In German towns where there is water, the traffic on it both for business and amusement is as busy as with us, and in some respects better managed. Hamburg life, for instance, is largely on the basin of the Alster; either in the little steamers that carry you from city to suburb, or in the small craft that crowd its waters on a summer night. It is as usual in Hamburg as on the Thames to own boats and understand their management, and there are the same varieties to be seen there: the pleasure boats with people of all ages, the racing outrigger full of strenuous, lightly clad young men, and the little sail boats scurrying across the water before the breeze. On the Rhine the big steamers do a roaring traffic all the summer, and catch the public that likes a good dinner with their scenery; and on the Rhine, as well as on most of the other rivers of Germany, there are a great many swimming baths; for every German who has a chance learns to swim. In Hamburg on a summer evening you meet troops of little boys and girls going to the baths, many of them belonging to the poorer classes; for where there are no swimming baths attached to the school they get tickets free or at a very low rate. About fishing I can only speak from hearsay, for I have never caught a minnow myself, but I have met Germans who are keen anglers, and I have found that they knew every London shop beloved of anglers, and the English name of every fly.
Germans get more amusement out of their water-ways in winter than we do, for the winters there are long and hard, so that there is always skating. I have seen the Alster frozen for weeks, and the whole city of Hamburg playing on the ice. It was not what we call good ice, and not what we call good skating. For the most part people were content to get over the ground, to mix with their friends, to have hot drinks at the booths that sprang up in long lines by the chief track, and even to stroll about without skates and watch the fun. All classes, all ages, and both sexes skate nowadays, but some fifty or sixty years ago German ladies were not seen on the ice at all. Skating, like most exercises that are healthy and agreeable, was considered unfeminine, and men had the fun to themselves. In the mountain districts of Germany winter sports are growing in favour every year, and people go to the Riesengebirge or to the Black Forest for tobogganing and ski-ing. The German illustrated papers constantly have articles about these winter pastimes, and portraits of the distinguished men and women who took part in them. The history of cycling in Germany is not unlike its history here. The boom subsided some years ago, but a steady industry survives. In Berlin you see officers in uniform on bicycles, but you see hardly any ladies. That is because the Emperor and Empress disapprove of cycling for women, and their disapproval has made it unfashionable. Ten years ago, two years, that is, after the English boom, no woman on a bicycle had ever been seen in the remoter valleys of the Black Forest. One who ventured there used to be followed by swarms of wondering children, who wished her All Heil at the top of their voices. They did not heave bricks at her.
Tennis has not been blighted by the imperial frown, and is extremely popular in Germany. Hockey, as far as I know, is not played yet; certainly not by women. Cricket and football are played, but not very much. An Englishman teaching at a gymnasium, told me that the authorities discouraged outdoor games, as they were considered waste of time. Gymnastics is the form of athletics really enjoyed and practised by Germans. Every boy, even every girl, begins them at school, and the boy when he leaves school joins a Turnverein. For wherever Germans foregather, and whatever they do, you may be sure they have a Verein, and that the Verein has feasts in winter and Ausflüge in summer. When a man is young and lusty, the delights of the Verein, the Ausflug, the feast, and the walking tour are often combined. You meet a whole gang of pleasure pilgrims ascending the broad path that leads to the restaurant on the top of a German mountain, or you encounter them in the restaurant itself making speeches to the honour and glory of their Verein; and you find that they are the gymnasts or the fire brigade, or the architects or what not of an adjacent town, and that once a year they make an excursion together, beginning with a walk or a journey by rail or by steamer, and culminating in a restaurant where they dine and drink and speechify. Every age, every trade, and every pastime has its Verein and its anniversary rites. I was much amused and puzzled in Berlin one afternoon by a procession that filed slowly past the tram in which I sat, and was preceded and attended by such a rabble of sightseers that the ordinary traffic was stopped for a time. I thought at first it was a demonstration in connection with temperance or teetotalism, because there were so many broad blue ribbons about, and I was surprised, because I know that Germans club together to drink beer and not to abstain from it, and that they are a sober nation. At the head of the procession came a string of boys on bicycles, each boy carrying a banner. Then came four open carriages garlanded with flowers. There was a garland round each wheel, as well as round the horses' necks and the coachmen's hats, and anywhere else where a garland would rest. In each carriage sat four damsels robed in white, and they wore garlands instead of hats. After them walked a large, stout, red-faced man in evening dress, and he carried a staff. After him walked the music, men puffing and blowing into brass instruments, and, like their leader, wearing evening dress and silk hats. They were followed by a procession that seemed as if it would stretch to the moon, a procession of elderly, portly men all wearing evening dress, all wearing broad blue ribbons and embroidered scarves, and all marching with banners bearing various devices. The favourite device was Heil Gambrinus, and when I saw that I knew that the blue ribbons had nothing to do with total abstention. The next banner explained things. It was the Verein of the Schenkwirte of Berlin,—the publicans, in fact, of Berlin having their little holiday.
All through the summer the German nation amuses itself out of doors, and leads an outdoor life to an extent unknown and impossible in our damp climate. A house that has a garden nearly always has a garden room where all meals are served. Sometimes it is a detached summer house, but more often it opens from the house and is really a big verandah with a roof and sides of glass. In country places the inn gardens are used as dining-rooms from morning till night, and you may if you choose have everything you eat and drink brought to you out of doors. Most inns have a skittle alley, for skittles are still played in Germany by all classes. The peasants play it on Sunday afternoons, and the dignified merchant has his skittle club and spends an evening there once a week. The favourite card game of Germany is still Skat, but bridge has been heard of and will probably supersede it in time. Skat is a good game for three players, with a system of scoring that seems intricate till you have played two or three times and got used to it. In Germany it is always die Herren who play these serious games, while the women sit together with their bits of embroidery. At the Ladies' Clubs in Berlin there is some card playing, but these two or three highly modern and emancipated establishments do not call the tune for all Germany. Directly you get away from Berlin you find that men and women herd separately, far more than in England, take their pleasures separately, and have fewer interests in common. It is still the custom for the man of the family to go to a beer-house every day, much as an Englishman goes to his club. Here he meets his friends, sees the papers, talks, smokes, and drinks his Schoppen. Each social grade will have its own haunts in this way, or its own reserved table in a big public room. At the Hof Bräuhaus in Munich one room is set apart for the Ministers of State, and I was told some years ago that the appointments of it were just as plain and rough as those in the immense public hall where anyone who looked respectable could have the best beer in the world and a supper of sorts.
It is dull uphill work to write about sport and outdoor games in Germany, because you may have been in many places and met a fair variety of people without seeing any enthusiasm for either one or the other. The bulk of the nation is, as a matter of fact, not interested in sport or in any outdoor games except indifferent tennis, swimming, skating, and in some places boating. When a German wants to amuse himself, he sits in a garden and listens to a good band; if he is young and energetic, he walks on a well-made road to a restaurant on the top of a hill. In winter he plays skat, goes to the theatre or to a concert, or has his music at home. Also he reads a great deal, and he reads in several tongues. This, at any rate, is the way of Germans in cities and summer places, and it is a very small proportion of the educated classes who lead what we call a country life. "Elizabeth" knows German country life, and describes it in her charming books; perhaps she will some day choose to tell us how the men in her part of the world amuse themselves, and whether they are good sportsmen. I must confess that I have only once seen a German in full sporting costume. It was most impressive, though, a sort of pinkish grey bound everywhere with green, and set off by a soft felt hat and feathers. As we were having a walk with him, and it was early summer, we ventured to ask him what he had come to kill. "Bees," said he, and killed one the next moment with a pop-gun.