HAECKEL AND THE NEW ZOOLOGY 



ness ; yet a touch of medievalism is retained in that 

 the main work of cleaning is done by women. But, for 

 that matter, it seems to the casual observer as if the 

 bulk of all the work here were performed by the sup- 

 posedly weaker sex. Certainly woman is here the 

 chief beast of burden. In every direction she may be 

 seen, in rustic garb, struggling cheerily along under the 

 burden of a gigantic basket strapped at her back. 

 You may see the like anywhere else in Germany, to be 

 sure, but not often elsewhere in such preponderant 

 numbers. And scarcely elsewhere does the sight jar so 

 little on one's New- World sensibilities as in the midst 

 of this mediasval setting. One is even able to watch 

 the old women sawing and splitting wood in the streets 

 here, with no thought of anything but the picturesque- 

 ness of the incident. 



If one follows a band of basket-laden women, he 

 will find that their goal is that focal-point of every old- 

 time city, the market-place. There arrived, he will 

 witness a scene common enough in Europe but hardly 

 to be duplicated anywhere in America. Hundreds of 

 venders of meat, fish, vegetables, cloths, and house- 

 hold utensils have their open-air booths scattered all 

 across the wide space, and other hundreds of purchasers 

 are there as well. Quaint garbs and quainter faces 

 are everywhere, and the whole seems quite in keep- 

 ing with the background of fifteenth-century houses 

 that hedges it in on every side. Could John the Mag- 

 nanimous, who rises up in bronze in the midst of the 

 assembly, come to life, he would never guess that three 

 and a half centuries have passed since he fell into his 

 last sleep. 



147 



