aste
it, which I was not likely to gratify,--one gets so tired of such
experiments after a time--when a friend sent us a ball of it. There was
no occasion to call in Professor Liebig to analyze the substance: it
is a plain case. The black mass contains, cut up and pressed together,
figs, citron, oranges, raisins, dates, various kinds of nuts, cinnamon,
nutmeg, cloves, and I know not what other spices, together with
the inevitable anise and caraway seeds. It would make an excellent
cannon-ball, and would be specially fatal if it hit an enemy in the
stomach. These seeds invade all dishes. The cooks seem possessed of
one of the rules of whist,--in case of doubt, play a trump: in case of
doubt, they always put in anise seed. It is sprinkled profusely in the
blackest rye bread, it gets into all the vegetables, and even into the
holiday cakes.

The extensive Maximilian Platz has suddenly grown up into booths and
shanties, and looks very much like a temporary Western village.
There are shops for the sale of Christmas articles, toys, cakes, and
gimcracks; and there are, besides, places of amusement, if one of the
sorry menageries of sick beasts with their hair half worn off can be so
classed. One portion of the platz is now a lively and picturesque forest
of evergreens, an extensive thicket of large and small trees, many of
them trimmed with colored and gilt strips of paper. I meet in every
street persons lugging home their little trees; for it must be a very
poor household that cannot have its Christmas tree, on which are hung
the scanty store of candy, nuts, and fruit, and the simple toys that the
needy people will pinch themselves otherwise to obtain.

At this season, usually, the churches get up some representations for
the children, the stable at Bethlehem, with the figures of the Virgin
and Child, the wise men, and the oxen standing by. At least, the
churches must be put in spick-and-span order. I confess that I like to
stray into these edifices, some of them gaudy enough when they are, so
to speak, off duty, when the choir is deserted, and there is only here
and there a solitary worshiper at his prayers; unless, indeed, as it
sometimes happens, when I fancy myself quite alone, I come by chance
upon a hundred people, in some remote corner before a side chapel,
where mass is going on, but so quietly that the sense of solitude in the
church is not disturbed. Sometimes, when the place is left entirely to
myself, and the se