Nothing can well make so vivid an impression on the foreigner, especially on the Englishman, as the sledging processions, which, as soon as the snow is trodden hard enough to bear, may be daily seen issuing from Heidelberg. Sometimes we see individual sledges, which are of striking appearance, gliding rapidly through the streets; then greater sledge-parties, which the students make amongst themselves, or in association with some of the inhabitants. A troop of fore-riders, with the thundering cracks of their heavy whips, announce the approach of the sledge of the lady of honour, drawn by four horses. Then follows a long train of sledges, each with two horses, and each containing only one lady and gentleman. These sledge-parties afford much amusement to the students, and opportunities for many a frolic, and the Chores vie in outshining each other in ingeniously planned and splendidly achieved processions. In earlier times masked sledge-parties were the order of the day; but, in consequence of many well-known and distinguished individuals of the university city being represented, or rather misrepresented, they are now formally forbidden. Even the ladies, and the venerable heads of the senate, were not secure from the caricaturing of the students. Thus a stranger related to me, with great horror, that he had met a great company of ladies and gentlemen in sledges; all the ladies had wafted to him hand-kisses, and, _horribile dictu!_ at the very next confectioner's, the ladies, with evident delight, had each drunk a glass of brandy!