It was on Saturday, June 27th, at about five o’clock in the afternoon that we left Ulm, and the following day about noon we reached Lauingen, having spent most of the forenoon in camp rigging our sails, properly adjusting the tents, and doing a hundred other odd jobs which the ownership of every boat entails. The Admiral, who had preceded the rest of the fleet by an hour or more, was in the centre of an interested group of natives when we hauled alongside at the landing, and all Lauingen in its Sunday best was lounging near by, happy in the entertainment which the arrival of the strange craft offered. The old town walls are half hidden by excrescences of modern construction which cling to them for their whole extent, sheltering a notable proportion of the inhabitants. With this exception the place is not materially changed since the sixteenth century, and still has to a very remarkable degree the character of an old Dutch town both in details of construction and in the general character of the domestic architecture. Most of the large buildings are warehouses and residences combined, and there are few front doors which are not provided with a little side window or squint set in at an angle so that the street can be seen without opening the door. All distinctive costume has been modernized out of the place. The people look cheerful, active, and prosperous to a degree unusual in such a remote town, and we were fain to believe that this vitality was due to the leaven of those of the inhabitants who had been to America, not a few of whom greeted us with an exaggerated Hoboken dialect. But the modern spirit has not obliterated all the queer old customs, and Sunday was busy with parades of turnvereins and sporting clubs with all the pageantry common to the ancient guilds. In the midst of the festivities a stately carriage drove into the market-place where the statue of Albertus Magnus, the famous scholar of the thirteenth century, was erected ten years ago in the shadow of the great tower with its sixteen stories. It was a wonderful old vehicle, with broad leathern springs and great hood, a huge rack behind piled high with luggage, a seat in front occupied by a servant--a buxom country girl--and with a long pole like a single shaft, to which one horse was attached in a sort of casual fashion by a harness of the most antiquated and peculiar pattern. Under the hood sat a young man who held the lines and guided the horse across the square towards the inn, while the servant-girl, with folded arms, occasionally nodded and smiled at friends in the multitude. We fancied this must be some local dignitary, such was the grandeur and stateliness of the turnout, but we found on inquiry that it was only a conveyance from a neighboring town bringing a commercial traveller with his packs. Truly, even this much-derided occupation has its agreeable features in Bavaria.