamburg as on the Thames to own boats and understand their management, and there are the same varieties to be seen there: the pleasure boats with people of all ages, the racing outrigger full of strenuous, lightly clad young men, and the little sail boats scurrying across the water before the breeze. On the Rhine the big steamers do a roaring traffic all the summer, and catch the public that likes a good dinner with their scenery; and on the Rhine, as well as on most of the other rivers of Germany, there are a great many swimming baths; for every German who has a chance learns to swim. In Hamburg on a summer evening you meet troops of little boys and girls going to the baths, many of them belonging to the poorer classes; for where there are no swimming baths attached to the school they get tickets free or at a very low rate. About fishing I can only speak from hearsay, for I have never caught a minnow myself, but I have met Germans who are keen anglers, and I have found that they knew every London shop beloved of anglers, and the English name of every fly. Germans get more amusement out of their water-ways in winter than we do, for the winters there are long and hard, so that there is always skating. I have seen the Alster frozen for weeks, and the whole city of Hamburg playing on the ice. It was not what we call good ice, and not what we call good skating. For the most part people were content to get over the ground, to mix with their friends, to have hot drinks at the booths that sprang up in long lines by the chief track, and even to stroll about without skates and watch the fun. All classes, all ages, and both sexes skate nowadays, but some fifty or sixty years ago German ladies were not seen on the ice at all. Skating, like most exercises that are healthy and agreeable, was considered unfeminine, and men had the fun to themselves. In the mountain districts of Germany winter sports are growing in favour every year, and people go to the Riesengebirge or to the Black Forest for tobogganing and ski-ing. The German illustrated papers constantly have articles about these winter pastimes, and portraits of the distinguished men and women who took part in them. The history of cycling in Germany is not unlike its history here. The boom subsided some years ago, but a steady industry survives. In Berlin you see officers in uniform on bicycles, but you see hardly any ladies. That is because the Emperor and Empress disapprove of cycling for women, and their disapproval has made it unfashionable. Ten years ago, two years, that is, after the