A TRAMP ABROAD, Part 1

By Mark Twain

(Samuel L. Clemens)

First published in 1880

Illustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition

 * * * * * *

ILLUSTRATIONS:

 1.    PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR 2.    TITIAN'S MOSES 3.    THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES 4.    THE BLACK KNIGHT 5.    OPENING HIS VIZIER 6.    THE ENRAGED EMPEROR 7.    THE PORTIER 8.    ONE OF THOSE BOYS 9.    SCHLOSS HOTEL 10.   IN MY CAGE 11.   HEIDELBERG CASTLE 12.   HEIDELBERG CASTLE, RIVER FRONTAGE 13.   THE RETREAT 14.   JIM BAKER 15.   "A BLUE FLUSH ABOUT IT" 16.   COULD NOT SEE IT 17.   THE BEER KING 18.   THE LECTURER'S AUDIENCE 19.   INDUSTRIOUS STUDENTS 20.   IDLE STUDENT 21.   COMPANIONABLE INTERCOURSE 22.   AN IMPOSING SPECTACLE 23.   AN ADVERTISEMENT 24.   "UNDERSTANDS HIS BUSINESS" 25.   THE OLD SURGEON 26.   THE FIRST WOUND 27.   THE CASTLE COURT 28.   WOUNDED 29.   FAVORITE STREET COSTUME 30.   INEFFACEABLE SCARS 31.   PIECE OF SWORD

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I A Tramp over Europe--On theHolsatia--Hamburg--Frankfort-on-the- Main--How it Won its Name--A Lessonin Political Economy--Neatness in Dress--Rhine Legends--"The Knaveof Bergen" The Famous Ball--The Strange Knight--Dancing with theQueen--Removal of the Masks--The Disclosure--Wrath of the Emperor--TheEnding

CHAPTER II At Heidelberg--Great Stir at a Hotel--The Portier--Arrivalof the Empress--The Schloss Hotel--Location of Heidelberg--The RiverNeckar--New Feature in a Hotel--Heidelberg Castle--View from theHotel--A Tramp in the Woods--Meeting a Raven--Can Ravens Talk?--Laughedat and Vanquished--Language of Animals--Jim Baker--Blue-Jays

CHAPTER III Baker's Blue-Jay Yarn--Jay Language--The Cabin--"Hello, Ireckon I've struck something"--A Knot Hole--Attempt to fill it--A Tonof Acorns--Friends Called In--A Great Mystery--More Jays called A BlueFlush--A Discovery--A Rich Joke--One that Couldn't See It

CHAPTER IV Student Life--The Five Corps--The Beet King--A FreeLife--Attending Lectures--An Immense Audience--IndustriousStudents--Politeness of the Students--Intercourse with the ProfessorsScenes at the Castle Garden--Abundance of Dogs--Symbol of BlightedLove--How the Ladies Advertise

CHAPTER V The Students' Dueling Ground--The Dueling Room--The SwordGrinder--Frequency of the Duels--The Duelists--Protection againstInjury--The Surgeon--Arrangements for the Duels--The FirstDuel--The First Wound--A Drawn Battle--The Second Duel--Cutting andSlashing--Interference of the Surgeon

CHAPTER VI The Third Duel--A Sickening Spectacle--Dinner betweenFights--The Last Duel--Fighting in Earnest--Faces and HeadsMutilated--Great Nerve of the Duelists--Fatal Results notInfrequent--The World's View of these Fights

CHAPTER VII Corps--laws and Usages--Volunteering to Fight--Coolnessof the Wounded--Wounds Honorable--Newly bandaged Students aroundHeidelberg--Scarred Faces Abundant--A Badge of Honor--Prince Bismarkas a Duelist--Statistics--Constant Sword Practice--Color of theCorps--Corps Etiquette

CHAPTER I

[The Knighted Knave of Bergen]

One day it occurred to me that it had been many years since the worldhad been afforded the spectacle of a man adventurous enough to undertakea journey through Europe on foot. After much thought, I decided thatI was a person fitted to furnish to mankind this spectacle. So Idetermined to do it. This was in March, 1878. 

I looked about me for the right sort of person to accompany me in thecapacity of agent, and finally hired a Mr. Harris for this service. 

It was also my purpose to study art while in Europe. Mr. Harris was insympathy with me in this. He was as much of an enthusiast in art asI was, and not less anxious to learn to paint. I desired to learn theGerman language; so did Harris. 

Toward the middle of April we sailed in the HOLSATIA, Captain Brandt, and had a very pleasant trip, indeed. 

After a brief rest at Hamburg, we made preparations for a longpedestrian trip southward in the soft spring weather, but at thelast moment we changed the program, for private reasons, and took theexpress-train. 

We made a short halt at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and found it aninteresting city. I would have liked to visit the birthplace ofGutenburg, but it could not be done, as no memorandum of the site of thehouse has been kept. So we spent an hour in the Goethe mansion instead. The city permits this house to belong to private parties, insteadof gracing and dignifying herself with the honor of possessing andprotecting it. 

Frankfort is one of the sixteen cities which have the distinction ofbeing the place where the following incident occurred. Charlemagne, while chasing the Saxons (as HE said), or being chased by them (as THEYsaid), arrived at the bank of the river at dawn, in a fog. The enemywere either before him or behind him; but in any case he wanted to getacross, very badly. He would have given anything for a guide, but nonewas to be had. Presently he saw a deer, followed by her young, approachthe water. He watched her, judging that she would seek a ford, and hewas right. She waded over, and the army followed. So a great Frankishvictory or defeat was gained or avoided; and in order to commemorate theepisode, Charlemagne commanded a city to be built there, which he namedFrankfort--the ford of the Franks. None of the other cities where thisevent happened were named for it. This is good evidence that Frankfortwas the first place it occurred at. 

Frankfort has another distinction--it is the birthplace of the Germanalphabet; or at least of the German word for alphabet --BUCHSTABEN. They say that the first movable types were made on birchsticks--BUCHSTABE--hence the name. 

I was taught a lesson in political economy in Frankfort. I had broughtfrom home a box containing a thousand very cheap cigars. By way ofexperiment, I stepped into a little shop in a queer old back street, took four gaily decorated boxes of wax matches and three cigars, andlaid down a silver piece worth 48 cents. The man gave me 43 centschange. 

In Frankfort everybody wears clean clothes, and I think we noticed thatthis strange thing was the case in Hamburg, too, and in the villagesalong the road. Even in the narrowest and poorest and most ancientquarters of Frankfort neat and clean clothes were the rule. The littlechildren of both sexes were nearly always nice enough to take into abody's lap. And as for the uniforms of the soldiers, they were newnessand brightness carried to perfection. One could never detect a smirchor a grain of dust upon them. The street-car conductors and drivers worepretty uniforms which seemed to be just out of the bandbox, and theirmanners were as fine as their clothes. 

In one of the shops I had the luck to stumble upon a book which hascharmed me nearly to death. It is entitled THE LEGENDS OF THE RHINE FROMBASLE TO ROTTERDAM, by F. J. Kiefer; translated by L. W. Garnham, B. A. 

All tourists MENTION the Rhine legends--in that sort of way whichquietly pretends that the mentioner has been familiar with them all hislife, and that the reader cannot possibly be ignorant of them--but notourist ever TELLS them. So this little book fed me in a very hungryplace; and I, in my turn, intend to feed my reader, with one ortwo little lunches from the same larder. I shall not mar Garnham'stranslation by meddling with its English; for the most toothsome thingabout it is its quaint fashion of building English sentences on theGerman plan--and punctuating them accordingly to no plan at all. 

In the chapter devoted to "Legends of Frankfort, " I find the following:

"THE KNAVE OF BERGEN" "In Frankfort at the Romer was a great mask-ball, at the coronation festival, and in the illuminated saloon, the clangingmusic invited to dance, and splendidly appeared the rich toilets andcharms of the ladies, and the festively costumed Princes and Knights. All seemed pleasure, joy, and roguish gaiety, only one of the numerousguests had a gloomy exterior; but exactly the black armor in which hewalked about excited general attention, and his tall figure, as well asthe noble propriety of his movements, attracted especially the regardsof the ladies. 

Who the Knight was? Nobody could guess, for his Vizier was well closed, and nothing made him recognizable. Proud and yet modest he advanced tothe Empress; bowed on one knee before her seat, and begged for the favorof a waltz with the Queen of the festival. And she allowed his request. With light and graceful steps he danced through the long saloon, withthe sovereign who thought never to have found a more dexterous andexcellent dancer. But also by the grace of his manner, and fineconversation he knew to win the Queen, and she graciously accorded hima second dance for which he begged, a third, and a fourth, as well asothers were not refused him. How all regarded the happy dancer, howmany envied him the high favor; how increased curiosity, who the maskedknight could be. 

"Also the Emperor became more and more excited with curiosity, and withgreat suspense one awaited the hour, when according to mask-law, eachmasked guest must make himself known. This moment came, but although allother unmasked; the secret knight still refused to allow his featuresto be seen, till at last the Queen driven by curiosity, and vexed at theobstinate refusal; commanded him to open his Vizier. 

He opened it, and none of the high ladies and knights knew him. But fromthe crowded spectators, 2 officials advanced, who recognized the blackdancer, and horror and terror spread in the saloon, as they said who thesupposed knight was. It was the executioner of Bergen. But glowing withrage, the King commanded to seize the criminal and lead him to death, who had ventured to dance, with the queen; so disgraced the Empress, and insulted the crown. The culpable threw himself at the Emperor, andsaid--

"'Indeed I have heavily sinned against all noble guests assembled here, but most heavily against you my sovereign and my queen. The Queen isinsulted by my haughtiness equal to treason, but no punishment evenblood, will not be able to wash out the disgrace, which you havesuffered by me. Therefore oh King! allow me to propose a remedy, toefface the shame, and to render it as if not done. Draw your sword andknight me, then I will throw down my gauntlet, to everyone who dares tospeak disrespectfully of my king. '

"The Emperor was surprised at this bold proposal, however it appearedthe wisest to him; 'You are a knave, ' he replied after a moment'sconsideration, 'however your advice is good, and displays prudence, asyour offense shows adventurous courage. Well then, ' and gave him theknight-stroke 'so I raise you to nobility, who begged for grace for youroffense now kneels before me, rise as knight; knavish you have acted, and Knave of Bergen shall you be called henceforth, ' and gladly theBlack knight rose; three cheers were given in honor of the Emperor, andloud cries of joy testified the approbation with which the Queen dancedstill once with the Knave of Bergen. "

CHAPTER II

Heidelberg

[Landing a Monarch at Heidelberg]

We stopped at a hotel by the railway-station. Next morning, as we sat inmy room waiting for breakfast to come up, we got a good deal interestedin something which was going on over the way, in front of another hotel. First, the personage who is called the PORTIER (who is not the PORTER, but is a sort of first-mate of a hotel) [1. See Appendix A] appearedat the door in a spick-and-span new blue cloth uniform, decorated withshining brass buttons, and with bands of gold lace around his cap andwristbands; and he wore white gloves, too. 

He shed an official glance upon the situation, and then began to giveorders. Two women-servants came out with pails and brooms and brushes, and gave the sidewalk a thorough scrubbing; meanwhile two othersscrubbed the four marble steps which led up to the door; beyond these wecould see some men-servants taking up the carpet of the grand staircase. This carpet was carried away and the last grain of dust beaten andbanged and swept out of it; then brought back and put down again. Thebrass stair-rods received an exhaustive polishing and were returned totheir places. Now a troop of servants brought pots and tubs of bloomingplants and formed them into a beautiful jungle about the door and thebase of the staircase. Other servants adorned all the balconies of thevarious stories with flowers and banners; others ascended to theroof and hoisted a great flag on a staff there. Now came some morechamber-maids and retouched the sidewalk, and afterward wiped the marblesteps with damp cloths and finished by dusting them off with featherbrushes. Now a broad black carpet was brought out and laid down themarble steps and out across the sidewalk to the curbstone. The PORTIERcast his eye along it, and found it was not absolutely straight; hecommanded it to be straightened; the servants made the effort--madeseveral efforts, in fact--but the PORTIER was not satisfied. He finallyhad it taken up, and then he put it down himself and got it right. 

At this stage of the proceedings, a narrow bright red carpet wasunrolled and stretched from the top of the marble steps to thecurbstone, along the center of the black carpet. This red path cost thePORTIER more trouble than even the black one had done. But he patientlyfixed and refixed it until it was exactly right and lay precisely in themiddle of the black carpet. In New York these performances would havegathered a mighty crowd of curious and intensely interested spectators;but here it only captured an audience of half a dozen little boys whostood in a row across the pavement, some with their school-knapsacks ontheir backs and their hands in their pockets, others with arms full ofbundles, and all absorbed in the show. Occasionally one of them skippedirreverently over the carpet and took up a position on the other side. This always visibly annoyed the PORTIER. 

Now came a waiting interval. The landlord, in plain clothes, andbareheaded, placed himself on the bottom marble step, abreast thePORTIER, who stood on the other end of the same steps; six or eightwaiters, gloved, bareheaded, and wearing their whitest linen, theirwhitest cravats, and their finest swallow-tails, grouped themselvesabout these chiefs, but leaving the carpetway clear. Nobody moved orspoke any more but only waited. 

In a short time the shrill piping of a coming train was heard, andimmediately groups of people began to gather in the street. Two or threeopen carriages arrived, and deposited some maids of honor and some maleofficials at the hotel. Presently another open carriage brought theGrand Duke of Baden, a stately man in uniform, who wore the handsomebrass-mounted, steel-spiked helmet of the army on his head. Last camethe Empress of Germany and the Grand Duchess of Baden in a closedcarriage; these passed through the low-bowing groups of servants anddisappeared in the hotel, exhibiting to us only the backs of theirheads, and then the show was over. 

It appears to be as difficult to land a monarch as it is to launch aship. 

But as to Heidelberg. The weather was growing pretty warm, --very warm, in fact. So we left the valley and took quarters at the Schloss Hotel, on the hill, above the Castle. 

Heidelberg lies at the mouth of a narrow gorge--a gorge the shape ofa shepherd's crook; if one looks up it he perceives that it is aboutstraight, for a mile and a half, then makes a sharp curve to theright and disappears. This gorge--along whose bottom pours the swiftNeckar--is confined between (or cloven through) a couple of long, steepridges, a thousand feet high and densely wooded clear to their summits, with the exception of one section which has been shaved and put undercultivation. These ridges are chopped off at the mouth of the gorgeand form two bold and conspicuous headlands, with Heidelberg nestlingbetween them; from their bases spreads away the vast dim expanse of theRhine valley, and into this expanse the Neckar goes wandering in shiningcurves and is presently lost to view. 

Now if one turns and looks up the gorge once more, he will see theSchloss Hotel on the right perched on a precipice overlooking theNeckar--a precipice which is so sumptuously cushioned and draped withfoliage that no glimpse of the rock appears. The building seems veryairily situated. It has the appearance of being on a shelf half-wayup the wooded mountainside; and as it is remote and isolated, and verywhite, it makes a strong mark against the lofty leafy rampart at itsback. 

This hotel had a feature which was a decided novelty, and one whichmight be adopted with advantage by any house which is perched in acommanding situation. This feature may be described as a series ofglass-enclosed parlors CLINGING TO THE OUTSIDE OF THE HOUSE, one againsteach and every bed-chamber and drawing-room. They are like long, narrow, high-ceiled bird-cages hung against the building. My room was a cornerroom, and had two of these things, a north one and a west one. 

From the north cage one looks up the Neckar gorge; from the west one helooks down it. This last affords the most extensive view, and it is oneof the loveliest that can be imagined, too. Out of a billowy upheavalof vivid green foliage, a rifle-shot removed, rises the huge ruinof Heidelberg Castle, [2. See Appendix B] with empty window arches, ivy-mailed battlements, moldering towers--the Lear of inanimatenature--deserted, discrowned, beaten by the storms, but royal still, and beautiful. It is a fine sight to see the evening sunlight suddenlystrike the leafy declivity at the Castle's base and dash up it anddrench it as with a luminous spray, while the adjacent groves are indeep shadow. 

Behind the Castle swells a great dome-shaped hill, forest-clad, andbeyond that a nobler and loftier one. The Castle looks down upon thecompact brown-roofed town; and from the town two picturesque old bridgesspan the river. Now the view broadens; through the gateway of thesentinel headlands you gaze out over the wide Rhine plain, whichstretches away, softly and richly tinted, grows gradually and dreamilyindistinct, and finally melts imperceptibly into the remote horizon. 

I have never enjoyed a view which had such a serene and satisfying charmabout it as this one gives. 

The first night we were there, we went to bed and to sleep early; butI awoke at the end of two or three hours, and lay a comfortable whilelistening to the soothing patter of the rain against the balconywindows. I took it to be rain, but it turned out to be only the murmurof the restless Neckar, tumbling over her dikes and dams far below, inthe gorge. I got up and went into the west balcony and saw a wonderfulsight. Away down on the level under the black mass of the Castle, thetown lay, stretched along the river, its intricate cobweb of streetsjeweled with twinkling lights; there were rows of lights on the bridges;these flung lances of light upon the water, in the black shadows of thearches; and away at the extremity of all this fairy spectacle blinkedand glowed a massed multitude of gas-jets which seemed to cover acres ofground; it was as if all the diamonds in the world had been spreadout there. I did not know before, that a half-mile of sextuplerailway-tracks could be made such an adornment. 

One thinks Heidelberg by day--with its surroundings--is the lastpossibility of the beautiful; but when he sees Heidelberg by night, afallen Milky Way, with that glittering railway constellation pinned tothe border, he requires time to consider upon the verdict. 

One never tires of poking about in the dense woods that clothe allthese lofty Neckar hills to their beguiling and impressive charm in anycountry; but German legends and fairy tales have given these an addedcharm. They have peopled all that region with gnomes, and dwarfs, andall sorts of mysterious and uncanny creatures. At the time I am writingof, I had been reading so much of this literature that sometimes I wasnot sure but I was beginning to believe in the gnomes and fairies asrealities. 

One afternoon I got lost in the woods about a mile from the hotel, andpresently fell into a train of dreamy thought about animals which talk, and kobolds, and enchanted folk, and the rest of the pleasant legendarystuff; and so, by stimulating my fancy, I finally got to imagining Iglimpsed small flitting shapes here and there down the columnedaisles of the forest. It was a place which was peculiarly meet for theoccasion. It was a pine wood, with so thick and soft a carpet of brownneedles that one's footfall made no more sound than if he were treadingon wool; the tree-trunks were as round and straight and smooth aspillars, and stood close together; they were bare of branches to a pointabout twenty-five feet above-ground, and from there upward so thick withboughs that not a ray of sunlight could pierce through. The world wasbright with sunshine outside, but a deep and mellow twilight reigned inthere, and also a deep silence so profound that I seemed to hear my ownbreathings. 

