high top-boots, polished from the sole to the uppermost hair's breadth
of leather; black, broad-brimmed felt hats, frequently with a peacock's
feather a yard long stuck through the band, the stem protruding forward,
and the end of the feather behind; and their coats and waistcoats are
adorned with long rows of large, ancestral buttons. I am now in the
Swabian district, and these buttons that form so conspicuous a part of
the holiday attire are made of silver coins, and not infrequently have
been handed down from generation to generation for several centuries,
they being, in fact, family heirlooms. The costumes of the Swabish peasant
women are picturesque in the extreme: their finest dresses and that
wondrous head-gear of brass, silver, or gold - the Schwabische
Bauernfrauenhaube (Swabish farmer-woman hat) - being, like the buttons
of the men, family heirlooms. Some of these wonderful ancestral dresses,
I am told, contain no less than one hundred and fifty yards of heavy
material, gathered and closely pleated in innumerable perpendicular folds,
frequently over a foot thick, making the form therein incased appear
ridiculously broad and squatty. The waistbands of the dresses are up in the
region of the shoulder-blades; the upper portion of the sleeves are likewise
padded out to fearful proportions.

The day is most lovely, the fields are deserted, and the roads and
villages are alive with holiday-making peasants. In every village a tall
pole is erected, and decorated from top to bottom with small flags and
evergreen wreaths. The little stone churches and the adjoining cemeteries
are filled with worshippers chanting in solemn chorus; not so preoccupied
with their devotional exercises and spiritual meditations, however, as
to prevent their calling one another's attention to me as I wheel past,
craning their necks to obtain a better view, and, in one instance, an
o'er-inquisitive worshipper even beckons for me to stop - this person both
chanting and beckoning vigorously at the same time.