the play every ten years is positively stated. The oldest known text-book of the play bears the date 1662, and it refers to a still older book. Since the year 1634 the Passion Play has undergone great changes and improvements. Such figures as Lucifer, Prince of Hell, who, with his retinue, used to play a great part in the Ammergau performance, have been banished. The devil was formerly a constant actor upon the stage; for instance, he used to dance about Judas during the course of the latter's temptation, and when the betrayer hanged himself, a host of satanic imps would rush upon the suicide, and tear open his bowels, to find a good meal of very palatable sausages or other savoury material. Up to the year 1830 the play was performed in the village churchyard, in the open air. In the first decades of the present century the text of the Play was thoroughly revised by Father Ottmar Weiss, of Jesewang, ex-conventual of the Benedictine Monastery at Ettal (died 1843), who removed unsuitable and inharmonious passages, substituting prose for doggrel verse. The improvements then commenced have been carried on up to the present time by the former pastor of the village, the Geistlicher-Rath Daisenberger, who is still active in promoting the success of the play. The last performances of the Passion Play were given in the year 1871. The performances of 1870 (the decadal year) had been suddenly interrupted by the breaking-out of the Franco-German war, when the Passion Theatre had to be closed long before the stipulated term, and the visitors were scattered like chaff to the four winds. Forty of the men and youth of Ammergau, among them several who had taken part in the play, were called into the ranks of the Bavarian army. Joseph Maier, the delineator of the person of Christ in 1870, was among the number of those who had to perform military duty, though it fortunately happened that the King of Bavaria, Ludwig II., who had ever manifested a deep interest in the Passion Play, interfered in his favour, commanding that, instead of doing active service in the field, he should be allowed to fulfil his duties in the Munich garrison. None of the other principal players were called to the ranks. Of the forty who left the village in 1870 for the war, six never returned from France: of these, two fell in battle and four died in the hospitals. Alois Lang, one of the six victims of the war, had undertaken, before he left his native village, the part of Simon of Cyrene. When the news of peace between Germany and France arrived in the Bavarian Highlands, and fires of joy were lighted on every mountaintop, from the Odenwald to the Tyrol, the good villagers of Ober-Ammergau met together, for the purpose of joining in the general expression of triumph and exultation. "With the permission of our gracious sovereign," they said, we will give a repetition of our Passion Play. This shall be our method of thanking God, who has bestowed upon us the blessings of victory and peace!" 66 The invitation to attend the performances found acceptance far beyond the borders of Germany. The fame of the play of 1870 had spread into all Christian lands; and when it was known that the performances would be repeated in 1871, Ammergau became the goal towards which the great body of tourists directed their steps. The journey was then, as it is in the present year, for many a true Passion pilgrimage. The village of Ober-Ammergau is far removed from the noise of the great world, and a long day's journey, attended with no little exertion, has to be made from Munich before it is reached. Leaving the Bavarian capital, the traveller has the choice of several routes. One of these is by the railroad to Starnberg, and along the shores of the lake of the same name to Murnau. A four hours' drive from this place in a carriage or omnibus completes the journey to the village. Those who prefer crossing the beautiful Lake Starnberg can take the steamer from Starnberg to Seeshaupt, and thence by conveyance to Ammergau. In the journey by railroad, every mile possesses interest to the tourist. There is a wealth of legendary lore stored among the peasant populations through. which the road passes. Planegg, a few stations distant from the Bavarian capital, is celebrated as a place of pilgrimage, the great object of attraction being the Virgin's Oak, with its image of the Madonna, of wide-spread miraculous reputation. In the Mühlthal, the tradition of the birth of Charlemagne lends an historical interest to the neighbourhood. At a short distance further the first glimpse of Lake Starnberg is obtained. It is a beautiful, placid sheet of water, speckled with the white sails of yachts, and ploughed occasionally by the steamer from the little town of Starnberg, across its whole length to the many charming villages that dot its shores. It is a pleasant sail across the blue waters, past idyllic