When I had stood ten minutes, thinking and imagining, and gettingmy spirit in tune with the place, and in the right mood to enjoy thesupernatural, a raven suddenly uttered a horse croak over my head. Itmade me start; and then I was angry because I started. I looked up, andthe creature was sitting on a limb right over me, looking down at me. I felt something of the same sense of humiliation and injury whichone feels when he finds that a human stranger has been clandestinelyinspecting him in his privacy and mentally commenting upon him. I eyedthe raven, and the raven eyed me. Nothing was said during some seconds. Then the bird stepped a little way along his limb to get a better pointof observation, lifted his wings, stuck his head far down below hisshoulders toward me and croaked again--a croak with a distinctlyinsulting expression about it. If he had spoken in English he could nothave said any more plainly than he did say in raven, "Well, what do YOUwant here?" I felt as foolish as if I had been caught in some mean actby a responsible being, and reproved for it. However, I made no reply;I would not bandy words with a raven. The adversary waited a while, withhis shoulders still lifted, his head thrust down between them, andhis keen bright eye fixed on me; then he threw out two or three moreinsults, which I could not understand, further than that I knew aportion of them consisted of language not used in church. 

I still made no reply. Now the adversary raised his head andcalled. There was an answering croak from a little distance in thewood--evidently a croak of inquiry. The adversary explained withenthusiasm, and the other raven dropped everything and came. The two satside by side on the limb and discussed me as freely and offensively astwo great naturalists might discuss a new kind of bug. The thing becamemore and more embarrassing. They called in another friend. This was toomuch. I saw that they had the advantage of me, and so I concluded to getout of the scrape by walking out of it. They enjoyed my defeat as muchas any low white people could have done. They craned their necks andlaughed at me (for a raven CAN laugh, just like a man), they squalledinsulting remarks after me as long as they could see me. They werenothing but ravens--I knew that--what they thought of me could be amatter of no consequence--and yet when even a raven shouts after you, "What a hat!" "Oh, pull down your vest!" and that sort of thing, ithurts you and humiliates you, and there is no getting around it withfine reasoning and pretty arguments. 

Animals talk to each other, of course. There can be no question aboutthat; but I suppose there are very few people who can understand them. I never knew but one man who could. I knew he could, however, because hetold me so himself. He was a middle-aged, simple-hearted miner who hadlived in a lonely corner of California, among the woods and mountains, a good many years, and had studied the ways of his only neighbors, thebeasts and the birds, until he believed he could accurately translateany remark which they made. This was Jim Baker. According to Jim Baker, some animals have only a limited education, and some use only simplewords, and scarcely ever a comparison or a flowery figure; whereas, certain other animals have a large vocabulary, a fine command oflanguage and a ready and fluent delivery; consequently these latter talka great deal; they like it; they are so conscious of their talent, and they enjoy "showing off. " Baker said, that after long and carefulobservation, he had come to the conclusion that the bluejays were thebest talkers he had found among birds and beasts. Said he:

"There's more TO a bluejay than any other creature. He has got moremoods, and more different kinds of feelings than other creatures; and, mind you, whatever a bluejay feels, he can put into language. Andno mere commonplace language, either, but rattling, out-and-outbook-talk--and bristling with metaphor, too--just bristling! And as forcommand of language--why YOU never see a bluejay get stuck for a word. No man ever did. They just boil out of him! And another thing: I'venoticed a good deal, and there's no bird, or cow, or anything that usesas good grammar as a bluejay. You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does--but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get topulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you'll hear grammarthat will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the NOISEwhich fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it'sthe sickening grammar they use. Now I've never heard a jay use badgrammar but very seldom; and when they do, they are as ashamed as ahuman; they shut right down and leave. 

"You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure--but he's gotfeathers on him, and don't belong to no church, perhaps; but otherwisehe is just as much human as you be. And I'll tell you for why. A jay'sgifts, and instincts, and feelings, and interests, cover the wholeground. A jay hasn't got any more principle than a Congressman. A jaywill lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray; andfour times out of five, a jay will go back on his solemnest promise. Thesacredness of an obligation is such a thing which you can't cram intono bluejay's head. Now, on top of all this, there's another thing; ajay can out-swear any gentleman in the mines. You think a cat can swear. Well, a cat can; but you give a bluejay a subject that calls for hisreserve-powers, and where is your cat? Don't talk to ME--I know too muchabout this thing; in the one little particular of scolding--just good, clean, out-and-out scolding--a bluejay can lay over anything, human ordivine. Yes, sir, a jay is everything that a man is. A jay can cry, a jay can laugh, a jay can feel shame, a jay can reason and plan anddiscuss, a jay likes gossip and scandal, a jay has got a sense of humor, a jay knows when he is an ass just as well as you do--maybe better. Ifa jay ain't human, he better take in his sign, that's all. Now I'm goingto tell you a perfectly true fact about some bluejays. "

CHAPTER III

Baker's Bluejay Yarn

[What Stumped the Blue Jays]

"When I first begun to understand jay language correctly, there was alittle incident happened here. Seven years ago, the last man in thisregion but me moved away. There stands his house--been empty ever since;a log house, with a plank roof--just one big room, and no more; noceiling--nothing between the rafters and the floor. Well, one Sundaymorning I was sitting out here in front of my cabin, with my cat, takingthe sun, and looking at the blue hills, and listening to the leavesrustling so lonely in the trees, and thinking of the home away yonder inthe states, that I hadn't heard from in thirteen years, when a bluejaylit on that house, with an acorn in his mouth, and says, 'Hello, Ireckon I've struck something. ' When he spoke, the acorn dropped out ofhis mouth and rolled down the roof, of course, but he didn't care; hismind was all on the thing he had struck. It was a knot-hole in the roof. He cocked his head to one side, shut one eye and put the other one tothe hole, like a possum looking down a jug; then he glanced up withhis bright eyes, gave a wink or two with his wings--which signifiesgratification, you understand--and says, 'It looks like a hole, it'slocated like a hole--blamed if I don't believe it IS a hole!'

"Then he cocked his head down and took another look; he glances upperfectly joyful, this time; winks his wings and his tail both, andsays, 'Oh, no, this ain't no fat thing, I reckon! If I ain't in luck!--Why it's a perfectly elegant hole!' So he flew down and got thatacorn, and fetched it up and dropped it in, and was just tilting hishead back, with the heavenliest smile on his face, when all of asudden he was paralyzed into a listening attitude and that smile fadedgradually out of his countenance like breath off'n a razor, and thequeerest look of surprise took its place. Then he says, 'Why, I didn'thear it fall!' He cocked his eye at the hole again, and took a longlook; raised up and shook his head; stepped around to the other side ofthe hole and took another look from that side; shook his head again. Hestudied a while, then he just went into the Details--walked round andround the hole and spied into it from every point of the compass. No use. Now he took a thinking attitude on the comb of the roof andscratched the back of his head with his right foot a minute, and finallysays, 'Well, it's too many for ME, that's certain; must be a mighty longhole; however, I ain't got no time to fool around here, I got to "tendto business"; I reckon it's all right--chance it, anyway. '

"So he flew off and fetched another acorn and dropped it in, and triedto flirt his eye to the hole quick enough to see what become of it, but he was too late. He held his eye there as much as a minute; then heraised up and sighed, and says, 'Confound it, I don't seem to understandthis thing, no way; however, I'll tackle her again. ' He fetchedanother acorn, and done his level best to see what become of it, but hecouldn't. He says, 'Well, I never struck no such a hole as this before;I'm of the opinion it's a totally new kind of a hole. ' Then he begunto get mad. He held in for a spell, walking up and down the comb of theroof and shaking his head and muttering to himself; but his feelings gotthe upper hand of him, presently, and he broke loose and cussed himselfblack in the face. I never see a bird take on so about a little thing. When he got through he walks to the hole and looks in again for half aminute; then he says, 'Well, you're a long hole, and a deep hole, anda mighty singular hole altogether--but I've started in to fill you, andI'm damned if I DON'T fill you, if it takes a hundred years!'

"And with that, away he went. You never see a bird work so since you wasborn. He laid into his work like a nigger, and the way he hove acornsinto that hole for about two hours and a half was one of the mostexciting and astonishing spectacles I ever struck. He never stopped totake a look anymore--he just hove 'em in and went for more. Well, atlast he could hardly flop his wings, he was so tuckered out. He comesa-dropping down, once more, sweating like an ice-pitcher, dropped hisacorn in and says, 'NOW I guess I've got the bulge on you by this time!'So he bent down for a look. If you'll believe me, when his head come upagain he was just pale with rage. He says, 'I've shoveled acorns enoughin there to keep the family thirty years, and if I can see a sign of oneof 'em I wish I may land in a museum with a belly full of sawdust in twominutes!'

"He just had strength enough to crawl up on to the comb and lean hisback agin the chimbly, and then he collected his impressions andbegun to free his mind. I see in a second that what I had mistook forprofanity in the mines was only just the rudiments, as you may say. 

"Another jay was going by, and heard him doing his devotions, and stopsto inquire what was up. The sufferer told him the whole circumstance, and says, 'Now yonder's the hole, and if you don't believe me, go andlook for yourself. ' So this fellow went and looked, and comes back andsays, 'How many did you say you put in there?' 'Not any less thantwo tons, ' says the sufferer. The other jay went and looked again. Hecouldn't seem to make it out, so he raised a yell, and three more jayscome. They all examined the hole, they all made the sufferer tellit over again, then they all discussed it, and got off as manyleather-headed opinions about it as an average crowd of humans couldhave done. 

"They called in more jays; then more and more, till pretty soon thiswhole region 'peared to have a blue flush about it. There must have beenfive thousand of them; and such another jawing and disputing and rippingand cussing, you never heard. Every jay in the whole lot put his eye tothe hole and delivered a more chuckle-headed opinion about the mysterythan the jay that went there before him. They examined the house allover, too. The door was standing half open, and at last one old jayhappened to go and light on it and look in. Of course, that knocked themystery galley-west in a second. There lay the acorns, scattered allover the floor.. He flopped his wings and raised a whoop. 'Come here!'he says, 'Come here, everybody; hang'd if this fool hasn't been tryingto fill up a house with acorns!' They all came a-swooping down like ablue cloud, and as each fellow lit on the door and took a glance, thewhole absurdity of the contract that that first jay had tackled hit himhome and he fell over backward suffocating with laughter, and the nextjay took his place and done the same. 

"Well, sir, they roosted around here on the housetop and the trees foran hour, and guffawed over that thing like human beings. It ain't anyuse to tell me a bluejay hasn't got a sense of humor, because I knowbetter. And memory, too. They brought jays here from all over the UnitedStates to look down that hole, every summer for three years. Otherbirds, too. And they could all see the point except an owl that comefrom Nova Scotia to visit the Yo Semite, and he took this thing in onhis way back. He said he couldn't see anything funny in it. But then hewas a good deal disappointed about Yo Semite, too. "

CHAPTER IV

Student Life

[The Laborious Beer King]

The summer semester was in full tide; consequently the most frequentfigure in and about Heidelberg was the student. Most of the studentswere Germans, of course, but the representatives of foreign landswere very numerous. They hailed from every corner of the globe--forinstruction is cheap in Heidelberg, and so is living, too. TheAnglo-American Club, composed of British and American students, hadtwenty-five members, and there was still much material left to drawfrom. 

Nine-tenths of the Heidelberg students wore no badge or uniform;the other tenth wore caps of various colors, and belonged to socialorganizations called "corps. " There were five corps, each with a colorof its own; there were white caps, blue caps, and red, yellow, and greenones. The famous duel-fighting is confined to the "corps" boys. The"KNEIP" seems to be a specialty of theirs, too. Kneips are held, now andthen, to celebrate great occasions, like the election of a beer king, for instance. The solemnity is simple; the five corps assemble at night, and at a signal they all fall loading themselves with beer, outof pint-mugs, as fast as possible, and each man keeps his owncount--usually by laying aside a lucifer match for each mug he empties. 

The election is soon decided. When the candidates can hold no more, acount is instituted and the one who has drank the greatest number ofpints is proclaimed king. I was told that the last beer king electedby the corps--or by his own capabilities--emptied his mug seventy-fivetimes. No stomach could hold all that quantity at one time, ofcourse--but there are ways of frequently creating a vacuum, which thosewho have been much at sea will understand. 

One sees so many students abroad at all hours, that he presently beginsto wonder if they ever have any working-hours. Some of them have, someof them haven't. Each can choose for himself whether he will work orplay; for German university life is a very free life; it seems to haveno restraints. The student does not live in the college buildings, buthires his own lodgings, in any locality he prefers, and he takes hismeals when and where he pleases. He goes to bed when it suits him, anddoes not get up at all unless he wants to. He is not entered at theuniversity for any particular length of time; so he is likely to changeabout. He passes no examinations upon entering college. He merely paysa trifling fee of five or ten dollars, receives a card entitling him tothe privileges of the university, and that is the end of it. He is nowready for business--or play, as he shall prefer. If he elects towork, he finds a large list of lectures to choose from. He selects thesubjects which he will study, and enters his name for these studies; buthe can skip attendance. 

The result of this system is, that lecture-courses upon specialtiesof an unusual nature are often delivered to very slim audiences, while those upon more practical and every-day matters of education aredelivered to very large ones. I heard of one case where, day after day, the lecturer's audience consisted of three students--and always thesame three. But one day two of them remained away. The lecturer began asusual--

"Gentlemen, " --then, without a smile, he corrected himself, saying--

"Sir, " --and went on with his discourse. 

It is said that the vast majority of the Heidelberg students are hardworkers, and make the most of their opportunities; that they haveno surplus means to spend in dissipation, and no time to spare forfrolicking. One lecture follows right on the heels of another, with verylittle time for the student to get out of one hall and into the next;but the industrious ones manage it by going on a trot. The professorsassist them in the saving of their time by being promptly in theirlittle boxed-up pulpits when the hours strike, and as promptly out againwhen the hour finishes. I entered an empty lecture-room one day justbefore the clock struck. The place had simple, unpainted pine desks andbenches for about two hundred persons. 

About a minute before the clock struck, a hundred and fifty studentsswarmed in, rushed to their seats, immediately spread open theirnotebooks and dipped their pens in ink. When the clock began to strike, a burly professor entered, was received with a round of applause, movedswiftly down the center aisle, said "Gentlemen, " and began to talk as heclimbed his pulpit steps; and by the time he had arrived in his box andfaced his audience, his lecture was well under way and all the pens weregoing. He had no notes, he talked with prodigious rapidity andenergy for an hour--then the students began to remind him in certainwell-understood ways that his time was up; he seized his hat, stilltalking, proceeded swiftly down his pulpit steps, got out the last wordof his discourse as he struck the floor; everybody rose respectfully, and he swept rapidly down the aisle and disappeared. An instant rush forsome other lecture-room followed, and in a minute I was alone with theempty benches once more. 

Yes, without doubt, idle students are not the rule. Out of eight hundredin the town, I knew the faces of only about fifty; but these I saweverywhere, and daily. They walked about the streets and the woodedhills, they drove in cabs, they boated on the river, they sipped beerand coffee, afternoons, in the Schloss gardens. A good many of them worecolored caps of the corps. They were finely and fashionably dressed, their manners were quite superb, and they led an easy, careless, comfortable life. If a dozen of them sat together and a lady or agentleman passed whom one of them knew and saluted, they all roseto their feet and took off their caps. The members of a corps alwaysreceived a fellow-member in this way, too; but they paid no attentionto members of other corps; they did not seem to see them. This was nota discourtesy; it was only a part of the elaborate and rigid corpsetiquette. 

There seems to be no chilly distance existing between the Germanstudents and the professor; but, on the contrary, a companionableintercourse, the opposite of chilliness and reserve. When the professorenters a beer-hall in the evening where students are gathered together, these rise up and take off their caps, and invite the old gentleman tosit with them and partake. He accepts, and the pleasant talk and thebeer flow for an hour or two, and by and by the professor, properlycharged and comfortable, gives a cordial good night, while the studentsstand bowing and uncovered; and then he moves on his happy way homewardwith all his vast cargo of learning afloat in his hold. Nobody findsfault or feels outraged; no harm has been done. 

It seemed to be a part of corps etiquette to keep a dog or so, too. I mean a corps dog--the common property of the organization, like thecorps steward or head servant; then there are other dogs, owned byindividuals. 

On a summer afternoon in the Castle gardens, I have seen six studentsmarch solemnly into the grounds, in single file, each carrying a brightChinese parasol and leading a prodigious dog by a string. It was a veryimposing spectacle. Sometimes there would be as many dogs around thepavilion as students; and of all breeds and of all degrees of beauty andugliness. These dogs had a rather dry time of it; for they were tiedto the benches and had no amusement for an hour or two at a time exceptwhat they could get out of pawing at the gnats, or trying to sleep andnot succeeding. However, they got a lump of sugar occasionally--theywere fond of that. 

It seemed right and proper that students should indulge in dogs; buteverybody else had them, too--old men and young ones, old women andnice young ladies. If there is one spectacle that is unpleasanter thananother, it is that of an elegantly dressed young lady towing a dog by astring. It is said to be the sign and symbol of blighted love. It seemsto me that some other way of advertising it might be devised, whichwould be just as conspicuous and yet not so trying to the proprieties. 

It would be a mistake to suppose that the easy-going pleasure-seekingstudent carries an empty head. Just the contrary. He has spent nineyears in the gymnasium, under a system which allowed him no freedom, butvigorously compelled him to work like a slave. Consequently, he has leftthe gymnasium with an education which is so extensive and complete, thatthe most a university can do for it is to perfect some of its profounderspecialties. It is said that when a pupil leaves the gymnasium, he notonly has a comprehensive education, but he KNOWS what he knows--it isnot befogged with uncertainty, it is burnt into him so that it willstay. For instance, he does not merely read and write Greek, but speaksit; the same with the Latin. Foreign youth steer clear of the gymnasium;its rules are too severe. They go to the university to put a mansardroof on their whole general education; but the German student alreadyhas his mansard roof, so he goes there to add a steeple in the nature ofsome specialty, such as a particular branch of law, or diseases of theeye, or special study of the ancient Gothic tongues. So this Germanattends only the lectures which belong to the chosen branch, and drinkshis beer and tows his dog around and has a general good time the rest ofthe day. He has been in rigid bondage so long that the large libertyof the university life is just what he needs and likes and thoroughlyappreciates; and as it cannot last forever, he makes the most of itwhile it does last, and so lays up a good rest against the day that mustsee him put on the chains once more and enter the slavery of official orprofessional life. 

