The Champs Elysees of the Parisians on a great festival day, when
the theatres are opened, the swings are flying, trumpets and drums
overpowering the softer music, and when the whole mass of people,
like one body, moves itself between the booths and tents, present a
companion piece to the spectacle which the so-called Park-hill
affords. It is Naples' "Largo dei Castello," with its dancing apes,
shrieking Bajazzoes, the whole deafening jubilee which has been
transported to a northern wood. Here also, in the wooden booths,
large, tawdry pictures show what delicious plays you may enjoy
within. The beautiful female horse-rider stands upon the wooden
balcony and cracks with her whip, whilst Harlequin blows the
trumpet. Fastened to a perch, large, gay parrots nod over the heads
of the multitude. Here stands a miner in his black costume, and
exhibits the interior of a mine. He turns his box, and during the
music dolls ascend and descend. Another shows the splendid fortress
of Frederiksteen: "The whole cavalry and infantry who have endured
an unspeakable deal; here a man without a weapon, there a weapon
without a man; here a fellow without a bayonet, here a bayonet
without a fellow; and yet they are merry and contented, for they
have conquered the victory." [Note: Literal translation of the
real words of a showman.] Dutch wafer-cake booths, where the
handsome Dutch women, in their national costume, wait on the
customers, entice old and young. Here a telescope, there a rare
Danish ox, and so forth. High up, between the fresh tree boughs,
the swings fly. Are those two lovers floating up there? A current
of air seizes the girl's dress and shawl, the young man flings his
arm round her waist; it is for safety: there is then less danger.
At the foot of the hill there is cooking and roasting going on; it
seems a complete gypsy-camp. Under the tree sits the old Jew--this
is precisely his fiftieth jubilee; through a whole half-century has