The days were fresh and spring-like, and, although our hearts were filled with solemn thoughts, nothing but jokes were heard. Next to Baribal, the gayest was Professor Rolunt, who, before he entered the military service, had studied in Berlin, and had here received the so-called finishing touch. On the way, there was much cheerful discussion of the peculiarities that distinguish various sections of our country and the fanaticism with which every district believes that its customs and modes of expression alone represent the real German mind. Offenheimer, the lawyer, who had also been elected a member of the Reichstag, spoke quite forcibly on this subject, by demonstrating that we South Germans believed ours to be the veritable language of the soul. When there is a prejudice to combat, Offenheimer always is particularly eloquent. He knows Berlin, and lives here with relatives of his. Cato Debold, the inveterate South German, thought it hard that the rough North German manner should now gain the supremacy. When he saw the first windmills, he scoffed at North German windbags; and when the Professor added that in North Germany there were no running springs, but only pumps, he was quite happy, and vaunted the number of springs we possessed at home. Rolunt allowed him to finish his harangue, and then replied that the North Germans, finding themselves without fast flowing streams, had made an invisible power, the winds, work for them; and that pump water was as refreshing as that from fountains. But, against that, Debold showed that the portion of Germany, that lay on the other side of the Thuringian Mountains had, through being divided into small farms, become quite different, and far advanced in comparison with the North. And in municipal liberty, we also stand far ahead of North Germany; and shall we now submit to have that encroached upon? "That will regulate itself. The others will become more agreeable, and we will get sharper," said the Professor. At many stations we heard the people say: "Here are the South German Representatives." Our reception was not so stormy and excited as the one accorded us twenty-three years before when we went to Frankfort. The public mood was now calm and earnest. On the road, one of the members said, "If your Richard had returned, he would doubtless have been elected." Ah! when one has a sorrow, he expects others to have some consideration, and not touch upon it, even though it be in the way of kindness. At Gotha, where many new delegates joined us, we all received bouquets, and the principal of the gymnasium cleverly said that we should adorn ourselves with wedding favors, as we were going to the wedding of North and South Germany.