CHAPTER V

At the Students' Dueling-Ground

[Dueling by Wholesale]

One day in the interest of science my agent obtained permission to bringme to the students' dueling-place. We crossed the river and drove upthe bank a few hundred yards, then turned to the left, entered a narrowalley, followed it a hundred yards and arrived at a two-story publichouse; we were acquainted with its outside aspect, for it was visiblefrom the hotel. We went upstairs and passed into a large whitewashedapartment which was perhaps fifty feet long by thirty feet wide andtwenty or twenty-five high. It was a well-lighted place. There was nocarpet. Across one end and down both sides of the room extended a row oftables, and at these tables some fifty or seventy-five students [1. SeeAppendix C] were sitting. 

Some of them were sipping wine, others were playing cards, others chess, other groups were chatting together, and many were smoking cigaretteswhile they waited for the coming duels. Nearly all of them wore coloredcaps; there were white caps, green caps, blue caps, red caps, andbright-yellow ones; so, all the five corps were present in strongforce. In the windows at the vacant end of the room stood six or eight, narrow-bladed swords with large protecting guards for the hand, andoutside was a man at work sharpening others on a grindstone. 

He understood his business; for when a sword left his hand one couldshave himself with it. 

It was observable that the young gentlemen neither bowed to nor spokewith students whose caps differed in color from their own. This did notmean hostility, but only an armed neutrality. It was considered thata person could strike harder in the duel, and with a more earnestinterest, if he had never been in a condition of comradeship with hisantagonist; therefore, comradeship between the corps was not permitted. At intervals the presidents of the five corps have a cold officialintercourse with each other, but nothing further. For example, when theregular dueling-day of one of the corps approaches, its president callsfor volunteers from among the membership to offer battle; three or morerespond--but there must not be less than three; the president lays theirnames before the other presidents, with the request that they furnishantagonists for these challengers from among their corps. This ispromptly done. It chanced that the present occasion was the battle-dayof the Red Cap Corps. They were the challengers, and certain caps ofother colors had volunteered to meet them. The students fight duels inthe room which I have described, TWO DAYS IN EVERY WEEK DURING SEVENAND A HALF OR EIGHT MONTHS IN EVERY YEAR. This custom had continued inGermany two hundred and fifty years. 

To return to my narrative. A student in a white cap met us andintroduced us to six or eight friends of his who also wore white caps, and while we stood conversing, two strange-looking figures were led infrom another room. They were students panoplied for the duel. They werebareheaded; their eyes were protected by iron goggles which projected aninch or more, the leather straps of which bound their ears flat againsttheir heads were wound around and around with thick wrappings whicha sword could not cut through; from chin to ankle they were paddedthoroughly against injury; their arms were bandaged and rebandaged, layer upon layer, until they looked like solid black logs. These weirdapparitions had been handsome youths, clad in fashionable attire, fifteen minutes before, but now they did not resemble any beings oneever sees unless in nightmares. They strode along, with their armsprojecting straight out from their bodies; they did not hold them outthemselves, but fellow-students walked beside them and gave the neededsupport. 

There was a rush for the vacant end of the room, now, and we followedand got good places. The combatants were placed face to face, each withseveral members of his own corps about him to assist; two seconds, wellpadded, and with swords in their hands, took their stations; a studentbelonging to neither of the opposing corps placed himself in a goodposition to umpire the combat; another student stood by with a watch anda memorandum-book to keep record of the time and the number and natureof the wounds; a gray-haired surgeon was present with his lint, hisbandages, and his instruments. 

After a moment's pause the duelists saluted the umpire respectfully, then one after another the several officials stepped forward, gracefullyremoved their caps and saluted him also, and returned to their places. Everything was ready now; students stood crowded together in theforeground, and others stood behind them on chairs and tables. Everyface was turned toward the center of attraction. 

The combatants were watching each other with alert eyes; a perfectstillness, a breathless interest reigned. I felt that I was going tosee some wary work. But not so. The instant the word was given, the twoapparitions sprang forward and began to rain blows down upon each otherwith such lightning rapidity that I could not quite tell whether I sawthe swords or only flashes they made in the air; the rattling din ofthese blows as they struck steel or paddings was something wonderfullystirring, and they were struck with such terrific force that I could notunderstand why the opposing sword was not beaten down under the assault. Presently, in the midst of the sword-flashes, I saw a handful of hairskip into the air as if it had lain loose on the victim's head and abreath of wind had puffed it suddenly away. 

The seconds cried "Halt!" and knocked up the combatants' swords withtheir own. The duelists sat down; a student official stepped forward, examined the wounded head and touched the place with a sponge once ortwice; the surgeon came and turned back the hair from the wound--andrevealed a crimson gash two or three inches long, and proceeded to bindan oval piece of leather and a bunch of lint over it; the tally-keeperstepped up and tallied one for the opposition in his book. 

Then the duelists took position again; a small stream of blood wasflowing down the side of the injured man's head, and over his shoulderand down his body to the floor, but he did not seem to mind this. Theword was given, and they plunged at each other as fiercely as before;once more the blows rained and rattled and flashed; every few momentsthe quick-eyed seconds would notice that a sword was bent--then theycalled "Halt!" struck up the contending weapons, and an assistingstudent straightened the bent one. 

The wonderful turmoil went on--presently a bright spark sprung froma blade, and that blade broken in several pieces, sent one of itsfragments flying to the ceiling. A new sword was provided and the fightproceeded. The exercise was tremendous, of course, and in time thefighters began to show great fatigue. They were allowed to rest amoment, every little while; they got other rests by wounding each other, for then they could sit down while the doctor applied the lint andbandages. The law is that the battle must continue fifteen minutes ifthe men can hold out; and as the pauses do not count, this duel wasprotracted to twenty or thirty minutes, I judged. At last it was decidedthat the men were too much wearied to do battle longer. They were ledaway drenched with crimson from head to foot. That was a good fight, butit could not count, partly because it did not last the lawful fifteenminutes (of actual fighting), and partly because neither man wasdisabled by his wound. It was a drawn battle, and corps law requiresthat drawn battles shall be refought as soon as the adversaries are wellof their hurts. 

During the conflict, I had talked a little, now and then, with a younggentleman of the White Cap Corps, and he had mentioned that he was tofight next--and had also pointed out his challenger, a young gentlemanwho was leaning against the opposite wall smoking a cigarette andrestfully observing the duel then in progress. 

My acquaintanceship with a party to the coming contest had the effect ofgiving me a kind of personal interest in it; I naturally wished he mightwin, and it was the reverse of pleasant to learn that he probably wouldnot, because, although he was a notable swordsman, the challenger washeld to be his superior. 

The duel presently began and in the same furious way which had markedthe previous one. I stood close by, but could not tell which blows toldand which did not, they fell and vanished so like flashes of light. Theyall seemed to tell; the swords always bent over the opponents' heads, from the forehead back over the crown, and seemed to touch, all theway; but it was not so--a protecting blade, invisible to me, was alwaysinterposed between. At the end of ten seconds each man had struck twelveor fifteen blows, and warded off twelve or fifteen, and no harm done;then a sword became disabled, and a short rest followed whilst a new onewas brought. Early in the next round the White Corps student got an uglywound on the side of his head and gave his opponent one like it. In thethird round the latter received another bad wound in the head, and theformer had his under-lip divided. After that, the White Corps studentgave many severe wounds, but got none of the consequence in return. At the end of five minutes from the beginning of the duel the surgeonstopped it; the challenging party had suffered such injuries that anyaddition to them might be dangerous. These injuries were a fearfulspectacle, but are better left undescribed. So, against expectation, myacquaintance was the victor. 

CHAPTER VI

[A Sport that Sometimes Kills]

The third duel was brief and bloody. The surgeon stopped it when he sawthat one of the men had received such bad wounds that he could not fightlonger without endangering his life. 

The fourth duel was a tremendous encounter; but at the end of five orsix minutes the surgeon interfered once more: another man so severelyhurt as to render it unsafe to add to his harms. I watched thisengagement as I watched the others--with rapt interest and strongexcitement, and with a shrink and a shudder for every blow that laidopen a cheek or a forehead; and a conscious paling of my face when Ioccasionally saw a wound of a yet more shocking nature inflicted. My eyes were upon the loser of this duel when he got his last andvanquishing wound--it was in his face and it carried away his--but nomatter, I must not enter into details. I had but a glance, and thenturned quickly, but I would not have been looking at all if I had knownwhat was coming. No, that is probably not true; one thinks he would notlook if he knew what was coming, but the interest and the excitement areso powerful that they would doubtless conquer all other feelings; andso, under the fierce exhilaration of the clashing steel, he would yieldand look after all. Sometimes spectators of these duels faint--and itdoes seem a very reasonable thing to do, too. 

Both parties to this fourth duel were badly hurt so much that thesurgeon was at work upon them nearly or quite an hour--a fact which issuggestive. But this waiting interval was not wasted in idleness bythe assembled students. It was past noon, therefore they ordered theirlandlord, downstairs, to send up hot beefsteaks, chickens, and suchthings, and these they ate, sitting comfortable at the several tables, whilst they chatted, disputed and laughed. The door to the surgeon'sroom stood open, meantime, but the cutting, sewing, splicing, andbandaging going on in there in plain view did not seem to disturbanyone's appetite. I went in and saw the surgeon labor awhile, but couldnot enjoy; it was much less trying to see the wounds given and receivedthan to see them mended; the stir and turmoil, and the music of thesteel, were wanting here--one's nerves were wrung by this grislyspectacle, whilst the duel's compensating pleasurable thrill waslacking. 

Finally the doctor finished, and the men who were to fight the closingbattle of the day came forth. A good many dinners were not completed, yet, but no matter, they could be eaten cold, after the battle;therefore everybody crowded forth to see. This was not a love duel, buta "satisfaction" affair. These two students had quarreled, and were hereto settle it. They did not belong to any of the corps, but they werefurnished with weapons and armor, and permitted to fight here by thefive corps as a courtesy. Evidently these two young men were unfamiliarwith the dueling ceremonies, though they were not unfamiliar with thesword. When they were placed in position they thought it was timeto begin--and then did begin, too, and with a most impetuous energy, without waiting for anybody to give the word. This vastly amused thespectators, and even broke down their studied and courtly gravity andsurprised them into laughter. Of course the seconds struck up the swordsand started the duel over again. At the word, the deluge of blows began, but before long the surgeon once more interfered--for the only reasonwhich ever permits him to interfere--and the day's war was over. It wasnow two in the afternoon, and I had been present since half past nine inthe morning. The field of battle was indeed a red one by this time;but some sawdust soon righted that. There had been one duel before Iarrived. In it one of the men received many injuries, while the otherone escaped without a scratch. 

I had seen the heads and faces of ten youths gashed in every directionby the keen two-edged blades, and yet had not seen a victim wince, norheard a moan, or detected any fleeting expression which confessed thesharp pain the hurts were inflicting. This was good fortitude, indeed. Such endurance is to be expected in savages and prize-fighters, for theyare born and educated to it; but to find it in such perfection in thesegently bred and kindly natured young fellows is matter for surprise. It was not merely under the excitement of the sword-play that thisfortitude was shown; it was shown in the surgeon's room where anuninspiring quiet reigned, and where there was no audience. The doctor'smanipulations brought out neither grimaces nor moans. And in the fightsit was observable that these lads hacked and slashed with the sametremendous spirit, after they were covered with streaming wounds, whichthey had shown in the beginning. 

The world in general looks upon the college duels as very farcicalaffairs: true, but considering that the college duel is fought by boys;that the swords are real swords; and that the head and face are exposed, it seems to me that it is a farce which had quite a grave side to it. People laugh at it mainly because they think the student is so coveredup with armor that he cannot be hurt. But it is not so; his eyes andears are protected, but the rest of his face and head are bare. Hecan not only be badly wounded, but his life is in danger; and he wouldsometimes lose it but for the interference of the surgeon. It isnot intended that his life shall be endangered. Fatal accidents arepossible, however. For instance, the student's sword may break, and theend of it fly up behind his antagonist's ear and cut an artery whichcould not be reached if the sword remained whole. This has happened, sometimes, and death has resulted on the spot. Formerly the student'sarmpits were not protected--and at that time the swords were pointed, whereas they are blunt, now; so an artery in the armpit was sometimescut, and death followed. Then in the days of sharp-pointed swords, aspectator was an occasional victim--the end of a broken sword flew fiveor ten feet and buried itself in his neck or his heart, and death ensuedinstantly. The student duels in Germany occasion two or three deathsevery year, now, but this arises only from the carelessness of thewounded men; they eat or drink imprudently, or commit excesses in theway of overexertion; inflammation sets in and gets such a headway thatit cannot be arrested. Indeed, there is blood and pain and dangerenough about the college duel to entitle it to a considerable degree ofrespect. 

All the customs, all the laws, all the details, pertaining to thestudent duel are quaint and naive. The grave, precise, and courtlyceremony with which the thing is conducted, invests it with a sort ofantique charm. 

This dignity and these knightly graces suggest the tournament, not theprize-fight. The laws are as curious as they are strict. For instance, the duelist may step forward from the line he is placed upon, if hechooses, but never back of it. If he steps back of it, or even leansback, it is considered that he did it to avoid a blow or contrive anadvantage; so he is dismissed from his corps in disgrace. It would seemnatural to step from under a descending sword unconsciously, and againstone's will and intent--yet this unconsciousness is not allowed. Again:if under the sudden anguish of a wound the receiver of it makes agrimace, he falls some degrees in the estimation of his fellows; hiscorps are ashamed of him: they call him "hare foot, " which is the Germanequivalent for chicken-hearted. 

CHAPTER VII

[How Bismark Fought]

In addition to the corps laws, there are some corps usages which havethe force of laws. 

Perhaps the president of a corps notices that one of the membership whois no longer an exempt--that is a freshman--has remained a sophomoresome little time without volunteering to fight; some day, the president, instead of calling for volunteers, will APPOINT this sophomoreto measure swords with a student of another corps; he is free todecline--everybody says so--there is no compulsion. This is alltrue--but I have not heard of any student who DID decline; to declineand still remain in the corps would make him unpleasantly conspicuous, and properly so, since he knew, when he joined, that his mainbusiness, as a member, would be to fight. No, there is no law againstdeclining--except the law of custom, which is confessedly stronger thanwritten law, everywhere. 

The ten men whose duels I had witnessed did not go away when their hurtswere dressed, as I had supposed they would, but came back, one afteranother, as soon as they were free of the surgeon, and mingled with theassemblage in the dueling-room. The white-cap student who won the secondfight witnessed the remaining three, and talked with us during theintermissions. He could not talk very well, because his opponent's swordhad cut his under-lip in two, and then the surgeon had sewed it togetherand overlaid it with a profusion of white plaster patches; neither couldhe eat easily, still he contrived to accomplish a slow and troublesomeluncheon while the last duel was preparing. The man who was the worsthurt of all played chess while waiting to see this engagement. A goodpart of his face was covered with patches and bandages, and all the restof his head was covered and concealed by them. 

It is said that the student likes to appear on the street and in otherpublic places in this kind of array, and that this predilection oftenkeeps him out when exposure to rain or sun is a positive danger forhim. Newly bandaged students are a very common spectacle in the publicgardens of Heidelberg. It is also said that the student is glad toget wounds in the face, because the scars they leave will show so wellthere; and it is also said that these face wounds are so prized thatyouths have even been known to pull them apart from time to time andput red wine in them to make them heal badly and leave as ugly a scaras possible. It does not look reasonable, but it is roundly assertedand maintained, nevertheless; I am sure of one thing--scars are plentyenough in Germany, among the young men; and very grim ones they are, too. They crisscross the face in angry red welts, and are permanent andineffaceable. 

Some of these scars are of a very strange and dreadful aspect; and theeffect is striking when several such accent the milder ones, which forma city map on a man's face; they suggest the "burned district" then. Wehad often noticed that many of the students wore a colored silk bandor ribbon diagonally across their breasts. It transpired that thissignifies that the wearer has fought three duels in which a decisionwas reached--duels in which he either whipped or was whipped--for drawnbattles do not count. [1] After a student has received his ribbon, heis "free"; he can cease from fighting, without reproach--except some oneinsult him; his president cannot appoint him to fight; he can volunteerif he wants to, or remain quiescent if he prefers to do so. Statisticsshow that he does NOT prefer to remain quiescent. They show that theduel has a singular fascination about it somewhere, for these freemen, so far from resting upon the privilege of the badge, are alwaysvolunteering. A corps student told me it was of record that PrinceBismarck fought thirty-two of these duels in a single summer term whenhe was in college. So he fought twenty-nine after his badge had givenhim the right to retire from the field. 

1. FROM MY DIARY. --Dined in a hotel a few miles up the Neckar, in a roomwhose walls were hung all over with framed portrait-groups of the FiveCorps; some were recent, but many antedated photography, and werepictured in lithography--the dates ranged back to forty or fifty yearsago. Nearly every individual wore the ribbon across his breast. In oneportrait-group representing (as each of these pictures did) an entireCorps, I took pains to count the ribbons: there were twenty-sevenmembers, and twenty-one of them wore that significant badge. 

The statistics may be found to possess interest in several particulars. Two days in every week are devoted to dueling. The rule is rigid thatthere must be three duels on each of these days; there are generallymore, but there cannot be fewer. There were six the day I was present;sometimes there are seven or eight. It is insisted that eight duels aweek--four for each of the two days--is too low an average to drawa calculation from, but I will reckon from that basis, preferring anunderstatement to an overstatement of the case. This requires about fourhundred and eighty or five hundred duelists a year--for in summer thecollege term is about three and a half months, and in winter it is fourmonths and sometimes longer. Of the seven hundred and fifty students inthe university at the time I am writing of, only eighty belonged to thefive corps, and it is only these corps that do the dueling; occasionallyother students borrow the arms and battleground of the five corps inorder to settle a quarrel, but this does not happen every dueling-day. [2] Consequently eighty youths furnish the material for some two hundredand fifty duels a year. This average gives six fights a year to eachof the eighty. This large work could not be accomplished if thebadge-holders stood upon their privilege and ceased to volunteer. 

2. They have to borrow the arms because they could not get themelsewhere or otherwise. As I understand it, the public authorities, allover Germany, allow the five Corps to keep swords, but DO NOT ALLOW THEMTO USE THEM. This is law is rigid; it is only the execution of it thatis lax. 

