25 AUGUST 1967, Page 10

A hundred years ago

From the 'Spectator', 24 August, 1867—Great people seem to have at last hit upon a mode of entertaining each other which is a little picturesque. On the visit of the Emperor Napoleon to the Kaiser, the hills around Salzburg were lighted with beacons; the Untersberg in particular blazing into the night, and the cave where Frederick Barbarossa sits waiting the hour of German unity being turned into a "sea of flame". The same thing was attempted on her Majesty's visit to the Border, the old warning beacons, which once told of invasion, being once more heaped up, and flaring all through the night. The attempt was a grand success, the squires 'heaping the bonfires well, and the whole country side turning out to gaze.