ld be impossible after viewing it, except to the totally insensible
or irreligious.

Jimmie is irreligious, but not insensible. He really had gone to no end
of trouble to obtain these lodgings for us, and he had insisted so
tenaciously that we must be lodged with the principals that we were
obliged to wait for an extra performance, and live in Munich meanwhile.

We all four made the journey from Munich to Oberammergau, which lies in
so picturesque a spot in the Bavarian Alps, from very different motives.
Mrs. Jimmie, who is an ardent churchwoman, went in a spirit of deep
devotion. Bee went because one agent told her that over twelve thousand
Americans had been booked through their company alone. Bee goes to
everything that everybody else goes to. Jimmie went in exactly the same
spirit of boyish, alert curiosity with which, when he is in New York,
he goes to each new attraction at Weber and Field's.

As we got off the train the little town looked like an exposition,
except that there were no exhibits. English, German, and French spoken
constantly, and not infrequently Russian, Spanish, and Italian assailed
our ears the whole time we were there. Only one thing was
characteristic. The native peasants looked different. The picturesque
costume of the Tyrolese men, consisting of velveteen knee breeches, gay
coloured stockings, embroidered white blouse, and short bolero jacket
with gold braid or fringe, and the Alpine hat, with a pheasant or eagle
feather in it, sat jauntily upon most of the young men, whose bold
glances and sinewy movements suggested their alert, out-of-door life in
their mountain homes. But the Oberammergau peasants walked with a slower
step. Their eyes were meek instead of roving, their smiles tender
instead of saucy, and they say it is all the influence of the Passion
Play, which for over three hundred years has dominated their lives. No
one who commits a crime, or who lives an impure life, can act in the
great drama, nor can any except natives take part. And as the ambition
of every man, woman, and child in Oberammergau is to form part of this
glorious company, the reason for the purity of their aspect is at once
to be seen. No murder, robbery, or crime of any description has been
committed in Oberammergau for three hundred years.

The peasants of this little mountain village live their whole lives
under the shadow of the cross.

Nor was it long before our little party came under this strange
influen