Of course, where there is so much fighting, the students make it a pointto keep themselves in constant practice with the foil. One often seesthem, at the tables in the Castle grounds, using their whips or canes toillustrate some new sword trick which they have heard about; and betweenthe duels, on the day whose history I have been writing, the swords werenot always idle; every now and then we heard a succession of the keenhissing sounds which the sword makes when it is being put through itspaces in the air, and this informed us that a student was practicing. Necessarily, this unceasing attention to the art develops an expertoccasionally. He becomes famous in his own university, his renownspreads to other universities. He is invited to Goettingen, to fightwith a Goettingen expert; if he is victorious, he will be invitedto other colleges, or those colleges will send their experts to him. Americans and Englishmen often join one or another of the five corps. Ayear or two ago, the principal Heidelberg expert was a big Kentuckian;he was invited to the various universities and left a wake of victorybehind him all about Germany; but at last a little student in Strasburgdefeated him. There was formerly a student in Heidelberg who had pickedup somewhere and mastered a peculiar trick of cutting up under insteadof cleaving down from above. While the trick lasted he won in sixteensuccessive duels in his university; but by that time observers haddiscovered what his charm was, and how to break it, therefore hischampionship ceased. 

A rule which forbids social intercourse between members of differentcorps is strict. In the dueling-house, in the parks, on the street, and anywhere and everywhere that the students go, caps of a color groupthemselves together. If all the tables in a public garden were crowdedbut one, and that one had two red-cap students at it and ten vacantplaces, the yellow-caps, the blue-caps, the white caps, and the greencaps, seeking seats, would go by that table and not seem to see it, norseem to be aware that there was such a table in the grounds. The studentby whose courtesy we had been enabled to visit the dueling-place, worethe white cap--Prussian Corps. He introduced us to many white caps, butto none of another color. The corps etiquette extended even to us, whowere strangers, and required us to group with the white corps only, andspeak only with the white corps, while we were their guests, and keepaloof from the caps of the other colors. Once I wished to examine someof the swords, but an American student said, "It would not be quitepolite; these now in the windows all have red hilts or blue; they willbring in some with white hilts presently, and those you can handlefreely. " When a sword was broken in the first duel, I wanted a pieceof it; but its hilt was the wrong color, so it was considered best andpolitest to await a properer season. 

It was brought to me after the room was cleared, and I will now makea "life-size" sketch of it by tracing a line around it with my pen, toshow the width of the weapon. [Figure 1] The length of these swords isabout three feet, and they are quite heavy. One's disposition to cheer, during the course of the duels or at their close, was naturally strong, but corps etiquette forbade any demonstrations of this sort. Howeverbrilliant a contest or a victory might be, no sign or sound betrayedthat any one was moved. A dignified gravity and repression weremaintained at all times. 

When the dueling was finished and we were ready to go, the gentlemen ofthe Prussian Corps to whom we had been introduced took off their capsin the courteous German way, and also shook hands; their brethren of thesame order took off their caps and bowed, but without shaking hands; thegentlemen of the other corps treated us just as they would have treatedwhite caps--they fell apart, apparently unconsciously, and left us anunobstructed pathway, but did not seem to see us or know we were there. If we had gone thither the following week as guests of another corps, the white caps, without meaning any offense, would have observed theetiquette of their order and ignored our presence. 

[How strangely are comedy and tragedy blended in this life! I had notbeen home a full half-hour, after witnessing those playful sham-duels, when circumstances made it necessary for me to get ready immediately toassist personally at a real one--a duel with no effeminate limitation inthe matter of results, but a battle to the death. An account of it, inthe next chapter, will show the reader that duels between boys, for fun, and duels between men in earnest, are very different affairs. ]

A TRAMP ABROAD, Part 2

By Mark Twain

(Samuel L. Clemens)

First published in 1880

Illustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition

 * * * * * *

ILLUSTRATIONS:

 1.    PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR 2.    TITIAN'S MOSES 3.    THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES 32.   FRENCH CALM 33.   THE CHALLENGE ACCEPTED 34.   A SEARCH 35.   HE SWOONED PONDEROUSLY 36.   I ROLLED HIM OVER 37.   THE ONE I HIRED 36.   THE MARCH TO THE FIELD 39.   THE POST OF DANGER 40.   THE RECONCILIATION 41.   AN OBJECT OF ADMIRATION 42.   WAGNER 43.   RAGING 44.   ROARING 45.   SHRIEKING 46.   A CUSTOMARY THING 47.   ONE OF THE "REST" 48.   A CONTRIBUTION BOX 49.   CONSPICUOUS 50.   TAIL PIECE 51.   ONLY A SHRIEK 52.   "HE ONLY CRY" 53.   LATE COMERS CARED FOR 54.   EVIDENTLY DREAMING 55.   "TURN ON MORE RAIN" 56.   HARRIS ATTENDING THE OPERA 57.   PAINTING MY GREAT PICTURE 58.   OUR START 59.   AN UNKNOWN COSTUME 60.   THE TOWER 61.   SLOW BUT SURE 62.   THE ROBBER CHIEF 63.   AN HONEST MAN 64.   THE TOWN BY NIGHT 65.   GENERATIONS OF BAREFEET 66.   OUR BEDROOM 67.   PRACTICING 68.   PAWING AROUND 69.   A NIGHT'S WORK 70.   LEAVING HEILBRONN 71.   THE CAPTAIN 72.   WAITING FOR THE TRAIN

CONTENTS:

CHAPTER VIII The Great French Duel--Mistaken Notions--Outbreak in theFrench Assembly--Calmness of M Gambetta--I Volunteer as Second--Drawingup a Will--The Challenge and its Acceptance--Difficulty in Selectionof Weapons--Deciding on Distance--M. Gambetta's Firmness--ArrangingDetails--Hiring Hearses--How it was Kept from the Press--March to theField--The Post of Danger--The Duel--The Result--General Rejoicings--Theonly One Hurt--A Firm Resolution

CHAPTER IX At the Theatre--German Ideal--At the Opera--TheOrchestra--Howlings and Wailings--A Curious Play--One Season ofRest--The Wedding Chorus--Germans fond of the Opera--Funerals Needed--A Private Party--What I Overheard--A Gentle Girl--AContribution--box--Unpleasantly Conspicuous

CHAPTER X Four Hours with Wagner--A Wonderful Singer, Once--" Only aShriek"--An Ancient Vocalist--"He Only Cry"--Emotional Germans--AWise Custom--Late Comers Rebuked--Heard to the Last--No InterruptionsAllowed--A Royal Audience--An Eccentric King--Real Rain and More ofIt--Immense Success--"Encore! Encore!"--Magnanimity of the King

CHAPTER XI Lessons in Art--My Great Picture of Heidelberg Castle--ItsEffect in the Exhibition--Mistaken for a Turner--A Studio--Waitingfor Orders--A Tramp Decided On--The Start for Heilbronn--Our WalkingDress--"Pleasant march to you"--We Take the Rail--German People onBoard--Not Understood--Speak only German and English--Wimpfen--A FunnyTower--Dinner in the Garden--Vigorous Tramping--Ride in a Peasant'sCart--A Famous Room

CHAPTER XII The Rathhaus--An Old Robber Knight, Gotz VonBerlichingen--His Famous Deeds--The Square Tower--A Curious oldChurch--A Gay Turn--out--A Legend--The Wives' Treasures--A ModelWaiter--A Miracle Performed--An Old Town--The Worn Stones

CHAPTER XIII Early to Bed--Lonesome--Nervous Excitement--The Room WeOccupied--Disturbed by a Mouse--Grow Desperate--The Old Remedy--A ShoeThrown--Result--Hopelessly Awake--An Attempt to Dress--A Cruise in theDark--Crawling on the Floor--A General Smash-up--Forty-seven Miles'Travel

CHAPTER XIV A Famous Turn--out--Raftsmen on the Neckar--The LogRafts--The Neckar--A Sudden Idea--To Heidelberg on a Raft--Charteringa Raft--Gloomy Feelings and Conversation--Delicious Journeying--View ofthe Banks--Compared with Railroading

CHAPTER VIII

The Great French Duel

[I Second Gambetta in a Terrific Duel]

Much as the modern French duel is ridiculed by certain smart people, itis in reality one of the most dangerous institutions of our day. Sinceit is always fought in the open air, the combatants are nearly sureto catch cold. M. Paul de Cassagnac, the most inveterate of the Frenchduelists, had suffered so often in this way that he is at last aconfirmed invalid; and the best physician in Paris has expressedthe opinion that if he goes on dueling for fifteen or twenty yearsmore--unless he forms the habit of fighting in a comfortable room wheredamps and draughts cannot intrude--he will eventually endanger his life. This ought to moderate the talk of those people who are so stubbornin maintaining that the French duel is the most health-giving ofrecreations because of the open-air exercise it affords. And itought also to moderate that foolish talk about French duelists andsocialist-hated monarchs being the only people who are immoral. 

But it is time to get at my subject. As soon as I heard of the latefiery outbreak between M. Gambetta and M. Fourtou in the FrenchAssembly, I knew that trouble must follow. I knew it because a longpersonal friendship with M. Gambetta revealed to me the desperate andimplacable nature of the man. Vast as are his physical proportions, I knew that the thirst for revenge would penetrate to the remotestfrontiers of his person. 

I did not wait for him to call on me, but went at once to him. As I hadexpected, I found the brave fellow steeped in a profound French calm. I say French calm, because French calmness and English calmness havepoints of difference. 

He was moving swiftly back and forth among the debris of his furniture, now and then staving chance fragments of it across the room with hisfoot; grinding a constant grist of curses through his set teeth; andhalting every little while to deposit another handful of his hair on thepile which he had been building of it on the table. 

He threw his arms around my neck, bent me over his stomach to hisbreast, kissed me on both cheeks, hugged me four or five times, andthen placed me in his own arm-chair. As soon as I had got well again, webegan business at once. 

I said I supposed he would wish me to act as his second, and he said, "Of course. " I said I must be allowed to act under a French name, sothat I might be shielded from obloquy in my country, in case of fatalresults. He winced here, probably at the suggestion that dueling was notregarded with respect in America. However, he agreed to my requirement. This accounts for the fact that in all the newspaper reports M. Gambetta's second was apparently a Frenchman. 

First, we drew up my principal's will. I insisted upon this, and stuckto my point. I said I had never heard of a man in his right mind goingout to fight a duel without first making his will. He said he had neverheard of a man in his right mind doing anything of the kind. When he hadfinished the will, he wished to proceed to a choice of his "last words. "He wanted to know how the following words, as a dying exclamation, struck me:

"I die for my God, for my country, for freedom of speech, for progress, and the universal brotherhood of man!"

I objected that this would require too lingering a death; it was a goodspeech for a consumptive, but not suited to the exigencies of the fieldof honor. We wrangled over a good many ante-mortem outbursts, but Ifinally got him to cut his obituary down to this, which he copied intohis memorandum-book, purposing to get it by heart:

"I DIE THAT FRANCE MIGHT LIVE. "

I said that this remark seemed to lack relevancy; but he said relevancywas a matter of no consequence in last words, what you wanted wasthrill. 

The next thing in order was the choice of weapons. My principal said hewas not feeling well, and would leave that and the other details of theproposed meeting to me. Therefore I wrote the following note and carriedit to M. Fourtou's friend:

Sir: M. Gambetta accepts M. Fourtou's challenge, and authorizes me topropose Plessis-Piquet as the place of meeting; tomorrow morning atdaybreak as the time; and axes as the weapons. 

I am, sir, with great respect, Mark Twain. 

M. Fourtou's friend read this note, and shuddered. Then he turned to me, and said, with a suggestion of severity in his tone:

"Have you considered, sir, what would be the inevitable result of such ameeting as this?"

"Well, for instance, what WOULD it be?"

"Bloodshed!"

"That's about the size of it, " I said. "Now, if it is a fair question, what was your side proposing to shed?"

I had him there. He saw he had made a blunder, so he hastened to explainit away. He said he had spoken jestingly. Then he added that he and hisprincipal would enjoy axes, and indeed prefer them, but such weaponswere barred by the French code, and so I must change my proposal. 

I walked the floor, turning the thing over in my mind, and finally itoccurred to me that Gatling-guns at fifteen paces would be a likely wayto get a verdict on the field of honor. So I framed this idea into aproposition. 

But it was not accepted. The code was in the way again. I proposedrifles; then double-barreled shotguns; then Colt's navy revolvers. Thesebeing all rejected, I reflected awhile, and sarcastically suggestedbrickbats at three-quarters of a mile. I always hate to fool away ahumorous thing on a person who has no perception of humor; and it filledme with bitterness when this man went soberly away to submit the lastproposition to his principal. 

He came back presently and said his principal was charmed with the ideaof brickbats at three-quarters of a mile, but must decline on account ofthe danger to disinterested parties passing between them. Then I said:

"Well, I am at the end of my string, now. Perhaps YOU would be goodenough to suggest a weapon? Perhaps you have even had one in your mindall the time?"

His countenance brightened, and he said with alacrity:

"Oh, without doubt, monsieur!"

So he fell to hunting in his pockets--pocket after pocket, and he hadplenty of them--muttering all the while, "Now, what could I have donewith them?"

At last he was successful. He fished out of his vest pocket a coupleof little things which I carried to the light and ascertained to bepistols. They were single-barreled and silver-mounted, and very daintyand pretty. I was not able to speak for emotion. I silently hung one ofthem on my watch-chain, and returned the other. My companion in crimenow unrolled a postage-stamp containing several cartridges, and gave meone of them. I asked if he meant to signify by this that our men wereto be allowed but one shot apiece. He replied that the French codepermitted no more. I then begged him to go and suggest a distance, formy mind was growing weak and confused under the strain which had beenput upon it. He named sixty-five yards. I nearly lost my patience. Isaid:

"Sixty-five yards, with these instruments? Squirt-guns would be deadlierat fifty. Consider, my friend, you and I are banded together to destroylife, not make it eternal. "

But with all my persuasions, all my arguments, I was only able toget him to reduce the distance to thirty-five yards; and even thisconcession he made with reluctance, and said with a sigh, "I wash myhands of this slaughter; on your head be it. "

There was nothing for me but to go home to my old lion-heart and tell myhumiliating story. When I entered, M. Gambetta was laying his last lockof hair upon the altar. He sprang toward me, exclaiming:

"You have made the fatal arrangements--I see it in your eye!"

"I have. "

His face paled a trifle, and he leaned upon the table for support. Hebreathed thick and heavily for a moment or two, so tumultuous were hisfeelings; then he hoarsely whispered:

"The weapon, the weapon! Quick! what is the weapon?"

"This!" and I displayed that silver-mounted thing. He cast but oneglance at it, then swooned ponderously to the floor. 

When he came to, he said mournfully:

"The unnatural calm to which I have subjected myself has told upon mynerves. But away with weakness! I will confront my fate like a man and aFrenchman. "

He rose to his feet, and assumed an attitude which for sublimity hasnever been approached by man, and has seldom been surpassed by statues. Then he said, in his deep bass tones:

"Behold, I am calm, I am ready; reveal to me the distance. "

"Thirty-five yards. " ... 

I could not lift him up, of course; but I rolled him over, and pouredwater down his back. He presently came to, and said:

"Thirty-five yards--without a rest? But why ask? Since murder was thatman's intention, why should he palter with small details? But mark youone thing: in my fall the world shall see how the chivalry of Francemeets death. "

After a long silence he asked:

"Was nothing said about that man's family standing up with him, asan offset to my bulk? But no matter; I would not stoop to make sucha suggestion; if he is not noble enough to suggest it himself, he iswelcome to this advantage, which no honorable man would take. "

He now sank into a sort of stupor of reflection, which lasted someminutes; after which he broke silence with:

"The hour--what is the hour fixed for the collision?"

"Dawn, tomorrow. "

He seemed greatly surprised, and immediately said:

"Insanity! I never heard of such a thing. Nobody is abroad at such anhour. "

"That is the reason I named it. Do you mean to say you want anaudience?"

"It is no time to bandy words. I am astonished that M. Fourtou shouldever have agreed to so strange an innovation. Go at once and require alater hour. "

I ran downstairs, threw open the front door, and almost plunged into thearms of M. Fourtou's second. He said:

"I have the honor to say that my principal strenuously objects to thehour chosen, and begs you will consent to change it to half past nine. "

"Any courtesy, sir, which it is in our power to extend is at the serviceof your excellent principal. We agree to the proposed change of time. "

"I beg you to accept the thanks of my client. " Then he turned to aperson behind him, and said, "You hear, M. Noir, the hour is altered tohalf past nine. " Whereupon M. Noir bowed, expressed his thanks, and wentaway. My accomplice continued:

"If agreeable to you, your chief surgeons and ours shall proceed to thefield in the same carriage as is customary. "

"It is entirely agreeable to me, and I am obliged to you for mentioningthe surgeons, for I am afraid I should not have thought of them. Howmany shall I want? I supposed two or three will be enough?"

"Two is the customary number for each party. I refer to 'chief'surgeons; but considering the exalted positions occupied by our clients, it will be well and decorous that each of us appoint several consultingsurgeons, from among the highest in the profession. These will come intheir own private carriages. Have you engaged a hearse?"

"Bless my stupidity, I never thought of it! I will attend to it rightaway. I must seem very ignorant to you; but you must try to overlookthat, because I have never had any experience of such a swell duel asthis before. I have had a good deal to do with duels on the Pacificcoast, but I see now that they were crude affairs. A hearse--sho! weused to leave the elected lying around loose, and let anybody cordthem up and cart them off that wanted to. Have you anything further tosuggest?"

"Nothing, except that the head undertakers shall ride together, as isusual. The subordinates and mutes will go on foot, as is also usual. Iwill see you at eight o'clock in the morning, and we will then arrangethe order of the procession. I have the honor to bid you a good day. "

I returned to my client, who said, "Very well; at what hour is theengagement to begin?"

"Half past nine. "

"Very good indeed. Have you sent the fact to the newspapers?"

"SIR! If after our long and intimate friendship you can for a momentdeem me capable of so base a treachery--"

"Tut, tut! What words are these, my dear friend? Have I wounded you? Ah, forgive me; I am overloading you with labor. Therefore go on with theother details, and drop this one from your list. The bloody-mindedFourtou will be sure to attend to it. Or I myself--yes, to make certain, I will drop a note to my journalistic friend, M. Noir--"

"Oh, come to think of it, you may save yourself the trouble; that othersecond has informed M. Noir. "

"H'm! I might have known it. It is just like that Fourtou, who alwayswants to make a display. "

At half past nine in the morning the procession approached the field ofPlessis-Piquet in the following order: first came our carriage--nobodyin it but M. Gambetta and myself; then a carriage containing M. Fourtouand his second; then a carriage containing two poet-orators who did notbelieve in God, and these had MS. Funeral orations projecting from theirbreast pockets; then a carriage containing the head surgeons and theircases of instruments; then eight private carriages containing consultingsurgeons; then a hack containing a coroner; then the two hearses; then acarriage containing the head undertakers; then a train of assistantsand mutes on foot; and after these came plodding through the fog a longprocession of camp followers, police, and citizens generally. It was anoble turnout, and would have made a fine display if we had had thinnerweather. 