villas and mansions, among which Schloss Berg, one of the favourite residences of Ludwig II., is conspicuous; past the Garden of Roses, one of the many artificial paradises which the romantic monarch has created in or near his residences; past Leoni, a place hallowed by artistic memories; past the legendary St. Heinrich, until the bell announces that Seeshaupt is reached. "Beautiful Starnberg!" are the words that escape the traveller's lips as he first catches a glimpse of the lake; and "Beautiful Starnberg!" when he bids it adieu for the more romantic pleasures of the beckoning snow-crowned mountains. The shores of the lake are a paradise which the Munich artists well know how to enjoy, and where they celebrate many of their annual festivals, for which the German artists are justly celebrated. Characteristic of the fruitful scene were the words of the hordes of Attila, who, when they overran Bavaria, shouted, "To Bayern! To Bayern! There dwells the Lord God himself!" Between the lake, where we have so long tarried, and the Bavarian Highlands, there lies a broad plain of several miles in extent. Those tourists who prefer the overland transit, proceed by train either to Murnau or to Tulz, at the foot of a mountain called the High Peissenberg, which has merited the name of the Bavarian Righi. But of late years it seems to possess less attractions for the traveller than it formerly did. The greater number of Passion pilgrims keep the rails as far as Murnau. If we may believe tradition, the little town was originally named, with the valley which it overlooks, Wurmau, i.e. the Valley of the Dragon. Murnau had a Passion Play in earlier times. A charming lake, the Staffelsee, lies near the village. Crowning one of the islands is a small Kapelle which tradition says was consecrated by Saint Boniface, the great apostle of the Germans. After leaving Murnau, we pass on our way to Ammergau through the valley B of the Loisach. The road passes between shady rows of trees; beside us, the little river glides smoothly along, unencumbered in summer, but in winter destined to carry down from the mountains its burden of floats. Rising majestically in front, are the high peaks of the mountains, crowned with snow up to late in the summer. To the right is the Etaller range, with the EtallerMandl, over five thousand feet, and to the left the Herzogenstand and the Krottenkopf, about six thousand feet high; while directly in front, apparently barring the end of the gorge, is the Zugspitze, near Garmisch, with a height of nearly ten thousand feet. At length the traveller's path itself is closed in by the lofty ranges on either side, so that space is scarcely left between the mountain and the opposite mass of precipitous rocks, for the two slender lines of road and river. During the Passion season the road is animated, one or even two days before the performance, by the numbers of conveyances and by the picturesque groups of foot-passengers. With what resoluteness of purpose, and with what devotion of spirit do many of these poor peasants undertake the journey! See them, long before their destination is reached, climb up the sides of the little mount near Eschenlohe, in order to join the groups of the devout, who never cease to invoke the Madonna, in the beautiful Gnadenkapelle," or chapel of grace, which crowns its summit. Sanctuaries of this kind, containing an image of the Virgin, of miraculous fame, seem to have been planted on every knoll of the valley. A reader of Uhland would not be able to pass beneath these chapel-crowned mounts without repeating the beautiful verses of that poet entitled: "Die Kapelle." Let him substitute the cow-boy or the goat-herd boy of the Loisach valley for the shepherdboy of Suabia, and the picture is complete : On the height the chapel clinging, reigning o'er a vale of joy, Up there to the grave they're bringing, those who dwelt down in the vale: How fortunate is it, that the great Etaller Berg has been placed between the highway leading from Murnau to Partenkirchen, the valley of the Ammer and the village of Ober-Ammergau. For to this barrier we are indebted for one circumstance of inestimable value. The actors of the Passion Play, cut off by their geographical position from communication with the outer world, have escaped its contaminating influences; and are able, after the lapse of so many decades, to exhibit their sacred drama in more than its original purity. When the tourist comes to the little village of Oberau, he finds that the distinction of persons ceases for a while; rich and poor have to struggle with the steepness of Mount Ettal for over half-an-hour, while a pair of the best horses are tugging hard to draw up the empty carriage. Halfway up the steep hill the tourist is struck by one of those votive tablets, so common in these parts. It tells the story of Alois Pfausler, who here met a |