"sociative" case, and a "locative." The most remarkable characteristics of the language, however, are the richness of its vocalisation, and its peculiar flexibility and pliancy, which enable those who speak it to coin new and very expressive words for distinct ideas almost at pleasure, yet open to no misconstruction. In outward appearance the Wends are throughout a powerful, healthy, and muscular race, whose men are coveted for the conscription. The first Napoleon's famous "Bouchers Saxons"--the Saxon dragoons--were Wends almost to a man. And in the present day, it is the Wends who contribute the lion's share of recruits to the Saxon household regiments. Their women are prized throughout Germany as nurses. They are all well-built, well-shaped, strong of muscle, and nimble in motion, like the Lacedæmonian women of old. All surrounding Germany recruits its nurses from Wendland. Next to stature, the most distinctive external feature of the race is its national dress, which, as in most similar cases, survives longest, and in its most characteristic form, among women. As between different districts, such dress varies very markedly, but throughout it has some common features. Short bright-coloured skirts, with the hips preternaturally enlarged by artificial padding, and an unconscionable amount of starch put into the petticoats on Sundays; close-fitting bodices, under which, in some districts, by an atrocious perversion of taste, are placed bits of stout cardboard, designed to compress a strongly developed bust to hideous flatness; small tight-fitting caps, into which is gathered all the hair, and which are often concealed under some bright-coloured outer head-gear, with an abundance of ribbons dependent; and a goodly allowance of scrupulously clean collar, frill, and neckerchiefs, at any rate on Sundays; and, on festive occasions, stockings of the same irreproachable whiteness put upon massive calves which on other occasions are worn all bare--these are, briefly put, the main characteristics of the women's dress. Oddly, the Roman Catholics, who elsewhere--in the Black Forest, for instance--affect the gayest colours, among the Wends show a partiality for the soberest of hues, more specifically brown and black. The men delight in big buttons, bright waistcoats, and high boots, long coats which pass on from father to son through generations, and either preternaturally stout hats of prehistoric mould, or else large blue caps with monster shades. Their peculiar customs are simply legion, and so are their traditions and superstitions. Their fairs are a thing to see. Old-fashioned as the Wends are, ordinary shopping has no attraction for them. But the merry fair, with its life and society, its exchange of gossip, its display of finery, its haggling and bargaining, its music and its dancing, is irresistibly alluring. At the great fair at Vetzschau in olden days you might see as many as a thousand Wendish girls, all dressed