There was no conversation. I spoke several times to my principal, butI judge he was not aware of it, for he always referred to his note-bookand muttered absently, "I die that France might live. "

Arrived on the field, my fellow-second and I paced off the thirty-fiveyards, and then drew lots for choice of position. This latter was butan ornamental ceremony, for all the choices were alike in such weather. These preliminaries being ended, I went to my principal and asked himif he was ready. He spread himself out to his full width, and said in astern voice, "Ready! Let the batteries be charged. "

The loading process was done in the presence of duly constitutedwitnesses. We considered it best to perform this delicate service withthe assistance of a lantern, on account of the state of the weather. Wenow placed our men. 

At this point the police noticed that the public had massed themselvestogether on the right and left of the field; they therefore begged adelay, while they should put these poor people in a place of safety. 

The request was granted. 

The police having ordered the two multitudes to take positions behindthe duelists, we were once more ready. The weather growing still moreopaque, it was agreed between myself and the other second that beforegiving the fatal signal we should each deliver a loud whoop to enablethe combatants to ascertain each other's whereabouts. 

I now returned to my principal, and was distressed to observe that hehad lost a good deal of his spirit. I tried my best to hearten him. Isaid, "Indeed, sir, things are not as bad as they seem. Consideringthe character of the weapons, the limited number of shots allowed, thegenerous distance, the impenetrable solidity of the fog, and the addedfact that one of the combatants is one-eyed and the other cross-eyed andnear-sighted, it seems to me that this conflict need not necessarily befatal. There are chances that both of you may survive. Therefore, cheerup; do not be downhearted. "

This speech had so good an effect that my principal immediatelystretched forth his hand and said, "I am myself again; give me theweapon. "

I laid it, all lonely and forlorn, in the center of the vast solitudeof his palm. He gazed at it and shuddered. And still mournfullycontemplating it, he murmured in a broken voice:

"Alas, it is not death I dread, but mutilation. "

I heartened him once more, and with such success that he presentlysaid, "Let the tragedy begin. Stand at my back; do not desert me in thissolemn hour, my friend. "

I gave him my promise. I now assisted him to point his pistol toward thespot where I judged his adversary to be standing, and cautioned him tolisten well and further guide himself by my fellow-second's whoop. Then I propped myself against M. Gambetta's back, and raised a rousing"Whoop-ee!" This was answered from out the far distances of the fog, andI immediately shouted:

"One--two--three--FIRE!"

Two little sounds like SPIT! SPIT! broke upon my ear, and in the sameinstant I was crushed to the earth under a mountain of flesh. Bruisedas I was, I was still able to catch a faint accent from above, to thiseffect:

"I die for... For ... Perdition take it, what IS it I die for? ... Oh, yes--FRANCE! I die that France may live!"

The surgeons swarmed around with their probes in their hands, andapplied their microscopes to the whole area of M. Gambetta's person, with the happy result of finding nothing in the nature of a wound. Thena scene ensued which was in every way gratifying and inspiriting. 

The two gladiators fell upon each other's neck, with floods of proud andhappy tears; that other second embraced me; the surgeons, theorators, the undertakers, the police, everybody embraced, everybodycongratulated, everybody cried, and the whole atmosphere was filled withpraise and with joy unspeakable. 

It seems to me then that I would rather be a hero of a French duel thana crowned and sceptered monarch. 

When the commotion had somewhat subsided, the body of surgeons held aconsultation, and after a good deal of debate decided that with propercare and nursing there was reason to believe that I would survive myinjuries. My internal hurts were deemed the most serious, since it wasapparent that a broken rib had penetrated my left lung, and that many ofmy organs had been pressed out so far to one side or the other of wherethey belonged, that it was doubtful if they would ever learn to performtheir functions in such remote and unaccustomed localities. They thenset my left arm in two places, pulled my right hip into its socketagain, and re-elevated my nose. I was an object of great interest, and even admiration; and many sincere and warm-hearted persons hadthemselves introduced to me, and said they were proud to know the onlyman who had been hurt in a French duel in forty years. 

I was placed in an ambulance at the very head of the procession;and thus with gratifying 'ECLAT I was marched into Paris, the mostconspicuous figure in that great spectacle, and deposited at thehospital. 

The cross of the Legion of Honor has been conferred upon me. However, few escape that distinction. 

Such is the true version of the most memorable private conflict of theage. 

I have no complaints to make against any one. I acted for myself, and Ican stand the consequences. 

Without boasting, I think I may say I am not afraid to stand before amodern French duelist, but as long as I keep in my right mind I willnever consent to stand behind one again. 

CHAPTER IX

[What the Beautiful Maiden Said]

One day we took the train and went down to Mannheim to see "King Lear"played in German. It was a mistake. We sat in our seats three wholehours and never understood anything but the thunder and lightning; andeven that was reversed to suit German ideas, for the thunder came firstand the lightning followed after. 

The behavior of the audience was perfect. There were no rustlings, orwhisperings, or other little disturbances; each act was listened to insilence, and the applauding was done after the curtain was down. Thedoors opened at half past four, the play began promptly at half pastfive, and within two minutes afterward all who were coming were in theirseats, and quiet reigned. A German gentleman in the train had said thata Shakespearian play was an appreciated treat in Germany and thatwe should find the house filled. It was true; all the six tiers werefilled, and remained so to the end--which suggested that it is not onlybalcony people who like Shakespeare in Germany, but those of the pit andgallery, too. 

Another time, we went to Mannheim and attended a shivaree--otherwise anopera--the one called "Lohengrin. " The banging and slamming and boomingand crashing were something beyond belief. The racking and pitiless painof it remains stored up in my memory alongside the memory of the timethat I had my teeth fixed. 

There were circumstances which made it necessary for me to stay throughthe four hours to the end, and I stayed; but the recollection of thatlong, dragging, relentless season of suffering is indestructible. Tohave to endure it in silence, and sitting still, made it all the harder. I was in a railed compartment with eight or ten strangers, of the twosexes, and this compelled repression; yet at times the pain was soexquisite that I could hardly keep the tears back. 

At those times, as the howlings and wailings and shrieking of thesingers, and the ragings and roarings and explosions of the vastorchestra rose higher and higher, and wilder and wilder, and fiercer andfiercer, I could have cried if I had been alone. Those strangers wouldnot have been surprised to see a man do such a thing who was beinggradually skinned, but they would have marveled at it here, and maderemarks about it no doubt, whereas there was nothing in the present casewhich was an advantage over being skinned. 

There was a wait of half an hour at the end of the first act, and Icould have gone out and rested during that time, but I could not trustmyself to do it, for I felt that I should desert to stay out. There wasanother wait of half an hour toward nine o'clock, but I had gone throughso much by that time that I had no spirit left, and so had no desire butto be let alone. 

I do not wish to suggest that the rest of the people there were likeme, for, indeed, they were not. Whether it was that they naturallyliked that noise, or whether it was that they had learned to like itby getting used to it, I did not at the time know; but they did likeit--this was plain enough. While it was going on they sat and looked asrapt and grateful as cats do when one strokes their backs; and wheneverthe curtain fell they rose to their feet, in one solid mighty multitude, and the air was snowed thick with waving handkerchiefs, and hurricanesof applause swept the place. This was not comprehensible to me. Ofcourse, there were many people there who were not under compulsion tostay; yet the tiers were as full at the close as they had been at thebeginning. This showed that the people liked it. 

It was a curious sort of a play. In the manner of costumes and sceneryit was fine and showy enough; but there was not much action. That isto say, there was not much really done, it was only talked about; andalways violently. It was what one might call a narrative play. Everybodyhad a narrative and a grievance, and none were reasonable about it, butall in an offensive and ungovernable state. There was little of thatsort of customary thing where the tenor and the soprano stand down bythe footlights, warbling, with blended voices, and keep holding outtheir arms toward each other and drawing them back and spreading bothhands over first one breast and then the other with a shake and apressure--no, it was every rioter for himself and no blending. Each sanghis indictive narrative in turn, accompanied by the whole orchestra ofsixty instruments, and when this had continued for some time, and onewas hoping they might come to an understanding and modify the noise, agreat chorus composed entirely of maniacs would suddenly break forth, and then during two minutes, and sometimes three, I lived over again allthat I suffered the time the orphan asylum burned down. 

We only had one brief little season of heaven and heaven's sweet ecstasyand peace during all this long and diligent and acrimonious reproductionof the other place. This was while a gorgeous procession of peoplemarched around and around, in the third act, and sang the WeddingChorus. To my untutored ear that was music--almost divine music. Whilemy seared soul was steeped in the healing balm of those gracious sounds, it seemed to me that I could almost resuffer the torments which hadgone before, in order to be so healed again. There is where the deepingenuity of the operatic idea is betrayed. It deals so largely in painthat its scattered delights are prodigiously augmented by the contrasts. A pretty air in an opera is prettier there than it could be anywhereelse, I suppose, just as an honest man in politics shines more than hewould elsewhere. 

I have since found out that there is nothing the Germans like so much asan opera. They like it, not in a mild and moderate way, but with theirwhole hearts. This is a legitimate result of habit and education. Ournation will like the opera, too, by and by, no doubt. One in fifty ofthose who attend our operas likes it already, perhaps, but I think agood many of the other forty-nine go in order to learn to like it, andthe rest in order to be able to talk knowingly about it. The latterusually hum the airs while they are being sung, so that their neighborsmay perceive that they have been to operas before. The funerals of thesedo not occur often enough. 

A gentle, old-maidish person and a sweet young girl of seventeen satright in front of us that night at the Mannheim opera. These peopletalked, between the acts, and I understood them, though I understoodnothing that was uttered on the distant stage. At first they wereguarded in their talk, but after they had heard my agent and meconversing in English they dropped their reserve and I picked up manyof their little confidences; no, I mean many of HER littleconfidences--meaning the elder party--for the young girl only listened, and gave assenting nods, but never said a word. How pretty she was, and how sweet she was! I wished she would speak. But evidently she wasabsorbed in her own thoughts, her own young-girl dreams, and found adearer pleasure in silence. But she was not dreaming sleepy dreams--no, she was awake, alive, alert, she could not sit still a moment. She wasan enchanting study. Her gown was of a soft white silky stuff that clungto her round young figure like a fish's skin, and it was rippled overwith the gracefulest little fringy films of lace; she had deep, tendereyes, with long, curved lashes; and she had peachy cheeks, and adimpled chin, and such a dear little rosebud of a mouth; and she was sodovelike, so pure, and so gracious, so sweet and so bewitching. For longhours I did mightily wish she would speak. And at last she did; the redlips parted, and out leaps her thought--and with such a guileless andpretty enthusiasm, too: "Auntie, I just KNOW I've got five hundred fleason me!"

That was probably over the average. Yes, it must have been very muchover the average. The average at that time in the Grand Duchy of Badenwas forty-five to a young person (when alone), according to the officialestimate of the home secretary for that year; the average for olderpeople was shifty and indeterminable, for whenever a wholesome younggirl came into the presence of her elders she immediately lowered theiraverage and raised her own. She became a sort of contribution-box. 

This dear young thing in the theater had been sitting thereunconsciously taking up a collection. Many a skinny old being in ourneighborhood was the happier and the restfuler for her coming. 

In that large audience, that night, there were eight very conspicuouspeople. These were ladies who had their hats or bonnets on. What ablessed thing it would be if a lady could make herself conspicuous inour theaters by wearing her hat. 

It is not usual in Europe to allow ladies and gentlemen to take bonnets, hats, overcoats, canes, or umbrellas into the auditorium, but inMannheim this rule was not enforced because the audiences were largelymade up of people from a distance, and among these were always a fewtimid ladies who were afraid that if they had to go into an anteroom toget their things when the play was over, they would miss their train. But the great mass of those who came from a distance always ran the riskand took the chances, preferring the loss of a train to a breach of goodmanners and the discomfort of being unpleasantly conspicuous during astretch of three or four hours. 

CHAPTER X

[How Wagner Operas Bang Along]

Three or four hours. That is a long time to sit in one place, whetherone be conspicuous or not, yet some of Wagner's operas bang along forsix whole hours on a stretch! But the people sit there and enjoy it all, and wish it would last longer. A German lady in Munich told me that aperson could not like Wagner's music at first, but must go through thedeliberate process of learning to like it--then he would have his surereward; for when he had learned to like it he would hunger for it andnever be able to get enough of it. She said that six hours of Wagner wasby no means too much. She said that this composer had made a completerevolution in music and was burying the old masters one by one. Andshe said that Wagner's operas differed from all others in one notablerespect, and that was that they were not merely spotted with music hereand there, but were ALL music, from the first strain to the last. Thissurprised me. I said I had attended one of his insurrections, and foundhardly ANY music in it except the Wedding Chorus. She said "Lohengrin"was noisier than Wagner's other operas, but that if I would keep ongoing to see it I would find by and by that it was all music, andtherefore would then enjoy it. I COULD have said, "But would you advisea person to deliberately practice having a toothache in the pit of hisstomach for a couple of years in order that he might then come to enjoyit?" But I reserved that remark. 

This lady was full of the praises of the head-tenor who had performed ina Wagner opera the night before, and went on to enlarge upon his old andprodigious fame, and how many honors had been lavished upon him by theprincely houses of Germany. Here was another surprise. I had attendedthat very opera, in the person of my agent, and had made close andaccurate observations. So I said:

"Why, madam, MY experience warrants me in stating that that tenor'svoice is not a voice at all, but only a shriek--the shriek of a hyena. "

"That is very true, " she said; "he cannot sing now; it is already manyyears that he has lost his voice, but in other times he sang, yes, divinely! So whenever he comes now, you shall see, yes, that the theaterwill not hold the people. JAWOHL BEI GOTT! his voice is WUNDERSCHOEN inthat past time. "

I said she was discovering to me a kindly trait in the Germans whichwas worth emulating. I said that over the water we were not quite sogenerous; that with us, when a singer had lost his voice and a jumperhad lost his legs, these parties ceased to draw. I said I had been tothe opera in Hanover, once, and in Mannheim once, and in Munich(through my authorized agent) once, and this large experience had nearlypersuaded me that the Germans PREFERRED singers who couldn't sing. Thiswas not such a very extravagant speech, either, for that burly Mannheimtenor's praises had been the talk of all Heidelberg for a week beforehis performance took place--yet his voice was like the distressing noisewhich a nail makes when you screech it across a window-pane. I said soto Heidelberg friends the next day, and they said, in the calmest andsimplest way, that that was very true, but that in earlier times hisvoice HAD been wonderfully fine. And the tenor in Hanover was justanother example of this sort. The English-speaking German gentleman whowent with me to the opera there was brimming with enthusiasm over thattenor. He said:

"ACH GOTT! a great man! You shall see him. He is so celebrate in allGermany--and he has a pension, yes, from the government. He not obligedto sing now, only twice every year; but if he not sing twice each yearthey take him his pension away. "

Very well, we went. When the renowned old tenor appeared, I got a nudgeand an excited whisper:

"Now you see him!"

But the "celebrate" was an astonishing disappointment to me. If hehad been behind a screen I should have supposed they were performing asurgical operation on him. I looked at my friend--to my great surprisehe seemed intoxicated with pleasure, his eyes were dancing with eagerdelight. When the curtain at last fell, he burst into the stormiestapplause, and kept it up--as did the whole house--until the afflictivetenor had come three times before the curtain to make his bow. While theglowing enthusiast was swabbing the perspiration from his face, I said:

"I don't mean the least harm, but really, now, do you think he cansing?"

"Him? NO! GOTT IM HIMMEL, ABER, how he has been able to sing twenty-fiveyears ago?" [Then pensively. ] "ACH, no, NOW he not sing any more, heonly cry. When he think he sing, now, he not sing at all, no, he onlymake like a cat which is unwell. "

Where and how did we get the idea that the Germans are a stolid, phlegmatic race? In truth, they are widely removed from that. They arewarm-hearted, emotional, impulsive, enthusiastic, their tears come atthe mildest touch, and it is not hard to move them to laughter. They arethe very children of impulse. We are cold and self-contained, comparedto the Germans. They hug and kiss and cry and shout and dance and sing;and where we use one loving, petting expression, they pour out a score. Their language is full of endearing diminutives; nothing that they loveescapes the application of a petting diminutive--neither the house, northe dog, nor the horse, nor the grandmother, nor any other creature, animate or inanimate. 

In the theaters at Hanover, Hamburg, and Mannheim, they had a wisecustom. The moment the curtain went up, the light in the body of thehouse went down. The audience sat in the cool gloom of a deep twilight, which greatly enhanced the glowing splendors of the stage. It saved gas, too, and people were not sweated to death. 

When I saw "King Lear" played, nobody was allowed to see a sceneshifted; if there was nothing to be done but slide a forest out of theway and expose a temple beyond, one did not see that forest split itselfin the middle and go shrieking away, with the accompanying disenchantingspectacle of the hands and heels of the impelling impulse--no, thecurtain was always dropped for an instant--one heard not the leastmovement behind it--but when it went up, the next instant, the forestwas gone. Even when the stage was being entirely reset, one heard nonoise. During the whole time that "King Lear" was playing the curtainwas never down two minutes at any one time. The orchestra played untilthe curtain was ready to go up for the first time, then they departedfor the evening. Where the stage waits never reach two minutes there isno occasion for music. I had never seen this two-minute business betweenacts but once before, and that was when the "Shaughraun" was played atWallack's. 

I was at a concert in Munich one night, the people were streaming in, the clock-hand pointed to seven, the music struck up, and instantlyall movement in the body of the house ceased--nobody was standing, orwalking up the aisles, or fumbling with a seat, the stream of incomershad suddenly dried up at its source. I listened undisturbed to a pieceof music that was fifteen minutes long--always expecting some tardyticket-holders to come crowding past my knees, and being continuouslyand pleasantly disappointed--but when the last note was struck, herecame the stream again. You see, they had made those late comers wait inthe comfortable waiting-parlor from the time the music had begun untilit was ended. 

It was the first time I had ever seen this sort of criminals denied theprivilege of destroying the comfort of a house full of their betters. Some of these were pretty fine birds, but no matter, they had to tarryoutside in the long parlor under the inspection of a double rank ofliveried footmen and waiting-maids who supported the two walls withtheir backs and held the wraps and traps of their masters and mistresseson their arms. 

We had no footmen to hold our things, and it was not permissible to takethem into the concert-room; but there were some men and women to takecharge of them for us. They gave us checks for them and charged a fixedprice, payable in advance--five cents. 

In Germany they always hear one thing at an opera which has never yetbeen heard in America, perhaps--I mean the closing strain of a fine soloor duet. We always smash into it with an earthquake of applause. Theresult is that we rob ourselves of the sweetest part of the treat; weget the whiskey, but we don't get the sugar in the bottom of the glass. 

