THE SPECIAL COMMERS.
Bumpers in oar left-hands draining,
We will drink thy long maintaining,
Ancient, jovial Burschendom!
Swords in our right hands extending,
We will fight for thy defending,
Free and gallant Burschendom!
Hauff.
These lines of Hauff's, who himself enjoyed in Tübingen the pleasures of the Burschendom with a fresh spirit, express the sentiments which altogether in the life of the student, but especially in its most beautiful feast, the Commers, are felt and abound. We have described the General Commers; and we have now to make our readers acquainted with the so-called Special Commers, that which each individual corps celebrates at the commencement and conclusion of each Semester. These Commerses are seldom held in the city. We see a jocund train issuing forth from one of the city gates. A troop goes before on horseback, who, in earlier times, were still more distinguished by their peculiar style, but who still may sometimes be seen in full costume, that is, in buckskins and huge jack-boots, Polonaise frocks; on their heads, their Cerevis caps; over their breasts, wearing the broad Chore-band, while they carry in their right hands their naked swords. The rest follow them in carriages drawn by two or four horses; or the Senior precedes in a four or six-horse equipage, and the rest follow in two-horse ones. In their customary negligent student-dress, they lounge at their ease in their carriages, smoking their long pipes. The Foxes show themselves especially consequential, since it is the first time that they have been privileged to present themselves to the eyes of the astonished world in such a public procession. The Pawk-doctor is always invited to this festivity, and frequently honours the Chore with his presence; but the Red Fisherman is an invariable attendant, arrayed in the oddest style, as the black frock-coat, and his other habiliments, by no means correspond with the open breast and outlying shirt. He is generally posted as servant behind the last carriage.
If now the reader were, on such a day, already at Neckarsteinach, so might he, from the little pavilion in the garden of the Gasthouse[[42]] of the Harp, right commodiously observe the approach of such a train, as it emerges from one of the windings of the road which follows the serpentine course of the Neckar, and permits him even from afar to see the flashing of the drawn swords, and the shimmering of the coloured caps and Chore-bands. Or he sees the new guests approaching in a barge which they have mounted at Neckargemünd, where they have left their horses and carriages. The barge is hung with garlands and festoons, pennons stream from the masts; the sons of the Muses, in their many-coloured costume, are picturesquely grouped, and some of them are singing in the overflowing of their spirits to the sound of the jocund music.