n to
fill. In all of these there are rooms set apart for the different clubs
of students to assemble in; and in those sanctuaries they put on the
caps and colours of their communities, which they have of late years
been forbidden to wear in public. On the ribands which they wear round
their necks, are inscribed the date of their various duels. A barrel of
beer is now broached, pipes are loaded and lighted, and they sit the
whole evening, sotting, smoking, and singing songs about the Rhine,
liberty, and fatherland, with ear-splitting and interminable choruses of
_Viva lera lera_. A German student's song generally consists of couplets
of two lines, with a chorus that lasts a quarter of an hour.

The quantity of beer consumed by some of these heroes is almost
incredible. They become actually bloated with it. One of the most
important and respected persons at a German university is the Beer King,
who ought to be able to drink, not any given quantity, but an unlimited
one; to be perpetually drinking, in short. M. Dumas tells us, that the
reigning monarch of malt at Heidelberg is able to absorb twelve
schoppens of beer, or six of wine, while the clock strikes twelve. A
Heidelberg schoppen is very nearly an English bottle. This is rather
hard to swallow, M. Dumas. Either the drinker is very fast, or the clock
very slow. We can vouch, however, for the scarcely less astonishing
fact, of there being drinkers at the universities who will imbibe
twenty-five bottles of beer at a sitting. The German beer is, of course,
not of a very intoxicating nature.

From beer to tobacco the transition is natural enough; and we cannot
conclude our gossip about the Rhine without a word or two as to the
frightful abuse made by the Germans of the Indian weed. We are not of
the number of those who condemn the moderate use of tobacco, but, on the
contrary, know right well how to appreciate its soothing and cheering
effects; but the difference is wide between a limited enjoyment of the
habit, and the stupefying, besotting excess to which it is carried by
the Germans. The dirty way, too, in which they smoke, renders the custom
as annoying to those who live amongst them, as it must be unwholesome
and detrimental to themselves. It is possible to smoke much, and yet
cleanly: take the Spaniard for instance--unquestionably a great smoker;
yet the difference between smoking on the Rhine or Elbe, and on the
Manzanares or Ebro, is immense--the one the gluttony