Our way of scattering applause along through an act seems to me to bebetter than the Mannheim way of saving it all up till the act is ended. I do not see how an actor can forget himself and portray hot passionbefore a cold still audience. I should think he would feel foolish. Itis a pain to me to this day, to remember how that old German Lear ragedand wept and howled around the stage, with never a response from thathushed house, never a single outburst till the act was ended. Tome there was something unspeakably uncomfortable in the solemn deadsilences that always followed this old person's tremendous outpouringsof his feelings. I could not help putting myself in his place--I thoughtI knew how sick and flat he felt during those silences, because Iremembered a case which came under my observation once, and which--but Iwill tell the incident:

One evening on board a Mississippi steamboat, a boy of ten years layasleep in a berth--a long, slim-legged boy, he was, encased in quitea short shirt; it was the first time he had ever made a trip on asteamboat, and so he was troubled, and scared, and had gone to bedwith his head filled with impending snaggings, and explosions, andconflagrations, and sudden death. About ten o'clock some twenty ladieswere sitting around about the ladies' saloon, quietly reading, sewing, embroidering, and so on, and among them sat a sweet, benignant old damewith round spectacles on her nose and her busy knitting-needles in herhands. Now all of a sudden, into the midst of this peaceful scene burstthat slim-shanked boy in the brief shirt, wild-eyed, erect-haired, andshouting, "Fire, fire! JUMP AND RUN, THE BOAT'S AFIRE AND THERE AIN'T AMINUTE TO LOSE!" All those ladies looked sweetly up and smiled, nobodystirred, the old lady pulled her spectacles down, looked over them, andsaid, gently:

"But you mustn't catch cold, child. Run and put on your breastpin, andthen come and tell us all about it. "

It was a cruel chill to give to a poor little devil's gushing vehemence. He was expecting to be a sort of hero--the creator of a wild panic--andhere everybody sat and smiled a mocking smile, and an old woman made funof his bugbear. I turned and crept away--for I was that boy--and nevereven cared to discover whether I had dreamed the fire or actually seenit. 

I am told that in a German concert or opera, they hardly ever encorea song; that though they may be dying to hear it again, their goodbreeding usually preserves them against requiring the repetition. 

Kings may encore; that is quite another matter; it delights everybody tosee that the King is pleased; and as to the actor encored, his pride andgratification are simply boundless. Still, there are circumstances inwhich even a royal encore--

But it is better to illustrate. The King of Bavaria is a poet, and has apoet's eccentricities--with the advantage over all other poets of beingable to gratify them, no matter what form they may take. He is fondof opera, but not fond of sitting in the presence of an audience;therefore, it has sometimes occurred, in Munich, that when an opera hasbeen concluded and the players were getting off their paint and finery, a command has come to them to get their paint and finery on again. Presently the King would arrive, solitary and alone, and the playerswould begin at the beginning and do the entire opera over again withonly that one individual in the vast solemn theater for audience. Oncehe took an odd freak into his head. High up and out of sight, overthe prodigious stage of the court theater is a maze of interlacingwater-pipes, so pierced that in case of fire, innumerable littlethread-like streams of water can be caused to descend; and in caseof need, this discharge can be augmented to a pouring flood. Americanmanagers might want to make a note of that. The King was sole audience. The opera proceeded, it was a piece with a storm in it; the mimicthunder began to mutter, the mimic wind began to wail and sough, andthe mimic rain to patter. The King's interest rose higher and higher; itdeveloped into enthusiasm. He cried out:

"It is very, very good, indeed! But I will have real rain! Turn on thewater!"

The manager pleaded for a reversal of the command; said it would ruinthe costly scenery and the splendid costumes, but the King cried:

"No matter, no matter, I will have real rain! Turn on the water!"

So the real rain was turned on and began to descend in gossamer lancesto the mimic flower-beds and gravel walks of the stage. The richlydressed actresses and actors tripped about singing bravely andpretending not to mind it. The King was delighted--his enthusiasm grewhigher. He cried out:

"Bravo, bravo! More thunder! more lightning! turn on more rain!"

The thunder boomed, the lightning glared, the storm-winds raged, thedeluge poured down. The mimic royalty on the stage, with their soakedsatins clinging to their bodies, slopped about ankle-deep in water, warbling their sweetest and best, the fiddlers under the eaves of thestage sawed away for dear life, with the cold overflow spouting down thebacks of their necks, and the dry and happy King sat in his lofty boxand wore his gloves to ribbons applauding. 

"More yet!" cried the King; "more yet--let loose all the thunder, turnon all the water! I will hang the man that raises an umbrella!"

When this most tremendous and effective storm that had ever beenproduced in any theater was at last over, the King's approbation wasmeasureless. He cried:

"Magnificent, magnificent! ENCORE! Do it again!"

But the manager succeeded in persuading him to recall the encore, andsaid the company would feel sufficiently rewarded and complimentedin the mere fact that the encore was desired by his Majesty, withoutfatiguing him with a repetition to gratify their own vanity. 

During the remainder of the act the lucky performers were those whoseparts required changes of dress; the others were a soaked, bedraggled, and uncomfortable lot, but in the last degree picturesque. The stagescenery was ruined, trap-doors were so swollen that they wouldn't workfor a week afterward, the fine costumes were spoiled, and no end ofminor damages were done by that remarkable storm. 

It was a royal idea--that storm--and royally carried out. But observethe moderation of the King; he did not insist upon his encore. If he hadbeen a gladsome, unreflecting American opera-audience, he probably wouldhave had his storm repeated and repeated until he drowned all thosepeople. 

CHAPTER XI

[I Paint a "Turner"]

The summer days passed pleasantly in Heidelberg. We had a skilledtrainer, and under his instructions we were getting our legs in theright condition for the contemplated pedestrian tours; we were wellsatisfied with the progress which we had made in the German language, [1. See Appendix D for information concerning this fearful tongue. ] andmore than satisfied with what we had accomplished in art. We had had thebest instructors in drawing and painting in Germany--Haemmerling, Vogel, Mueller, Dietz, and Schumann. Haemmerling taught us landscape-painting. Vogel taught us figure-drawing, Mueller taught us to do still-life, and Dietz and Schumann gave us a finishing course in twospecialties--battle-pieces and shipwrecks. Whatever I am in Art I owe tothese men. I have something of the manner of each and all of them;but they all said that I had also a manner of my own, and that itwas conspicuous. They said there was a marked individuality about mystyle--insomuch that if I ever painted the commonest type of a dog, Ishould be sure to throw a something into the aspect of that dog whichwould keep him from being mistaken for the creation of any other artist. Secretly I wanted to believe all these kind sayings, but I could not; Iwas afraid that my masters' partiality for me, and pride in me, biasedtheir judgment. So I resolved to make a test. Privately, and unknown toany one, I painted my great picture, "Heidelberg Castle Illuminated"--myfirst really important work in oils--and had it hung up in the midstof a wilderness of oil-pictures in the Art Exhibition, with no nameattached to it. To my great gratification it was instantly recognizedas mine. All the town flocked to see it, and people even came fromneighboring localities to visit it. It made more stir than any otherwork in the Exhibition. But the most gratifying thing of all was, thatchance strangers, passing through, who had not heard of my picture, werenot only drawn to it, as by a lodestone, the moment they entered thegallery, but always took it for a "Turner. "

Apparently nobody had ever done that. There were ruined castles on theoverhanging cliffs and crags all the way; these were said to have theirlegends, like those on the Rhine, and what was better still, they hadnever been in print. There was nothing in the books about that lovelyregion; it had been neglected by the tourist, it was virgin soil for theliterary pioneer. 

Meantime the knapsacks, the rough walking-suits and the stoutwalking-shoes which we had ordered, were finished and brought to us. A Mr. X and a young Mr. Z had agreed to go with us. We went around oneevening and bade good-by to our friends, and afterward had a littlefarewell banquet at the hotel. We got to bed early, for we wanted tomake an early start, so as to take advantage of the cool of the morning. 

We were out of bed at break of day, feeling fresh and vigorous, and tooka hearty breakfast, then plunged down through the leafy arcades of theCastle grounds, toward the town. What a glorious summer morning it was, and how the flowers did pour out their fragrance, and how the birds didsing! It was just the time for a tramp through the woods and mountains. 

We were all dressed alike: broad slouch hats, to keep the sun off; grayknapsacks; blue army shirts; blue overalls; leathern gaiters buttonedtight from knee down to ankle; high-quarter coarse shoes snugly laced. Each man had an opera-glass, a canteen, and a guide-book case slung overhis shoulder, and carried an alpenstock in one hand and a sun-umbrellain the other. Around our hats were wound many folds of soft whitemuslin, with the ends hanging and flapping down our backs--an ideabrought from the Orient and used by tourists all over Europe. Harriscarried the little watch-like machine called a "pedometer, " whoseoffice is to keep count of a man's steps and tell how far he has walked. Everybody stopped to admire our costumes and give us a hearty "Pleasantmarch to you!"

When we got downtown I found that we could go by rail to within fivemiles of Heilbronn. The train was just starting, so we jumped aboard andwent tearing away in splendid spirits. It was agreed all around that wehad done wisely, because it would be just as enjoyable to walk DOWN theNeckar as up it, and it could not be needful to walk both ways. Therewere some nice German people in our compartment. I got to talking somepretty private matters presently, and Harris became nervous; so henudged me and said:

"Speak in German--these Germans may understand English. "

I did so, it was well I did; for it turned out that there was not aGerman in that party who did not understand English perfectly. It iscurious how widespread our language is in Germany. After a while some ofthose folks got out and a German gentleman and his two young daughtersgot in. I spoke in German of one of the latter several times, butwithout result. Finally she said:

"ICH VERSTEHE NUR DEUTCH UND ENGLISHE, "--or words to that effect. Thatis, "I don't understand any language but German and English. "

And sure enough, not only she but her father and sister spoke English. So after that we had all the talk we wanted; and we wanted a good deal, for they were agreeable people. They were greatly interested in ourcustoms; especially the alpenstocks, for they had not seen any before. They said that the Neckar road was perfectly level, so we must be goingto Switzerland or some other rugged country; and asked us if we did notfind the walking pretty fatiguing in such warm weather. But we said no. 

We reached Wimpfen--I think it was Wimpfen--in about three hours, andgot out, not the least tired; found a good hotel and ordered beer anddinner--then took a stroll through the venerable old village. It wasvery picturesque and tumble-down, and dirty and interesting. It hadqueer houses five hundred years old in it, and a military tower 115 feethigh, which had stood there more than ten centuries. I made a littlesketch of it. I kept a copy, but gave the original to the Burgomaster. 

I think the original was better than the copy, because it had morewindows in it and the grass stood up better and had a brisker look. There was none around the tower, though; I composed the grass myself, from studies I made in a field by Heidelberg in Haemmerling's time. Theman on top, looking at the view, is apparently too large, but I foundhe could not be made smaller, conveniently. I wanted him there, and Iwanted him visible, so I thought out a way to manage it; I composed thepicture from two points of view; the spectator is to observe the manfrom bout where that flag is, and he must observe the tower itself fromthe ground. This harmonizes the seeming discrepancy. [Figure 2]

Near an old cathedral, under a shed, were three crosses of stone--moldyand damaged things, bearing life-size stone figures. The two thieveswere dressed in the fanciful court costumes of the middle of thesixteenth century, while the Saviour was nude, with the exception of acloth around the loins. 

We had dinner under the green trees in a garden belonging to the hoteland overlooking the Neckar; then, after a smoke, we went to bed. We hada refreshing nap, then got up about three in the afternoon and puton our panoply. As we tramped gaily out at the gate of the town, weovertook a peasant's cart, partly laden with odds and ends of cabbagesand similar vegetable rubbish, and drawn by a small cow and a smallerdonkey yoked together. It was a pretty slow concern, but it got us intoHeilbronn before dark--five miles, or possibly it was seven. 

We stopped at the very same inn which the famous old robber-knightand rough fighter Goetz von Berlichingen, abode in after he got out ofcaptivity in the Square Tower of Heilbronn between three hundred andfifty and four hundred years ago. Harris and I occupied the same roomwhich he had occupied and the same paper had not quite peeled off thewalls yet. The furniture was quaint old carved stuff, full four hundredyears old, and some of the smells were over a thousand. There was a hookin the wall, which the landlord said the terrific old Goetz used to hanghis iron hand on when he took it off to go to bed. This room was verylarge--it might be called immense--and it was on the first floor; whichmeans it was in the second story, for in Europe the houses are sohigh that they do not count the first story, else they would get tiredclimbing before they got to the top. The wallpaper was a fiery red, withhuge gold figures in it, well smirched by time, and it covered all thedoors. These doors fitted so snugly and continued the figures of thepaper so unbrokenly, that when they were closed one had to go feelingand searching along the wall to find them. There was a stove in thecorner--one of those tall, square, stately white porcelain things thatlooks like a monument and keeps you thinking of death when you ought tobe enjoying your travels. The windows looked out on a little alley, andover that into a stable and some poultry and pig yards in the rear ofsome tenement-houses. There were the customary two beds in the room, one in one end, the other in the other, about an old-fashionedbrass-mounted, single-barreled pistol-shot apart. They were fullyas narrow as the usual German bed, too, and had the German bed'sineradicable habit of spilling the blankets on the floor every time youforgot yourself and went to sleep. 

A round table as large as King Arthur's stood in the center of the room;while the waiters were getting ready to serve our dinner on it weall went out to see the renowned clock on the front of the municipalbuildings. 

CHAPTER XII

[What the Wives Saved]

The RATHHAUS, or municipal building, is of the quaintest and mostpicturesque Middle-Age architecture. It has a massive portico and steps, before it, heavily balustraded, and adorned with life-sized rusty ironknights in complete armor. The clock-face on the front of the buildingis very large and of curious pattern. Ordinarily, a gilded angelstrikes the hour on a big bell with a hammer; as the striking ceases, alife-sized figure of Time raises its hour-glass and turns it; two goldenrams advance and butt each other; a gilded cock lifts its wings; but themain features are two great angels, who stand on each side of the dialwith long horns at their lips; it was said that they blew melodiousblasts on these horns every hour--but they did not do it for us. We weretold, later, that they blew only at night, when the town was still. 

Within the RATHHAUS were a number of huge wild boars' heads, preserved, and mounted on brackets along the wall; they bore inscriptions tellingwho killed them and how many hundred years ago it was done. One room inthe building was devoted to the preservation of ancient archives. Therethey showed us no end of aged documents; some were signed by Popes, some by Tilly and other great generals, and one was a letter written andsubscribed by Goetz von Berlichingen in Heilbronn in 1519 just after hisrelease from the Square Tower. 

This fine old robber-knight was a devoutly and sincerely religiousman, hospitable, charitable to the poor, fearless in fight, active, enterprising, and possessed of a large and generous nature. He had inhim a quality of being able to overlook moderate injuries, and beingable to forgive and forget mortal ones as soon as he had soundlytrounced the authors of them. He was prompt to take up any poor devil'squarrel and risk his neck to right him. The common folk held him dear, and his memory is still green in ballad and tradition. He used to go onthe highway and rob rich wayfarers; and other times he would swoop downfrom his high castle on the hills of the Neckar and capture passingcargoes of merchandise. In his memoirs he piously thanks the Giver ofall Good for remembering him in his needs and delivering sundry suchcargoes into his hands at times when only special providences could haverelieved him. He was a doughty warrior and found a deep joy in battle. In an assault upon a stronghold in Bavaria when he was only twenty-threeyears old, his right hand was shot away, but he was so interested in thefight that he did not observe it for a while. He said that the iron handwhich was made for him afterward, and which he wore for more than half acentury, was nearly as clever a member as the fleshy one had been. I wasglad to get a facsimile of the letter written by this fine old GermanRobin Hood, though I was not able to read it. He was a better artistwith his sword than with his pen. 

We went down by the river and saw the Square Tower. It was a veryvenerable structure, very strong, and very ornamental. There was noopening near the ground. They had to use a ladder to get into it, nodoubt. 

We visited the principal church, also--a curious old structure, with atowerlike spire adorned with all sorts of grotesque images. The innerwalls of the church were placarded with large mural tablets of copper, bearing engraved inscriptions celebrating the merits of old Heilbronnworthies of two or three centuries ago, and also bearing rudely paintedeffigies of themselves and their families tricked out in the queercostumes of those days. The head of the family sat in the foreground, and beyond him extended a sharply receding and diminishing row ofsons; facing him sat his wife, and beyond her extended a low row ofdiminishing daughters. The family was usually large, but the perspectivebad. 

Then we hired the hack and the horse which Goetz von Berlichingen usedto use, and drove several miles into the country to visit the placecalled WEIBERTREU--Wife's Fidelity I suppose it means. It was a feudalcastle of the Middle Ages. When we reached its neighborhood we foundit was beautifully situated, but on top of a mound, or hill, round andtolerably steep, and about two hundred feet high. Therefore, as the sunwas blazing hot, we did not climb up there, but took the place on trust, and observed it from a distance while the horse leaned up against afence and rested. The place has no interest except that which is lent itby its legend, which is a very pretty one--to this effect:

THE LEGEND

In the Middle Ages, a couple of young dukes, brothers, took oppositesides in one of the wars, the one fighting for the Emperor, the otheragainst him. One of them owned the castle and village on top of themound which I have been speaking of, and in his absence his brothercame with his knights and soldiers and began a siege. It was a long andtedious business, for the people made a stubborn and faithful defense. But at last their supplies ran out and starvation began its work;more fell by hunger than by the missiles of the enemy. They by andby surrendered, and begged for charitable terms. But the beleagueringprince was so incensed against them for their long resistance that hesaid he would spare none but the women and children--all men should beput to the sword without exception, and all their goods destroyed. Thenthe women came and fell on their knees and begged for the lives of theirhusbands. 

"No, " said the prince, "not a man of them shall escape alive; youyourselves shall go with your children into houseless and friendlessbanishment; but that you may not starve I grant you this one grace, that each woman may bear with her from this place as much of her mostvaluable property as she is able to carry. "

Very well, presently the gates swung open and out filed those womencarrying their HUSBANDS on their shoulders. The besiegers, furious atthe trick, rushed forward to slaughter the men, but the Duke steppedbetween and said:

"No, put up your swords--a prince's word is inviolable. "

When we got back to the hotel, King Arthur's Round Table was ready forus in its white drapery, and the head waiter and his first assistant, inswallow-tails and white cravats, brought in the soup and the hot platesat once. 

