We came into Oberammergau on Friday, the 1st day of August, 1890, to witness the performance of the Sunday following. The city of Munich, seventy miles away, was crowded with visitors, all bound to the Passion Play. The express-train of twenty cars which carried us from Munich was crowded with people from almost every part of the civilized world. At Oberau, six miles from Oberammergau, at the foot of the Ettal Mountain, we left the railway, and there took part in a general scramble for seats in the carriages. The fine new road winds through dark pine woods, climbing the hill in long zigzags above wild chasms, past the old monastery of Ettal, and then slowly descends to the soft Ammer meadows. The great peak of the Kofel is ever in front, while the main chain of the Bavarian Alps closes the view behind. Arrived in the little village, all was bustle and confusion. The streets were full of people--some busy in taking care of strangers, others sauntering idly about, as if at a country fair. Young women, in black bodices and white sleeves, welcomed the visitors at the little inns or served them in the shops. Everywhere were young men in Tyrolese holiday attire--green coats, black slouch hats, with a feather or sprig of Edelweiss in the hat-band, and with trousers, like those of the Scottish Highlanders, which end hopelessly beyond the reach of either shoes or stockings. Besides the rustics and the tourists, one met here and there upon the streets men whose grave demeanor and long black hair resting on their shoulders proclaimed them to be actors in the Passion Play. On Sunday morning we were awakened by the sound of a cannon planted at the foot of the Kofel, a sharp, conical, towering mountain, some two thousand feet above the town, and bearing on its summit a tall gilded cross. It was cold and rainy, but that made no difference with the audience or the play. At eight o'clock, when the cannon sounds again, all are in their places, and the play begins. It lasts for eight hours--from eight o'clock in the morning to half-past five in the afternoon, with a single interruption of an hour and a half at noon. The stage is wide and ample. Its central part is covered, but the front, which represents the fields and the streets of Jerusalem, is in the open air. This feature lends the play a special charm. On the left, across the stage, over which the fitful rain-clouds chase one another, we can plainly see the long, green slope of Ettal mountain, dotted from bottom to top with herdmen's huts or _chalets_, and on the summit a tall pine-tree, standing out alone above all its brethren. On the other side appear the wild crags of the Kofel, its gilded cross glistening in the sunshine above the morning mists. Swallows fly in and out among the painted palm-trees, their twitter sounding sharply above the music of the chorus. The little birds raise their voices to make themselves heard to each other.