nn in Bavaria. I went
with several English friends to look on at it, and the men of our
party danced with some of the village girls. The room was only lighted
by a few candles, and it was so crowded that while everyone was
dancing everyone was hustled. But we were told that anyone who chose
could "buy the floor" for a time by giving sixpence or a shilling to
the band. Two of the Englishmen did this, and the crowd looked on in
solemn approval while they waltzed once or twice round with the pretty
granddaughters of our hosts. It was a scene I have often wished I
could paint, the crowd was so dense, and the faces, from our point of
view, so foreign. The candles only lifted the semi-darkness here and
there, but where their light fell it flashed on the bright-coloured
handkerchiefs which the women of this village twisted round their
heads like turbans, and pinned across their bosoms. I think it is
absurd, though, to say that German peasants dance well. They enjoy the
exercise immensely, but are heavy and loutish in their movements, and
they flounder about in a grotesque way with their hands on each
other's shoulders. At a _Kirchweih_ they dance in the open air.

A _Kirchweih_ is a feast to celebrate the foundations of the village
church, and it takes the form of a fair. The preparations begin the
day before, when the roundabouts and shooting booths are put up in the
appointed field. On the day before the _Kirchweih_ in our Bavarian
village I found the inn-keeper's wife cooking what we call Berlin
pancakes in a cauldron of boiling fat, the like of which I have never
seen before or since for size. It must have held gallons. All day long
she stood there throwing in the cinnamon flavoured batter, and taking
out the little crisp brown balls. They are, it seems, a favourite
dainty at a Bavarian _Kirchweih_, and must be provided in large
quantities. On the fair field itself the food offered by the
stall-keepers seemed to be chiefly enormous slabs of shiny gingerbread
made in fanciful shapes, such as hearts, lyres, and garlands, cheap
sweetmeats, and the small boiled sausages the artless German eats in
public without a knife and fork.

The _Kirchweih_ is the chief event of the summer in a German village,
and is talked of for weeks beforehand. The peasants stream in from all
the villages near, and join in the dancing and the shooting matches.
When the day is fine and the fair field has a background of wooded
hills, you see where th