Mr. X had ordered the dinner, and when the wine came on, he picked upa bottle, glanced at the label, and then turned to the grave, themelancholy, the sepulchral head waiter and said it was not the sort ofwine he had asked for. The head waiter picked up the bottle, cast hisundertaker-eye on it and said:

"It is true; I beg pardon. " Then he turned on his subordinate and calmlysaid, "Bring another label. "

At the same time he slid the present label off with his hand and laid itaside; it had been newly put on, its paste was still wet. When the newlabel came, he put it on; our French wine being now turned into Germanwine, according to desire, the head waiter went blandly about his otherduties, as if the working of this sort of miracle was a common and easything to him. 

Mr. X said he had not known, before, that there were people honestenough to do this miracle in public, but he was aware that thousandsupon thousands of labels were imported into America from Europe everyyear, to enable dealers to furnish to their customers in a quiet andinexpensive way all the different kinds of foreign wines they mightrequire. 

We took a turn around the town, after dinner, and found it fully asinteresting in the moonlight as it had been in the daytime. The streetswere narrow and roughly paved, and there was not a sidewalk or astreet-lamp anywhere. The dwellings were centuries old, and vast enoughfor hotels. They widened all the way up; the stories projected furtherand further forward and aside as they ascended, and the long rowsof lighted windows, filled with little bits of panes, curtained withfigured white muslin and adorned outside with boxes of flowers, made apretty effect. 

The moon was bright, and the light and shadow very strong; and nothingcould be more picturesque than those curving streets, with their rowsof huge high gables leaning far over toward each other in a friendlygossiping way, and the crowds below drifting through the alternatingblots of gloom and mellow bars of moonlight. Nearly everybody wasabroad, chatting, singing, romping, or massed in lazy comfortableattitudes in the doorways. 

In one place there was a public building which was fenced about with athick, rusty chain, which sagged from post to post in a succession oflow swings. The pavement, here, was made of heavy blocks of stone. Inthe glare of the moon a party of barefooted children were swinging onthose chains and having a noisy good time. They were not the first oneswho have done that; even their great-great-grandfathers had not been thefirst to do it when they were children. The strokes of the bare feethad worn grooves inches deep in the stone flags; it had taken manygenerations of swinging children to accomplish that. 

Everywhere in the town were the mold and decay that go with antiquity, and evidence of it; but I do not know that anything else gave us sovivid a sense of the old age of Heilbronn as those footworn grooves inthe paving-stones. 

CHAPTER XIII

[My Long Crawl in the Dark]

When we got back to the hotel I wound and set the pedometer and putit in my pocket, for I was to carry it next day and keep record of themiles we made. The work which we had given the instrument to do duringthe day which had just closed had not fatigued it perceptibly. 

We were in bed by ten, for we wanted to be up and away on our tramphomeward with the dawn. I hung fire, but Harris went to sleep at once. I hate a man who goes to sleep at once; there is a sort of indefinablesomething about it which is not exactly an insult, and yet is aninsolence; and one which is hard to bear, too. I lay there frettingover this injury, and trying to go to sleep; but the harder I tried, thewider awake I grew. I got to feeling very lonely in the dark, with nocompany but an undigested dinner. My mind got a start by and by, andbegan to consider the beginning of every subject which has ever beenthought of; but it never went further than the beginning; it was touchand go; it fled from topic to topic with a frantic speed. At the end ofan hour my head was in a perfect whirl and I was dead tired, fagged out. 

The fatigue was so great that it presently began to make some headagainst the nervous excitement; while imagining myself wide awake, Iwould really doze into momentary unconsciousness, and come suddenly outof it with a physical jerk which nearly wrenched my joints apart--thedelusion of the instant being that I was tumbling backward over aprecipice. After I had fallen over eight or nine precipices and thusfound out that one half of my brain had been asleep eight or nine timeswithout the wide-awake, hard-working other half suspecting it, theperiodical unconsciousnesses began to extend their spell gradually overmore of my brain-territory, and at last I sank into a drowse which grewdeeper and deeper and was doubtless just on the very point of being asolid, blessed dreamless stupor, when--what was that?

My dulled faculties dragged themselves partly back to life and took areceptive attitude. Now out of an immense, a limitless distance, camea something which grew and grew, and approached, and presently wasrecognizable as a sound--it had rather seemed to be a feeling, before. This sound was a mile away, now--perhaps it was the murmur of a storm;and now it was nearer--not a quarter of a mile away; was it the muffledrasping and grinding of distant machinery? No, it came still nearer; wasit the measured tramp of a marching troop? But it came nearer still, and still nearer--and at last it was right in the room: it was merelya mouse gnawing the woodwork. So I had held my breath all that time forsuch a trifle. 

Well, what was done could not be helped; I would go to sleep at once andmake up the lost time. That was a thoughtless thought. Without intendingit--hardly knowing it--I fell to listening intently to that sound, andeven unconsciously counting the strokes of the mouse's nutmeg-grater. Presently I was deriving exquisite suffering from this employment, yetmaybe I could have endured it if the mouse had attended steadily tohis work; but he did not do that; he stopped every now and then, and Isuffered more while waiting and listening for him to begin again thanI did while he was gnawing. Along at first I was mentally offering areward of five--six--seven--ten--dollars for that mouse; but towardthe last I was offering rewards which were entirely beyond my means. Iclose-reefed my ears--that is to say, I bent the flaps of them downand furled them into five or six folds, and pressed them against thehearing-orifice--but it did no good: the faculty was so sharpenedby nervous excitement that it was become a microphone and could hearthrough the overlays without trouble. 

My anger grew to a frenzy. I finally did what all persons before me havedone, clear back to Adam, --resolved to throw something. I reached downand got my walking-shoes, then sat up in bed and listened, in order toexactly locate the noise. But I couldn't do it; it was as unlocatable asa cricket's noise; and where one thinks that that is, is always the veryplace where it isn't. So I presently hurled a shoe at random, and witha vicious vigor. It struck the wall over Harris's head and fell down onhim; I had not imagined I could throw so far. It woke Harris, and I wasglad of it until I found he was not angry; then I was sorry. He soonwent to sleep again, which pleased me; but straightway the mouse beganagain, which roused my temper once more. I did not want to wake Harrisa second time, but the gnawing continued until I was compelled to throwthe other shoe. 

This time I broke a mirror--there were two in the room--I got thelargest one, of course. Harris woke again, but did not complain, andI was sorrier than ever. I resolved that I would suffer all possibletorture before I would disturb him a third time. 

The mouse eventually retired, and by and by I was sinking to sleep, whena clock began to strike; I counted till it was done, and was about todrowse again when another clock began; I counted; then the two greatRATHHAUS clock angels began to send forth soft, rich, melodious blastsfrom their long trumpets. I had never heard anything that was so lovely, or weird, or mysterious--but when they got to blowing the quarter-hours, they seemed to me to be overdoing the thing. Every time I droppedoff for the moment, a new noise woke me. Each time I woke I missed mycoverlet, and had to reach down to the floor and get it again. 

At last all sleepiness forsook me. I recognized the fact that I washopelessly and permanently wide awake. Wide awake, and feverish andthirsty. When I had lain tossing there as long as I could endure it, itoccurred to me that it would be a good idea to dress and go out in thegreat square and take a refreshing wash in the fountain, and smoke andreflect there until the remnant of the night was gone. 

I believed I could dress in the dark without waking Harris. I hadbanished my shoes after the mouse, but my slippers would do for a summernight. So I rose softly, and gradually got on everything--down to onesock. I couldn't seem to get on the track of that sock, any way I couldfix it. But I had to have it; so I went down on my hands and knees, withone slipper on and the other in my hand, and began to paw gently aroundand rake the floor, but with no success. I enlarged my circle, and wenton pawing and raking. With every pressure of my knee, how the floorcreaked! and every time I chanced to rake against any article, it seemedto give out thirty-five or thirty-six times more noise than it wouldhave done in the daytime. In those cases I always stopped and heldmy breath till I was sure Harris had not awakened--then I crept alongagain. I moved on and on, but I could not find the sock; I could notseem to find anything but furniture. I could not remember that there wasmuch furniture in the room when I went to bed, but the place was alivewith it now --especially chairs--chairs everywhere--had a couple offamilies moved in, in the mean time? And I never could seem to GLANCE onone of those chairs, but always struck it full and square with my head. My temper rose, by steady and sure degrees, and as I pawed on and on, Ifell to making vicious comments under my breath. 

Finally, with a venomous access of irritation, I said I would leavewithout the sock; so I rose up and made straight for the door--as Isupposed--and suddenly confronted my dim spectral image in the unbrokenmirror. It startled the breath out of me, for an instant; it also showedme that I was lost, and had no sort of idea where I was. When I realizedthis, I was so angry that I had to sit down on the floor and take holdof something to keep from lifting the roof off with an explosion ofopinion. If there had been only one mirror, it might possibly havehelped to locate me; but there were two, and two were as bad as athousand; besides, these were on opposite sides of the room. I could seethe dim blur of the windows, but in my turned-around condition they wereexactly where they ought not to be, and so they only confused me insteadof helping me. 

I started to get up, and knocked down an umbrella; it made a noiselike a pistol-shot when it struck that hard, slick, carpetless floor;I grated my teeth and held my breath--Harris did not stir. I set theumbrella slowly and carefully on end against the wall, but as soon asI took my hand away, its heel slipped from under it, and down it cameagain with another bang. I shrunk together and listened a moment insilent fury--no harm done, everything quiet. With the most painstakingcare and nicety, I stood the umbrella up once more, took my hand away, and down it came again. 

I have been strictly reared, but if it had not been so dark and solemnand awful there in that lonely, vast room, I do believe I should havesaid something then which could not be put into a Sunday-school bookwithout injuring the sale of it. If my reasoning powers had not beenalready sapped dry by my harassments, I would have known better than totry to set an umbrella on end on one of those glassy German floors inthe dark; it can't be done in the daytime without four failures to onesuccess. I had one comfort, though--Harris was yet still and silent--hehad not stirred. 

The umbrella could not locate me--there were four standing around theroom, and all alike. I thought I would feel along the wall and find thedoor in that way. I rose up and began this operation, but raked downa picture. It was not a large one, but it made noise enough for apanorama. Harris gave out no sound, but I felt that if I experimentedany further with the pictures I should be sure to wake him. Better giveup trying to get out. Yes, I would find King Arthur's Round Table oncemore--I had already found it several times--and use it for a base ofdeparture on an exploring tour for my bed; if I could find my bed Icould then find my water pitcher; I would quench my raging thirst andturn in. So I started on my hands and knees, because I could go fasterthat way, and with more confidence, too, and not knock down things. Byand by I found the table--with my head--rubbed the bruise a little, thenrose up and started, with hands abroad and fingers spread, to balancemyself. I found a chair; then a wall; then another chair; then a sofa;then an alpenstock, then another sofa; this confounded me, for I hadthought there was only one sofa. I hunted up the table again and took afresh start; found some more chairs. 

It occurred to me, now, as it ought to have done before, that as thetable was round, it was therefore of no value as a base to aim from; soI moved off once more, and at random among the wilderness of chairs andsofas--wandering off into unfamiliar regions, and presently knocked acandlestick and knocked off a lamp, grabbed at the lamp and knockedoff a water pitcher with a rattling crash, and thought to myself, "I've found you at last--I judged I was close upon you. " Harris shouted"murder, " and "thieves, " and finished with "I'm absolutely drowned. "

The crash had roused the house. Mr. X pranced in, in his longnight-garment, with a candle, young Z after him with another candle; aprocession swept in at another door, with candles and lanterns--landlordand two German guests in their nightgowns and a chambermaid in hers. 

I looked around; I was at Harris's bed, a Sabbath-day's journey from myown. There was only one sofa; it was against the wall; there was onlyone chair where a body could get at it--I had been revolving around itlike a planet, and colliding with it like a comet half the night. 

I explained how I had been employing myself, and why. Then thelandlord's party left, and the rest of us set about our preparations forbreakfast, for the dawn was ready to break. I glanced furtively at mypedometer, and found I had made 47 miles. But I did not care, for I hadcome out for a pedestrian tour anyway. 

CHAPTER XIV

[Rafting Down the Neckar]

When the landlord learned that I and my agents were artists, our partyrose perceptibly in his esteem; we rose still higher when he learnedthat we were making a pedestrian tour of Europe. 

He told us all about the Heidelberg road, and which were the best placesto avoid and which the best ones to tarry at; he charged me less thancost for the things I broke in the night; he put up a fine luncheonfor us and added to it a quantity of great light-green plums, thepleasantest fruit in Germany; he was so anxious to do us honor that hewould not allow us to walk out of Heilbronn, but called up Goetz vonBerlichingen's horse and cab and made us ride. 

I made a sketch of the turnout. It is not a Work, it is only whatartists call a "study"--a thing to make a finished picture from. Thissketch has several blemishes in it; for instance, the wagon is nottraveling as fast as the horse is. This is wrong. Again, the persontrying to get out of the way is too small; he is out of perspective, as we say. The two upper lines are not the horse's back, they are thereigns; there seems to be a wheel missing--this would be corrected in afinished Work, of course. This thing flying out behind is not a flag, it is a curtain. That other thing up there is the sun, but I didn't getenough distance on it. I do not remember, now, what that thing is thatis in front of the man who is running, but I think it is a haystack or awoman. This study was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1879, but did nottake any medal; they do not give medals for studies. 

We discharged the carriage at the bridge. The river was full oflogs--long, slender, barkless pine logs--and we leaned on the railsof the bridge, and watched the men put them together into rafts. Theserafts were of a shape and construction to suit the crookedness andextreme narrowness of the Neckar. They were from fifty to one hundredyards long, and they gradually tapered from a nine-log breadth at theirsterns, to a three-log breadth at their bow-ends. The main part of thesteering is done at the bow, with a pole; the three-log breadth therefurnishes room for only the steersman, for these little logs are notlarger around than an average young lady's waist. The connections of theseveral sections of the raft are slack and pliant, so that the raftmay be readily bent into any sort of curve required by the shape of theriver. 

The Neckar is in many places so narrow that a person can throw a dogacross it, if he has one; when it is also sharply curved in such places, the raftsman has to do some pretty nice snug piloting to make the turns. The river is not always allowed to spread over its whole bed--which isas much as thirty, and sometimes forty yards wide--but is split intothree equal bodies of water, by stone dikes which throw the mainvolume, depth, and current into the central one. In low water these neatnarrow-edged dikes project four or five inches above the surface, likethe comb of a submerged roof, but in high water they are overflowed. Ahatful of rain makes high water in the Neckar, and a basketful producesan overflow. 

There are dikes abreast the Schloss Hotel, and the current is violentlyswift at that point. I used to sit for hours in my glass cage, watchingthe long, narrow rafts slip along through the central channel, grazingthe right-bank dike and aiming carefully for the middle arch of thestone bridge below; I watched them in this way, and lost all this timehoping to see one of them hit the bridge-pier and wreck itself sometimeor other, but was always disappointed. One was smashed there onemorning, but I had just stepped into my room a moment to light a pipe, so I lost it. 

While I was looking down upon the rafts that morning in Heilbronn, thedaredevil spirit of adventure came suddenly upon me, and I said to mycomrades:

"I am going to Heidelberg on a raft. Will you venture with me?"

Their faces paled a little, but they assented with as good a grace asthey could. Harris wanted to cable his mother--thought it his duty todo that, as he was all she had in this world--so, while he attended tothis, I went down to the longest and finest raft and hailed the captainwith a hearty "Ahoy, shipmate!" which put us upon pleasant terms atonce, and we entered upon business. I said we were on a pedestrian tourto Heidelberg, and would like to take passage with him. I said thispartly through young Z, who spoke German very well, and partly throughMr. X, who spoke it peculiarly. I can UNDERSTAND German as well as themaniac that invented it, but I TALK it best through an interpreter. 

The captain hitched up his trousers, then shifted his quid thoughtfully. Presently he said just what I was expecting he would say--that he had nolicense to carry passengers, and therefore was afraid the law would beafter him in case the matter got noised about or any accident happened. So I CHARTERED the raft and the crew and took all the responsibilitieson myself. 

With a rattling song the starboard watch bent to their work and hovethe cable short, then got the anchor home, and our bark moved off with astately stride, and soon was bowling along at about two knots an hour. 

Our party were grouped amidships. At first the talk was a little gloomy, and ran mainly upon the shortness of life, the uncertainty of it, theperils which beset it, and the need and wisdom of being always preparedfor the worst; this shaded off into low-voiced references to the dangersof the deep, and kindred matters; but as the gray east began to reddenand the mysterious solemnity and silence of the dawn to give placeto the joy-songs of the birds, the talk took a cheerier tone, and ourspirits began to rise steadily. 

Germany, in the summer, is the perfection of the beautiful, but nobodyhas understood, and realized, and enjoyed the utmost possibilities ofthis soft and peaceful beauty unless he has voyaged down the Neckar ona raft. The motion of a raft is the needful motion; it is gentle, and gliding, and smooth, and noiseless; it calms down all feverishactivities, it soothes to sleep all nervous hurry and impatience; underits restful influence all the troubles and vexations and sorrows thatharass the mind vanish away, and existence becomes a dream, a charm, a deep and tranquil ecstasy. How it contrasts with hot and perspiringpedestrianism, and dusty and deafening railroad rush, and tediousjolting behind tired horses over blinding white roads!

We went slipping silently along, between the green and fragrant banks, with a sense of pleasure and contentment that grew, and grew, all thetime. Sometimes the banks were overhung with thick masses of willowsthat wholly hid the ground behind; sometimes we had noble hills on onehand, clothed densely with foliage to their tops, and on the other handopen levels blazing with poppies, or clothed in the rich blue ofthe corn-flower; sometimes we drifted in the shadow of forests, andsometimes along the margin of long stretches of velvety grass, fresh andgreen and bright, a tireless charm to the eye. And the birds!--they wereeverywhere; they swept back and forth across the river constantly, andtheir jubilant music was never stilled. 

It was a deep and satisfying pleasure to see the sun create the newmorning, and gradually, patiently, lovingly, clothe it on with splendorafter splendor, and glory after glory, till the miracle was complete. How different is this marvel observed from a raft, from what it is whenone observes it through the dingy windows of a railway-station in somewretched village while he munches a petrified sandwich and waits for thetrain. 

A TRAMP ABROAD, Part 3. 

