n a golden barricade before him. We
pause before the door of Herr Herzlich, master goldsmith and house-owner,
and prepare to deliver our letter of introduction. They are trying
moments, these first self-presentations; but Herr Herzlich is a
true-hearted old Saxon, who raises his black velvet skullcap with one
hand, as I announce myself, while with the other he lowers his silver
spectacles from his forehead on to his nose. Then, with all sorts of
comforting words, as to my future prospects in Leipsic, he sends me forth
rejoicing.

Once more in the open street, we pass up the crowded way into the
market-place. A succession of wooden booths lines the road; and many of
the houses have an overhanging floor resting on sturdy posts, which makes
the footpath a rude colonnade. Here are piled rolls and bales of cloth,
while the booths are crammed with a heterogeneous collection of articles
of use and ornament diversified beyond description. A strange knot of
gentlemen arrests our attention for a moment. They are clad in long
gowns of black serge, and wear highly-polished boots reaching to the
knee. Some have low-crowned hats, others a kind of semi-furred turban,
but they all have jet black hair arranged in innumerable wiry ringlets,
even to their beards. They are Polish Jews, and trade chiefly in pearls,
garnets, turquoises, and a peculiar sort of ill-cut and discoloured
rose-diamonds.

The market-place is scarcely passable for the crowd, and the wooden
booths are so thickly studded over its whole space, as to allow of only a
narrow footway between them. Here we see pipes and walking-sticks,
enough not only for the present, but for generations unborn. Traversing
the ground by slow degrees, we bend towards the Dresden gate, and come
upon the country people, all handkerchief and waistcoat, who line the
path with their little stores of toys, of eggs, butter, and little pats
of goats'-milk cheese. Here is a farmer who has straggled all the way
from Altenburg. He wears a queer round-crowned hat, with the rim turned
up at the back; a jacket with large pockets outside, a sort of trunk
hose, and black boots reaching to the knee. A little beyond him is a
band of musicians with wind instruments, in the full costume of the
Berg-leute, or mountaineers of Freiberg. With their jackets of black
stuff, trimmed with velvet of the same hue, and edged at the bottom with
little square lappets; their dark leggings and brimless hats, t