ROEBUCK SHOOTIXG ON THE BANKS OF THE RHINE. 251 



side with a patch of tomatoes ; and so on. The corn yield of 

 the present year was said to be in excess of any for thirty years 

 past ; and they were busy, the man and his wife and the girls, 

 getting it carried off with all expedition, mostly by ox, or rather 

 •cow-drays — the bright, healthy faces of the girls peeping out 

 from the clean kerchiefs that bound their heads, and the milk- 

 ing cows and heifers taking their turn in yoke and collar. The 

 most prevalent and to all appearance the most natural and 

 •comfortable manner of harnessing the sleek kine (they are of a 

 high-bred Guernsey-like type) is to attach the weight they are 

 to draw to brow-bands below their horns, so that they push, as 

 it were, with their foreheads. But custom seems to vary very 

 much. This is also the plan by which the heavy timber is 

 ■drawn by cows and oxen from the Black Forest. Collars and 

 the more familiar wooden yoke are almost as commonly used. 

 And under the hot sun a cloth often covers each of the cattle 

 to protect them from the torturing flies. 



Horses there were at work also — upstanding, well bred, 

 horses too — more like our London hansom cabhorse than the 

 ordinary beast of agriculture. Some, I believe, are cavalry 

 •cast-offs ; but, whatever they may be, they are of a class far 

 .superior to any I have ever seen in the hands of peasants. As, 

 however, I saw not a single foal alongside the many mares at 

 work on farm and road, I can only conclude that the farmers of 

 Baden do not lay themselves out much for horsebreeding. As 

 there are few open grass tracts, and fences are almost unknown, 

 possibly they consider that young stock would be more trouble 

 than profit. 



Excellent roads, and very little dust — a dreamy drive under 

 the soothing sun — and everything that was to be seen comiug 

 placidly in one's way without effort or exertion. Drone among 

 bees. A loafer among toilers. Who shall say that the 

 idler is the happier ? Not I. Yet Baden-Baden is an idler's 

 clysium — and a true elysium so long as rest is welcome, until 

 inactivity takes the form of aimlessness, and the sweets of 

 idleness cloy on the palate. Then, if laziness is not to become 



