While sitting upon the porch in the evening, surrounded by the majestic watch towers of the Rhine, and expatiating on the pleasures of the day, we suddenly hear a rich full chorus, harmoniously sung by at least one hundred male and female voices. The singers are invisible, and the notes seem to float out from one of the neighboring mountain caves. We all listen with delight to the sounds, which now approaching nearer, convince us that the singers are not the denizens of another world, but are beings of flesh and blood like ourselves. In the distance we can discern a procession of gay and jovial students with their sweethearts at their sides. The young men are carrying lighted torches and lanterns which illuminate them and the road, and are merrily singing the popular glees and college songs as they wend their way to the boat landing close by.
The party is returning from a German students' picnic, and as they board the little steamer, which immediately leaves her moorings, the air is rent by cheer after cheer, and we hear the gay laughter and happy voices long after the boat has disappeared from our eyes down the silent flowing river. Such is the German student life, and such is the character of the German people: not averse to pleasure, sociable, jovial, kind and happy.
We rise early this morning, and partake of a good German breakfast; and of what do you suppose a good German breakfast consists? Dishes of greasy sausage or bacon swimming in its own gravy, kale or saurkraut, onions and hot sauces, potatoes soaked in lard; black bread which has also been soaked in lard to save the expense of butter: and all this washed down with innumerable mugs of beer or Rhine wine, with a "thank heaven" when the unsavory repast can no longer offend our eyes or olfactories? No, my dear friend; our breakfast is a most agreeable contrast to the picture just drawn. We are served with deliciously cooked steak and chops, and the connoisseur of any nationality would not disdain these meats or the daintily prepared chicken, coffee and fresh rolls. The eggs are fresh and not underdone: one can find no fault with the butter or the sweet new milk, and it is with a feeling of great satisfaction that we rise from the table at the close of the meal, and exclaim that we have had a breakfast "fit for a king."