English boom, no woman on a bicycle had ever been seen in the remoter valleys of the Black Forest. One who ventured there used to be followed by swarms of wondering children, who wished her _All Heil_ at the top of their voices. They did not heave bricks at her. Tennis has not been blighted by the imperial frown, and is extremely popular in Germany. Hockey, as far as I know, is not played yet; certainly not by women. Cricket and football are played, but not very much. An Englishman teaching at a gymnasium, told me that the authorities discouraged outdoor games, as they were considered waste of time. Gymnastics is the form of athletics really enjoyed and practised by Germans. Every boy, even every girl, begins them at school, and the boy when he leaves school joins a _Turnverein_. For wherever Germans foregather, and whatever they do, you may be sure they have a _Verein_, and that the _Verein_ has feasts in winter and _Ausflüge_ in summer. When a man is young and lusty, the delights of the _Verein_, the _Ausflug_, the feast, and the walking tour are often combined. You meet a whole gang of pleasure pilgrims ascending the broad path that leads to the restaurant on the top of a German mountain, or you encounter them in the restaurant itself making speeches to the honour and glory of their _Verein_; and you find that they are the gymnasts or the fire brigade, or the architects or what not of an adjacent town, and that once a year they make an excursion together, beginning with a walk or a journey by rail or by steamer, and culminating in a restaurant where they dine and drink and speechify. Every age, every trade, and every pastime has its _Verein_ and its anniversary rites. I was much amused and puzzled in Berlin one afternoon by a procession that filed slowly past the tram in which I sat, and was preceded and attended by such a rabble of sightseers that the ordinary traffic was stopped for a time. I thought at first it was a demonstration in connection with temperance or teetotalism, because there were so many broad blue ribbons about, and I was surprised, because I know that Germans club together to drink beer and not to abstain from it, and that they are a sober nation. At the head of the procession came a string of boys on bicycles, each boy carrying a banner. Then came four open carriages garlanded with flowers. There was a garland round each wheel, as well as round the horses' necks and the coachmen's hats, and anywhere else where a garland would rest. In each carriage sat four damsels robed in white, and they wore garlands instead of hats. After them walked a large, stout, red-faced man in evening dress, and he carried a staff. After him walked the music, men puffing and blowing into brass instruments, and, like their leader, wearing evening dress and silk hats. They were followed by a procession that seemed as if it would stretch to the moon, a procession of elderly, portly men all wearing evening dress, all