The Bavarians are not merely great lovers of flowers; they have no hesitancy in showing that fondness, as is so often the case with less simple people. The house window, be it only that of the humblest little crossroads inn, which was not gay with blossoms of a half-dozen species was a curiosity. About every house, in every yard were great bushes of lilac, hydrangea, and several other flowering shrubs; add to this the fact that all fruit-trees were just then in full bloom and it will be less difficult to picture the veritable flower-garden through which I was tramping. Nor were the inhabitants satisfied to let inanimate nature alone decorate herself with spring. The sourest-looking old peasant was almost sure to have a cluster of flowers tucked into a shirt buttonhole or the lapel of his well-worn jacket; girls and women decked themselves out no more universally than did the males of all ages, from the tottering urchin not yet old enough to go to school to the doddering grandfather leaning his gnarled hands on his home-made cane in the shade of the projecting house eaves. Men and boys wore them most often in the bands of their curious slouch-hats, beside the turkey feather or the shaving-brush with which the Bavarian headgear is frequently embellished the year round. In each village a new May-pole towered above everything else, often visible when the hamlet itself was quite out of sight. On the first day of the month that of the year before had been cut down and the tallest pine-tree available, trimmed of its branches except for a little tuft at the top, had been set up before the chief _Gasthaus_, amid celebrations that included the emptying of many kegs of beer. Its upper half encircled with wreaths, streamers, and winding, flower-woven lianas, and decorated with a dozen flags, it suggested at a distance the totem-pole of some childlike tropical tribe rather than the plaything of a plodding and laborious people of western Europe.