During the many wet days of our stay in Cadinen, the children found great occupation in modelling various articles out of the prepared clay, which were afterwards sent to the factory to be burned. Some little fern-pots and vases, the product of her amateur efforts, were regarded with great pride by the Princess. The Emperor took the greatest interest in his factory, and never failed to visit it as often as he could do so, inspecting and criticizing every department. He has built delightful houses and cottages for the heads of departments and the workers. Some people scoff at it as a piece of costly, needless extravagance, and object to the Emperor’s competition with other factories. It is run chiefly, however, as a practical scientific experiment, and although a good deal of cheap pottery is made and sold to the general public at current market prices, it aims at artistic development as well as the invention and discovery of colours and new glazes. From his travels the Emperor is always bringing here some piece of antique porcelain, Italian, Greek or Roman, which may suggest something new in form or colouring. He is so keen himself that he is bound to inspire keenness in others. Once or twice I have been round the factory with the Emperor and Empress, who would stay there for an hour or two sometimes on their way to or from Rominten. His Majesty always took the whole of his suite with him, and liked them to be as interested as himself. On one occasion, from the heaped shelves of the warehouses he hurled--there is no other word which quite expresses it--terra-cotta busts of himself and large vases and other pottery of the same material at the members of the suite. My share of the spoil was a bust of himself and two flower-vases. We all emerged carrying our property, and the officers in uniform looked rather comical with large terra-cotta plaques under each arm or cradling a bust carefully against the shoulder.