When she realized that these honours were being lavished on her own small person, and that she ought to have waved her finger backwards and forwards at the soldiers in sign of dismissal, she was much abashed, and as she was far too shy to shake her finger at any one, preferred to choose a more retired spot in which to play.
Besides the Turkish ponies before mentioned, the Prince and Princess possessed two very small mouse-coloured Sicilian donkeys given to them by the King of Italy, each of which drew a small Sicilian cart, painted in gay colours with scenes from the lives of the saints. These animals wore red brass-studded harness, and nodding plumes made of cock-feathers dyed crimson waved from their heads. They made a very pretty picture as they ambled one behind the other over the wide Mopke, and often when children were invited to spend the afternoon the donkey-carts were requisitioned. They were a continual source of joy to small visitors and of acute anxiety to those in charge; for in spite of their innocent looks and their small size, the donkeys were the least docile animals that could be imagined, and as the carts were rather small and top-heavy, there was constant danger of an upset. Sometimes the donkeys, after a spell of good behaviour, would start running away, or suddenly make preparations to lie down, the children falling out of the cart like a small avalanche. After the animals had taken a short rest—for nothing would make them get up before they felt inclined—they would start merrily off again, and the Governor and I, who were too heavy for the carts, had to keep on running after them, “faint yet pursuing,” be the weather as hot as it might.
The way those beasts whizzed the carts round corners on only one wheel was nothing short of phenomenal, and they possessed a diabolical strength which set at naught any efforts of the groom who was supposed to control them in case of need. One day the little terrier “Jacky” took it into his head to bite one of the donkeys, who immediately went helter-skelter over the flower-beds, dragging the empty cart behind him as well as the unlucky stable-man who happened to be holding the reins and fell down at an early stage of the proceedings. Fortunately it happened in a small enclosed garden surrounded by high hedges, but it might have been a serious business if one or two soldiers had not happened to be passing and helped us to restrain the donkey, who kicked and capered and waltzed over the rose-bushes, jerking the man after him, his face cut, his clothes torn, while the iniquitous “Jacky,” delighted at the performance, raged round in a frenzy of barking, doing all he could to urge the poor terrified donkey to fresh efforts.
Happily, when the long-expected accident arrived, it happened under Her Majesty’s immediate notice, so that she was at once convinced of the danger to the children of these ill-trained little creatures, and ordered that they should never appear again. They were sent to the country and employed on the land in regular work, which was what they needed. The Princess was the one who suffered, being tipped out of the cart and sustaining a rather severe cut on her knee, involving a three days’ suspension of lessons and complete repose of the injured limb—rather a severe trial for such an active child.
In wet or frosty weather, the rides in the forest had to be given up, and we were forced to take horse-exercise in the Reit-Bahn or big covered riding-school attached to the Royal Mews or Marstall. A layer of sawdust covered the floor of the Bahn, and our Sattel-Meister, Herr Casper, professed himself delighted to have the opportunity of furthering our equestrian education. We took lessons in making “voltes” and circles at the word of command, in “passaging”; we galloped and trotted and enjoyed ourselves immensely, while the rain beat outside or the snow fell in thick flurries. The Bahn was furnished with mirrors in which we could get glimpses of ourselves as we cantered past. Sometimes the Empress and one of her ladies also rode with us. Her Majesty is very fond of horse exercise, and though not enamoured of cross-country riding, still enjoys a good stretching canter.
Nowhere are there better opportunities for this than in the neighbourhood of Potsdam. Every road, with its beautiful row of trees on either hand, possesses a carefully kept sandy riding-track on one side. Then there are immense woods and the Government forest, all unenclosed, and unfenced fields where one can canter to heart’s desire along excellent riding-paths. The whole of Central Germany, more especially the Mark Brandenburg, in which Berlin and Potsdam are situated, is one vast plain of light sandy soil, made exceedingly fertile by “intensive” cultivation. Watered by the river Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, which expands into five great lakes surrounding the town, Potsdam is, as Carlyle calls it, an “intricate amphibious region,” more water than land, partaking, though a peninsula, of the nature of an island. Its inhabitants indulge largely in swimming and boating on the placid waters which run up into the streets in irregular creeks and bays. Great beds of rushes skirt the borders of the lakes, while the thick forest comes down to the water’s edge.
The town itself is picturesque and old-fashioned, with cobbled roads extremely painful to walk upon. Many of its houses were built in the time of Frederick the Great and inhabited by his marshals and generals. Its streets have a somnolent old-world air, and its society is very aristocratic and exclusive, containing as it does the cream of Prussian Junkerdom. Several younger sons of princely houses, officers in the crack regiments of the guards, live with their wives and children in Potsdam. Occasionally, on wet Sundays, some of these little princes and princesses came to spend the afternoon, and “Mimi Hohenzollern,” now married to King Manoel of Portugal, was a fairly frequent guest. One dull November Sunday evening we had an unusual number of children—about twenty—some of them quite small and rather an anxiety, for the nurses and governesses who accompanied them were sent to wait downstairs, while Herr Schmidt in charge of the boys and myself in charge of the little girls were left to cope with all these rather lively young people. They played after tea at circus in the big Turn-Saal at the top of the Palace, where there was plenty of room to romp about, and were just pondering what the next game should be, when Herr Schmidt, inspired by some imp of malice, made the suggestion that they should all go to the theatre in the dark.
The private theatre of the Neues Palais, built by Frederick the Great for the representation of French plays, was situated in the farthest wing of the castle, the way to it lying through chilly, unlit, unwarmed passages. The whole horde of children—hopeful scions of princely houses whose names, though unknown in England, permeate the “Almanac de Gotha,” and occasionally emerge into prominence in connection with some royal or imperial marriage—were rushing like the Gadarene swine towards certain destruction. Those slippery marble staircases! Those shallow balustrades! The darkness and the cold! Terrible “Schnupfen"—the devastating colds with which in a steam-heated country one is eternally warring—would be the least evil that could possibly happen to them.
Herr Schmidt, like an overgrown schoolboy, was laughing gleefully at the stampede.
Fortunately they were stopped at the next staircase, where the faint gleam of a lamp served to show the black shadows of the descent, and were brought back, much disappointed, to play a “humdrum game,” as the Princess called it, of hide-and-seek.