HAMBURG: GENERAL IMPRESSIONS 67 



Tliey looked just as the great lyric poet described them. 

 Well! I thought the king's down had bitten me ( a Ger- 

 man idiom reminding one of Charles Dickens': "I'll eat 

 my head"), when the whole proved to be a— funeral pro- 

 cession! These strangely attired figures which passed be- 

 fore me were Hamburg coffin-bearers, who, as I after- 

 wards learned, form a very select guild. Their costumes 

 are too uncommon to omit, as you will surely appreciate 

 the description. These men, to begin with, wear highly 

 polished shoes with satin rosettes about as large as a 

 medium sized saucer, their nether extremities are hidden 

 in velvet knee breeches, and long black silk stockings, 

 attached to the former by immense silver buckles, all of 

 which, if intended to hide the crooked limbs— for all 

 those coffin-bearers had crooked limbs and no calves— 4 

 fail in their purpose. Next comes the waistcoat of black 

 broad-cloth, with ungainly but snow-white cuffs, cover- 

 ing part of the hands, while broad ruffled collars of spot- 

 less linen encircle the long necks of the bony wearer, 

 making the head appear like that of St. John the Bap- 

 tist, presented upon a plate or like a ball of nine-pins 

 placed upon a mill-stone. From their shoulders falls a 

 short Spanish cloak, and the hair— if they have any— 

 is carefully hidden under a snow-white wig, the principal 

 ornament of which, consists of two well tallowed and 

 twisted curls on either side of the lengthy face. But I 

 must not forget the sword which fits this professional 

 pall-bearer as a cat's tail would fit a duck. 



Having read this true description of a Hamburg coffin- 

 bearer, place yourself in my position, and tell me if it is 

 not enough to make one's hair stand up straight, when, 

 being a stranger, after reading the "National Gazette" 

 or the "Fliegende Blatter" (Flying Leaves, Germany's 

 best humoristic paper), while enjoying a cup of coffee at 

 the Pavilion, one strolls aimlessly along the Jungfern- 

 stieg, meaning no harm but glancing admiringly, or other- 

 wise, at the latest Parisian styles for fashionable folks, 

 one is suddenly confronted by such an apparition. One 

 is carried bark — nolens volens— to the sixteenth century. 

 It actually stunned me. 



