"But the quaintest feature of all in the Schrannien Platz is a sort of arcade which runs around it. Here, beneath the low and massy arches, are crowded thick upon each other a host of small shops. What queer, dark little cells they are,--yet how picturesque! Here is a dealer in crucifixes,--next to him a woollen-draper, displaying bright striped woollen goods for the peasants,--then a general dealer, with heaps and bundles and tubs and chests containing every thing most heterogeneous,--and next to him a dealer in pipes. There are bustle and gloom always beneath these heavy low arches,--but they present a glorious bit of picturesque life. There are queer wooden booths, too, along one portion of the Schrannien Platz where it rather narrows, losing its character of market-place, and descending to that of an ordinary street. But the booths do not degenerate in their picturesque character. The earthenware booths--of which there are several--are truly delicious. Such rows and piles of dark green, orange, ruddy chocolate-brown, sea-green, pale yellow, and deep blue and grey vessels of all forms and sizes--all quaint, all odd--jugs, flagons, pipkins, queer pots with huge lids, queer tripods for which I know no name--things which always seem to me to come out of a witch's kitchen, but by means of which I suspect that my own dinner is cooked every day. All these heaps of crockery lie about the doors, and load the windows of the wooden booths, and line shelves and shelves within the gloom of the little shops themselves. When I first came here these old crockery shops were a more frequent study to me than any thing else in the old town. "We ascended a steep, narrow staircase leading out of this arcade into one of the houses above it, from which we were to witness the leaping into the fountain. I looked out of the window on the crowd that began to collect around the fountain, and noticed the tall roofs and handsome fronts of the houses opposite, and the crowd of pigeons--scores and scores of pigeons--assembled just opposite the fountain on the edge of the steep roof which rose like a red hill-side behind them. They seemed solemnly met to witness the great festivities about to be celebrated, and sat in silent expectation brooding in the sunshine. Then, I wondered what attraction the icy water could have for the children who leaned over the fountain's side--dabbling in the water as though it had been midsummer. The crowd increased and increased; and seven new white buckets were brought and placed on a broad plank which extended across one side of the fountain basin.