A _Kommers_ is a students' festival in which the professors and other senior members of a university take part, and at which outsiders are allowed to look on. The presiding students appear _in vollem Wichs_, as we should say in their war paint, with sashes and rapiers. Young and old together drink beer, sing songs, make speeches, and in honour of one or the other they "rub a Salamander,"--a word which is said to be a corruption of _Sauft alle mit einander_. This is a curious ceremony and of great antiquity. When the glasses are filled, at the word of command they are rubbed on the table; at the word of command they are raised and emptied; and again at the word of command every man rubs his glass on the table, the second time raises it and brings it down with a crash. Anyone who brought his glass down a moment earlier or later than the others would spoil the _Salamander_ and be in disgrace. In _Ekkehardt_ Scheffel describes a similar ceremonial in the tenth century. "The men seized their mugs," he says, "and rubbed them three times in unison on the smooth rocks, producing a humming noise, then they lifted them towards the sun and drank; each man set down his mug at the same moment, so that it sounded like a single stroke." A _Kommers_ is not always a gay festival. It may be a memorial ceremony in honour of some great man lately dead. Then speeches are made in his praise, solemn and sacred music is sung, and the Salamander, an impressive libation to the dead man's Manes, is drunk with mournful effect.