Ah, these are pleasant banks and noble trees! How green the grass upon those slopes—how fresh the flowers! And what a splendid walk is this, looking to the right down the double avenue of sturdy stems waving their spreading tops across the path! You did not think that quaint old town below could boast of such a border as this; but take a tour about the environs, and you will find them cheerful, fresh, and beautiful, from Neuer Kaye to Deich Thor.
We will pass through the simple Altona-gate, and make towards Hamburger-Berg. Do not be alarmed. Perhaps you have heard of the “Berg” before, and virtuous people have told you that it is a godless place. Well, so it is; but we will steer clear of its godlessness; we will avoid the dancing-houses. Before us lies a broad open road, neither dignified by buildings nor ornamented by trees,
but there are plenty of people, and they are worth our notice. There is a neat figure in a close boddice and a hauben, or hood-like headdress; she has taken to winter attire early. She carries no trailing skirts, nor has she ill-shapen ankles to hide. Look at her healthy face, though the cheek-bones are rather too high; but the mouth is ever breaking into a smile. Her hair is drawn back tightly from her face, tied in a knot at the back, and covered with a velvet skull-cap, richly worked with gold and silver wire and braid. The effect is not bad.
There is a country girl from Bardewick—Bardewick, you know, though now a mere village, is traditionally said to have been once a large and flourishing city. She has flowers to sell, and stands by the wayside. She has neither shoes nor stockings, nor is her dark dress and white apron of the longest. Her tightly fitting boddice is of blue cloth, with bullet buttons, and has but a short waist, while a coral confines her apron and dress. Her head-dress is only a striped coloured handkerchief, tied under the chin, but in such a way that it presents a sort of straight festoon just above her sparkling eyes, and completely hides her hair.
But here comes a curiosity of the male species. Surely this is Rip van Winkle from the States. He has no sugar-loaf hat, but he wears the trunkhose, stockings, and large buckled shoes of the old Dutchman, and even his ample jacket, with an enormous sort of frill at the bottom. No, my friend, let me give you to understand that this is a Vierländer, and a farmer of some means. Do you not see that he has a double row of bullet buttons on his jacket, down the front of his ample hose, and even along the edges of his enormous pockets? They are solid silver, every button of them, nor are the massive buckles on his shoes of any more gross material. Here come more velvet skull-caps, with gold and silver worked into them. How jauntily the wearers trip along! It is a fact, the abominable pavement of Hamburg sets the inhabitants eternally on their toes.
Here is a Tyroler, and a tall fellow he is; straight as an arrow, and nimble as a chamois; but yet with a steady, earnest look about him, although a secret smile is playing round his handsome, mustachioed mouth, that tells you of a strong and persevering character. He is shaped like an Adonis, and his short jacket, breeches, pale striped stockings, and tightly laced boots; the broad leathern embroidered band about his waist, and the steeple-crowned hat with the little coquettish feather, all help to make up a figure that you
would like to see among his native mountains. And yet he is but a dignified sort of pedlar, and would be very happy to sell you a dozen or so of table napkins, Alpine handkerchiefs, or a few pieces of tape.
Well! he is gone, and before us comes a female figure, who forms a fit companion to the silver-buttoned Vierländer we have just past. Notice her dress; she is a Vierländerin. Her petticoats are shamefully short, you will say, stiff and plaited too as they are, but what a gallant pair of red stockings she wears, and what a neat, bright pair of buckled shoes! Her dress consists of a close boddice with long sleeves, all of dark purple stuff, and her neat black apron does not make a bad contrast to it. But her head-gear!—her hair is drawn from her face under a closely fitting caul, while an exaggerated black bow, or rather a pair of triangular wings, project some distance from the back of the head, and beneath them two enormous tails of hair trail down her back, each terminating in a huge red bow.
This country girl appears to have sold all her fruit, and has placed her basket upside down upon her head. No such thing; that is her peculiar head-dress; look again, and you will see that it is a small plaited straw basket, about a foot and a half in diameter, with a very deep straight edge. It is fastened on her head by a caul sewn into the inside. Well! at any rate this is a Quakeress we see coming at such a stately pace along the gravelled road? Wrong again, my friend; this is a young lady from Heligoland, the little island we passed at the mouth of the Elbe, and a very prim and neat young lady she is, though where she got her bonnet shape from I cannot say.
The way is lined with hawkers of every description: fruit, songs and sausages; toys, sticks and cigars; pipes, sweetmeats and tape; every imaginable article that was ever sold at a fair is to be found here, and every vender in a different dress, illustrating at one view the peasant costumes of every village in the vicinity. As for tobacco, the air is like a gust from some gigantic pipe. Here is the entrance to Franconi’s Circus, though not yet open for public entertainment. Blasts of obstreperous music rush upon you from every door; the shrill squealing of a flageolet being heard above everything else.