accurate as mosaic, houses of bright compact
brick, avenues of elms forming sheltered walks
from end to end, and streets delightfully clean,
they greatly remind the traveller of the
highly-policed little towns of Holland.

The system pursued in filling up vacant
clerical charges is, as nearly as can be, that of
uncontrolled popular election The parishioners
meet at the church on a day of which due
intimation has been given by the ecclesiastical
judicatory of the district. The only inhabitants of
the parish who do not attend on these occasions
are the proprietors of the larger estates; they
absent themselves lest they should be suspected
of influencing their tenants in behalf of some
particular preacher. The candidates are
generally those young clergymen of the neighbourhood
with whose pulpit ministrations the people
are best acquainted. The names of these
being duly proposed, every male parishioner
who has received the sacrament votes for the
person he prefers, and the appointment is given
to him who unites the greatest number of
voices. The system appears to work well,
there. There are few instances of serious
divisions among the people, and as few in which the
best qualified candidate is not selected.

Pretty little Kiel, in a snug baylet on the
north coast of Holstein, receives, if not its
vitality, at least a great part of its animation,
from the fresh blood which flows through it in
the shape of strangers. The steamers arriving
from Copenhagen import objects of constant
interest. Paces are seen in its peaceable streets
which nobody has ever seen before, and dialects
are heard whose interpretation would puzzle its
learned university: which university, by the way,
includes imprisonment amongst its modes of
discipline. He is no myth, that travelling
student of dramatic notoriety, who, when asked by
country acquaintances where he resided, frankly
gave his address, "at the University Prison,
Heidelberg."

But Kiel is best known to German idlers from
its attractions as a watering-place, notwithstanding
the rivals it has to contend with.
Cuxhaven, Nordeuei, and Heligoland. But though
these rivals stand on the North Sea, whose
waters are reckoned more restorative than those
of the Baltic, yet Kiel attracts a fair proportion
of the thousands who annually flock from all
parts of Germany to some other part of
Fatherland.

Holstein, for its present annoyance, is the
joint which unites to the great German body the
long straggling-arm known as Continental Denmark.
The little duchy, hitherto best known for
its agricultural fame, holds also a conspicuous
place in the annals of the royal houses of Europe.
Its princely line has given kings to most of the
thrones of the north, and if they all begin, to
squabble about it, there is no knowing where
the quarrel will end. A different supply
consists of cart-horses, the Holstein breed
maintaining its reputation as amongst the fittest for
draught in the world. The dairies are also in
high repute. There are farms in the neighbourhood
of Kiel where a couple of hundred cows
are kept, and in whose storerooms a thousand
cheeses, ready for export, may be seen at one
time. Though Kiel is somewhat sunk from its
importance as the capital of the Gottorp portion
of Holstein (formerly belonging to the imperial
family of Russia), yet, in consequence of a brisk
commerce and some manufacturing spirit, the
inhabitants have long been reputed wealthy.

On doubling the Point of Falster, after leaving
Kiel, the steamer takes you between Zealand
and an archipelago of islands scattered about on
either side—poor little islets scarcely rising
above the water's edge, covered with scanty
grass and a few hovels, whose peasant inhabitants
lead a life much akin to that passed on
shipboard. The wind dashes the spray of the
waves against their huts. The sea roars by clay
around the family table, and by night beneath
the pillows on which they sleep. The sea is
their element, their delight, and their sorrow,
their wide world, their boundary. Casting their
nets therein, they reap their harvests.

It is a popular tradition that some of these
islets were made by enchanters, who wished for
greater facilities of going to and fro, and dropped
them in the sea as stations on their way. At
certain spots they are so close to each other
that the sea no longer resembles a sea, but a
mighty river like the Rhine. You distinguish
the shore on either side; you can count the
dwellings; and on Sundays, when the boat runs
along the coast of Falster, you can hear the bells,
and can respond to the hymns chanted inside
the churches.

A little further on, the natives will take you
to the prow of the vessel and point with pride
to a tall white mass of rock surmounted by
several sharp peaks, and crowned with trees.
What a geologist would call calcareous rock, is
not a rock, but a beautiful young fairy who
reigns over the island and its surrounding
waters. The naked cliff is her white robe,
which falls in graceful folds to the sea, and is
diapered by the glancing sunbeams. The pointed
pyramid is her sceptre, and the belt of wood her
diadem. From the summit of the Dronnings
Stol (the Queen's Seat), she surveys her
empire and protects the fisherman's barque as
watchfully as the merchant vessel. Thus does
the popular imagination poetise material objects.
Passing along the shores of a lake, it hears the
water-sprites singing in their grottos, and
beholds the mermaids rising to the surface. Gazing
at a hill of chalk, it discovers a queen there, and
calls it the Moensklint (the Maiden's Hock). At
Moenskliut the sea resumes its open character,
and the coast of Kiöge almost seems to retreat,
to make way for the vessels which incessantly
pass. Thence to Copenhagen t he sea is covered
with ships. Here, as elsewhere, the Baltic
coast is full of traditions, some impressed with
true religious feeling, others bearing the trace
of paganism.

In these islets everybody is acquainted with the
history of elves and giants, with magic swords, and
treasures guarded by dragons. They are the resort