There was a cabinet or museum here, too, to inspect, and the curious old spectacle of the popinjay to be witnessed, in company with the Grand Duke of Weimar and his son. This kind of shooting was harmless enough, for the object aimed at was a wooden bird on a pole. The riflemen, led by the rifle-king (_schutzen-konig_), the public officials, and deputations of peasants marched past the platform where the Queen stood, like a pageant of the Middle Ages. All the princes, including King Leopold, fired, but none brought down the bird; that feat was left for some humbler hero. On the Queen's return from the popinjay she had the happiness to meet Baroness Lehzen, her old governess, who had come from Buckeburg to see her Majesty. During the next few days the old friends were often together, and the Queen speaks with pleasure of the Baroness's "unchanged devotion," only she was quieter than formerly. It must have appeared like another dream to both, that "the little Princess" of Kensington, travelling with her husband, should greet her old governess, and tell her, under the shadow of the great Thuringerwald, of the four children left behind in England. The next day the forest itself was entered, when "the bright blue sky, the heavenly air, the exquisite tints," gave a crowning charm to its beauties. The road lay through green glades which occasionally commanded views so remote as those of the Hartz Mountains, to _Jagersruh_, a hunting-lodge on a height "among stately firs that look like cedars." Here the late Duke had excited all his skill and taste to make a hunter's paradise, which awoke again the regretful thought, "How it would have pleased him to have shown all this himself to those he loved so dearly!" But _Jagersruh_ was not the goal of the excursion; it was a "deer-drive" or battue, which in Germany at least can be classed as "a relic of mediaeval barbarism." A considerable space in the forest was cleared and enclosed with canvas. In the centre of this enclosure was a pavilion open at the sides, made of branches of fir-trees, and decorated with berries, heather, and forest flowers; in short, a sylvan bower provided for the principal company, outside a table furnished with powder and shot supplied a station for less privileged persons, including the chasseurs or huntsmen of the Duke, in green and gold uniforms. Easy-chairs were placed in the pavilion for the Queen, the Queen of the Belgians, and the Duchess Alexandrina, while Prince Albert, King Leopold, the Prince of Leiningen, and Duke Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, the Prince's uncle, stood by the ladies. Stags to the number of upwards of thirty, and other game, were driven into the enclosure, and between the performances of a band which played at intervals, the gentlemen loaded their rifles, and fired at the helpless prey in the presence of the ladies.