criticism. To have the right to discuss it at all, one must treat it
in a spirit of sympathy.

We came into Oberammergau on Friday, the 1st day of August, 1890, to
witness the performance of the Sunday following. The city of Munich,
seventy miles away, was crowded with visitors, all bound to the Passion
Play. The express-train of twenty cars which carried us from Munich
was crowded with people from almost every part of the civilized world.

At Oberau, six miles from Oberammergau, at the foot of the Ettal
Mountain, we left the railway, and there took part in a general
scramble for seats in the carriages. The fine new road winds through
dark pine woods, climbing the hill in long zigzags above wild chasms,
past the old monastery of Ettal, and then slowly descends to the soft
Ammer meadows. The great peak of the Kofel is ever in front, while the
main chain of the Bavarian Alps closes the view behind.

Arrived in the little village, all was bustle and confusion. The
streets were full of people--some busy in taking care of strangers,
others sauntering idly about, as if at a country fair. Young women, in
black bodices and white sleeves, welcomed the visitors at the little
inns or served them in the shops. Everywhere were young men in
Tyrolese holiday attire--green coats, black slouch hats, with a feather
or sprig of Edelweiss in the hat-band, and with trousers, like those of
the Scottish Highlanders, which end hopelessly beyond the reach of
either shoes or stockings. Besides the rustics and the tourists, one
met here and there upon the streets men whose grave demeanor and long
black hair resting on their shoulders proclaimed them to be actors in
the Passion Play.