By Mark Twain

(Samuel L. Clemens)

First published in 1880

Illustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition

 * * * * * *

ILLUSTRATIONS:

 1.    PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR 2.    TITIAN'S MOSES 3.    THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES 73.   A DEEP AND TRANQUIL ECSTACY 74.   "WHICH ANSWERED JUST AS WELL" 75.   LIFE ON A RAFT 76.   LADY GERTRUDE 77.   MOUTH OF THE CAVERN 78.   A FATAL MISTAKE 79.   TAIL PIECE 80.   RAFTING ON THE NECKAR 81.   THE LORELEI 82.   THE LOVER's FATE 84.   THE UNKNOWN KNIGHT 85.   THE EMBRACE 86.   PERILOUS POSTTION 87.   THE RAFT IN A STORM 88.   ALL SAFE ON SHORE 89.   "IT WAS THE CAT" 90.   TAILPIECE 91.   BREAKFAST IN THE GARDEN 162 92.   EASILY UNDERSTOOD 93.   EXPERIMENTING THROUGH HARRIS 94.   AT THE BALL ROOM DOOR 95.   THE TOWN OF DILSBERG 96.   OUR ADVANCE ON DILSBERG 97.   INSIDE THE TOWN 95.   THE OLD WELL 99.   SEND HITHER THE LORD ULRICH 100.   LEAD ME TO HER GRAVE 102.   AN EXCELLENT PILOT, ONCE 103.   SCATTERATION 104.   THE RIVER BATH 101.   ETRUSCAN TEAR JUG 106.   HENRI II. PLATE l07.   OLD BLUE CHINA 108.   A REAL ANTIQUE 109.   BRIC-A-BRAC SHOP 110.   "PUT IT THERE" 111.   THE PARSON CAPTURED 112.   TAIL PIECE 113.   A COMPREHENSIVE YAWN 114.   TESTING THE COIN 115.   BEAUTY AT THE BATH 116.   IN THE BATH 117.   JERSEY INDIANS 118.   NOT PARTICULARLY SOCIABLE

CONTENTS:

CHAPTER XV Down the River--German Women's Duties--Bathing as We Went--AHandsome Picture: Girls in the Willows--We Sight a Tug--Steamers on theNeckar--Dinner on Board--Legend "Cave of the Spectre "--Lady Gertrudethe Heiress--The Crusader--The Lady in the Cave--A Tragedy

CHAPTER XVI An Ancient Legend of the Rhine--"The Lorelei"--CountHermann--Falling in Love--A Sight of the Enchantress--Sad Effecton Count Hermann--An Evening visit--A Sad Mistake--Count HermannDrowned--The Song and Music--Different Trans lations--Curiosities inTitles

CHAPTER XVII Another Legend--The Unconquered Monster--The Unknown Knight--His Queer Shaped Knapsack--The Knight Pitied and Advised--He Attacksthe Monster--Victory for the Fire Extinguisher--The Knight rewarded--HisStrange Request----Spectacles Made Popular--Danger to the Raft--BlastingRocks--An Inglorious Death in View--Escaped--A Storm Overtakesus--GreatDanger--Man Overboard--Breakers Ahead--Springing a Leak--AshoreSafe--A General Embracing--A Tramp in the Dark--The Naturalist Tavern--ANight's Troubles--"It is the Cat"

CHAPTER XVIII Breakfast in a Garden--The Old Raven--Castle ofHirschhorn--Attempt to Hire a Boat--High Dutch--What You Can Find outby Enquiring--What I Found out about the Students--A good GermanCustom--Harris Practices It--AnEmbarrassing Position--A Nice Party--At aBall--Stopped at the Door--Assistance at Hand and Rendered--Worthy to bean Empress

CHAPTER XIX Arrive at Neckarsteinach--Castle of Dilsberg--A WalledTown--On a Hill--Exclusiveness of the People--A Queer Old Place--AnAncient Well--An Outlet Proved--Legend of Dilsberg Castle--TheHaunted Chamber--The Betrothed's request--The Knight's Slumbersand Awakening--Horror of the Lover--The Wicked Jest--The Lover aManiac--Under the Linden--Turning Pilot--Accident to the Raft--FearfulDisaster

CHAPTER XX Good News--"Slow Freight"--Keramics--My Collection of Bric-a-brac--My Tear Jug--Henri II. Plate--Specimen of Blue China--Indifferenceto the Laugh of the World--I Discover an Antique En-route toBaden--Baden--Meeting an Old Acquaintance--A young American--EmbryoHorse Doctor--An American, Sure--A Minister Captured

CHAPTER XXI Baden--Baden--Energetic Girls--A Comprehensive Yawn--ABeggar's Trick--Cool Impudence--The Bath Woman--Insolence of ShopKeepers--Taking a Bath--Early and Late Hours--Popular Belief RegardingIndians--An Old Cemetery--A Pious Hag--Curious Table Companions

CHAPTER XV

[Charming Waterside Pictures]

Men and women and cattle were at work in the dewy fields by this time. The people often stepped aboard the raft, as we glided along the grassyshores, and gossiped with us and with the crew for a hundred yards orso, then stepped ashore again, refreshed by the ride. 

Only the men did this; the women were too busy. The women do all kindsof work on the continent. They dig, they hoe, they reap, they sow, theybear monstrous burdens on their backs, they shove similar ones longdistances on wheelbarrows, they drag the cart when there is no dog orlean cow to drag it--and when there is, they assist the dog or cow. Ageis no matter--the older the woman the stronger she is, apparently. On the farm a woman's duties are not defined--she does a little ofeverything; but in the towns it is different, there she only doescertain things, the men do the rest. For instance, a hotel chambermaidhas nothing to do but make beds and fires in fifty or sixty rooms, bringtowels and candles, and fetch several tons of water up several flightsof stairs, a hundred pounds at a time, in prodigious metal pitchers. Shedoes not have to work more than eighteen or twenty hours a day, andshe can always get down on her knees and scrub the floors of halls andclosets when she is tired and needs a rest. 

As the morning advanced and the weather grew hot, we took off ouroutside clothing and sat in a row along the edge of the raft and enjoyedthe scenery, with our sun-umbrellas over our heads and our legs danglingin the water. 

Every now and then we plunged in and had a swim. Every projecting grassycape had its joyous group of naked children, the boys to themselves andthe girls to themselves, the latter usually in care of some motherlydame who sat in the shade of a tree with her knitting. The little boysswam out to us, sometimes, but the little maids stood knee-deep in thewater and stopped their splashing and frolicking to inspect the raftwith their innocent eyes as it drifted by. Once we turned a cornersuddenly and surprised a slender girl of twelve years or upward, juststepping into the water. She had not time to run, but she did whatanswered just as well; she promptly drew a lithe young willow boughathwart her white body with one hand, and then contemplated us with asimple and untroubled interest. Thus she stood while we glided by. Shewas a pretty creature, and she and her willow bough made a verypretty picture, and one which could not offend the modesty of the mostfastidious spectator. Her white skin had a low bank of fresh greenwillows for background and effective contrast--for she stood againstthem--and above and out of them projected the eager faces and whiteshoulders of two smaller girls. 

Toward noon we heard the inspiriting cry, --

"Sail ho!"

"Where away?" shouted the captain. 

"Three points off the weather bow!"

We ran forward to see the vessel. It proved to be a steamboat--for theyhad begun to run a steamer up the Neckar, for the first time in May. She was a tug, and one of a very peculiar build and aspect. I had oftenwatched her from the hotel, and wondered how she propelled herself, forapparently she had no propeller or paddles. She came churning along, now, making a deal of noise of one kind or another, and aggravating itevery now and then by blowing a hoarse whistle. She had nine keel-boatshitched on behind and following after her in a long, slender rank. Wemet her in a narrow place, between dikes, and there was hardly room forus both in the cramped passage. As she went grinding and groaning by, weperceived the secret of her moving impulse. She did not drive herself upthe river with paddles or propeller, she pulled herself by hauling ona great chain. This chain is laid in the bed of the river and is onlyfastened at the two ends. It is seventy miles long. It comes in over theboat's bow, passes around a drum, and is payed out astern. She pullson that chain, and so drags herself up the river or down it. She hasneither bow or stern, strictly speaking, for she has a long-bladedrudder on each end and she never turns around. She uses both ruddersall the time, and they are powerful enough to enable her to turn tothe right or the left and steer around curves, in spite of the strongresistance of the chain. I would not have believed that that impossiblething could be done; but I saw it done, and therefore I know that thereis one impossible thing which CAN be done. What miracle will man attemptnext?

We met many big keel-boats on their way up, using sails, mule power, andprofanity--a tedious and laborious business. A wire rope led from theforetopmast to the file of mules on the tow-path a hundred yards ahead, and by dint of much banging and swearing and urging, the detachment ofdrivers managed to get a speed of two or three miles an hour out of themules against the stiff current. The Neckar has always been used as acanal, and thus has given employment to a great many men and animals;but now that this steamboat is able, with a small crew and a bushel orso of coal, to take nine keel-boats farther up the river in one hourthan thirty men and thirty mules can do it in two, it is believedthat the old-fashioned towing industry is on its death-bed. A secondsteamboat began work in the Neckar three months after the first one wasput in service. [Figure 4]

At noon we stepped ashore and bought some bottled beer and got somechickens cooked, while the raft waited; then we immediately put to seaagain, and had our dinner while the beer was cold and the chickens hot. There is no pleasanter place for such a meal than a raft that isgliding down the winding Neckar past green meadows and wooded hills, andslumbering villages, and craggy heights graced with crumbling towers andbattlements. 

In one place we saw a nicely dressed German gentleman without anyspectacles. Before I could come to anchor he had got underway. It was agreat pity. I so wanted to make a sketch of him. The captain comfortedme for my loss, however, by saying that the man was without any doubt afraud who had spectacles, but kept them in his pocket in order to makehimself conspicuous. 

Below Hassmersheim we passed Hornberg, Goetz von Berlichingen's oldcastle. It stands on a bold elevation two hundred feet above the surfaceof the river; it has high vine-clad walls enclosing trees, and a peakedtower about seventy-five feet high. The steep hillside, from the castleclear down to the water's edge, is terraced, and clothed thick withgrape vines. This is like farming a mansard roof. All the steeps alongthat part of the river which furnish the proper exposure, are givenup to the grape. That region is a great producer of Rhine wines. TheGermans are exceedingly fond of Rhine wines; they are put up in tall, slender bottles, and are considered a pleasant beverage. One tells themfrom vinegar by the label. 

The Hornberg hill is to be tunneled, and the new railway will pass underthe castle. THE CAVE OF THE SPECTER Two miles below Hornberg castle isa cave in a low cliff, which the captain of the raft said had once beenoccupied by a beautiful heiress of Hornberg--the Lady Gertrude--in theold times. It was seven hundred years ago. She had a number of rich andnoble lovers and one poor and obscure one, Sir Wendel Lobenfeld. Withthe native chuckleheadedness of the heroine of romance, she preferredthe poor and obscure lover. 

With the native sound judgment of the father of a heroine of romance, the von Berlichingen of that day shut his daughter up in his donjonkeep, or his oubliette, or his culverin, or some such place, andresolved that she should stay there until she selected a husband fromamong her rich and noble lovers. The latter visited her and persecutedher with their supplications, but without effect, for her heart wastrue to her poor despised Crusader, who was fighting in the Holy Land. Finally, she resolved that she would endure the attentions of the richlovers no longer; so one stormy night she escaped and went downthe river and hid herself in the cave on the other side. Her fatherransacked the country for her, but found not a trace of her. As thedays went by, and still no tidings of her came, his conscience began totorture him, and he caused proclamation to be made that if she were yetliving and would return, he would oppose her no longer, she might marrywhom she would. The months dragged on, all hope forsook the old man, heceased from his customary pursuits and pleasures, he devoted himself topious works, and longed for the deliverance of death. 

Now just at midnight, every night, the lost heiress stood in the mouthof her cave, arrayed in white robes, and sang a little love ballad whichher Crusader had made for her. She judged that if he came home alive thesuperstitious peasants would tell him about the ghost that sang in thecave, and that as soon as they described the ballad he would know thatnone but he and she knew that song, therefore he would suspect that shewas alive, and would come and find her. As time went on, the people ofthe region became sorely distressed about the Specter of the HauntedCave. It was said that ill luck of one kind or another always overtookany one who had the misfortune to hear that song. Eventually, everycalamity that happened thereabouts was laid at the door of that music. Consequently, no boatmen would consent to pass the cave at night; thepeasants shunned the place, even in the daytime. 

But the faithful girl sang on, night after night, month after month, andpatiently waited; her reward must come at last. Five years dragged by, and still, every night at midnight, the plaintive tones floated out overthe silent land, while the distant boatmen and peasants thrust theirfingers into their ears and shuddered out a prayer. 

And now came the Crusader home, bronzed and battle-scarred, but bringinga great and splendid fame to lay at the feet of his bride. The old lordof Hornberg received him as his son, and wanted him to stay by himand be the comfort and blessing of his age; but the tale of that younggirl's devotion to him and its pathetic consequences made a changedman of the knight. He could not enjoy his well-earned rest. He said hisheart was broken, he would give the remnant of his life to high deeds inthe cause of humanity, and so find a worthy death and a blessed reunionwith the brave true heart whose love had more honored him than all hisvictories in war. 

When the people heard this resolve of his, they came and told him therewas a pitiless dragon in human disguise in the Haunted Cave, a dreadcreature which no knight had yet been bold enough to face, and beggedhim to rid the land of its desolating presence. He said he would do it. They told him about the song, and when he asked what song it was, theysaid the memory of it was gone, for nobody had been hardy enough tolisten to it for the past four years and more. 

Toward midnight the Crusader came floating down the river in a boat, with his trusty cross-bow in his hands. He drifted silently through thedim reflections of the crags and trees, with his intent eyes fixed uponthe low cliff which he was approaching. As he drew nearer, he discernedthe black mouth of the cave. Now--is that a white figure? Yes. Theplaintive song begins to well forth and float away over meadow andriver--the cross-bow is slowly raised to position, a steady aim istaken, the bolt flies straight to the mark--the figure sinks down, stillsinging, the knight takes the wool out of his ears, and recognizes theold ballad--too late! Ah, if he had only not put the wool in his ears!

The Crusader went away to the wars again, and presently fell in battle, fighting for the Cross. Tradition says that during several centuries thespirit of the unfortunate girl sang nightly from the cave at midnight, but the music carried no curse with it; and although many listened forthe mysterious sounds, few were favored, since only those could hearthem who had never failed in a trust. It is believed that the singingstill continues, but it is known that nobody has heard it during thepresent century. 

CHAPTER XVI

An Ancient Legend of the Rhine [The Lorelei]

The last legend reminds one of the "Lorelei"--a legend of the Rhine. There is a song called "The Lorelei. "

Germany is rich in folk-songs, and the words and airs of several of themare peculiarly beautiful--but "The Lorelei" is the people's favorite. Icould not endure it at first, but by and by it began to take hold of me, and now there is no tune which I like so well. 

It is not possible that it is much known in America, else I should haveheard it there. The fact that I never heard it there, is evidence thatthere are others in my country who have fared likewise; therefore, forthe sake of these, I mean to print the words and music in this chapter. And I will refresh the reader's memory by printing the legend of theLorelei, too. I have it by me in the LEGENDS OF THE RHINE, done intoEnglish by the wildly gifted Garnham, Bachelor of Arts. I print thelegend partly to refresh my own memory, too, for I have never read itbefore. THE LEGEND Lore (two syllables) was a water nymph who used tosit on a high rock called the Ley or Lei (pronounced like our word LIE)in the Rhine, and lure boatmen to destruction in a furious rapidwhich marred the channel at that spot. She so bewitched them with herplaintive songs and her wonderful beauty that they forgot everythingelse to gaze up at her, and so they presently drifted among the brokenreefs and were lost. 

In those old, old times, the Count Bruno lived in a great castle nearthere with his son, the Count Hermann, a youth of twenty. Hermann hadheard a great deal about the beautiful Lore, and had finally fallen verydeeply in love with her without having seen her. So he used to wander tothe neighborhood of the Lei, evenings, with his Zither and "Express hisLonging in low Singing, " as Garnham says. On one of these occasions, "suddenly there hovered around the top of the rock a brightness ofunequaled clearness and color, which, in increasingly smaller circlesthickened, was the enchanting figure of the beautiful Lore. 

"An unintentional cry of Joy escaped the Youth, he let his Zither fall, and with extended arms he called out the name of the enigmatical Being, who seemed to stoop lovingly to him and beckon to him in a friendlymanner; indeed, if his ear did not deceive him, she called his name withunutterable sweet Whispers, proper to love. Beside himself with delightthe youth lost his Senses and sank senseless to the earth. "

After that he was a changed person. He went dreaming about, thinkingonly of his fairy and caring for naught else in the world. "The oldcount saw with affliction this changement in his son, " whose cause hecould not divine, and tried to divert his mind into cheerful channels, but to no purpose. Then the old count used authority. He commanded theyouth to betake himself to the camp. Obedience was promised. Garnhamsays:

"It was on the evening before his departure, as he wished still once tovisit the Lei and offer to the Nymph of the Rhine his Sighs, thetones of his Zither, and his Songs. He went, in his boat, this timeaccompanied by a faithful squire, down the stream. The moon shed hersilvery light over the whole country; the steep bank mountains appearedin the most fantastical shapes, and the high oaks on either side bowedtheir Branches on Hermann's passing. As soon as he approached theLei, and was aware of the surf-waves, his attendant was seized with aninexpressible Anxiety and he begged permission to land; but the Knightswept the strings of his Guitar and sang:

 "Once I saw thee in dark night, In supernatural Beauty bright; Of Light-rays, was the Figure wove, To share its light, locked-hair strove. 

 "Thy Garment color wave-dove By thy hand the sign of love, Thy eyes sweet enchantment, Raying to me, oh! enchantment. 

 "O, wert thou but my sweetheart, How willingly thy love to part! With delight I should be bound To thy rocky house in deep ground. "

That Hermann should have gone to that place at all, was not wise; thathe should have gone with such a song as that in his mouth was a mostserious mistake. The Lorelei did not "call his name in unutterablesweet Whispers" this time. No, that song naturally worked an instantand thorough "changement" in her; and not only that, but it stirred thebowels of the whole afflicted region around about there--for--

"Scarcely had these tones sounded, everywhere there began tumult andsound, as if voices above and below the water. On the Lei rose flames, the Fairy stood above, at that time, and beckoned with her right handclearly and urgently to the infatuated Knight, while with a staff inher left hand she called the waves to her service. They began to mountheavenward; the boat was upset, mocking every exertion; the waves roseto the gunwale, and splitting on the hard stones, the Boat broke intoPieces. The youth sank into the depths, but the squire was thrown onshore by a powerful wave. "

The bitterest things have been said about the Lorelei during manycenturies, but surely her conduct upon this occasion entitles her to ourrespect. One feels drawn tenderly toward her and is moved to forget hermany crimes and remember only the good deed that crowned and closed hercareer. 

"The Fairy was never more seen; but her enchanting tones have often beenheard. In the beautiful, refreshing, still nights of spring, when themoon pours her silver light over the Country, the listening shipperhears from the rushing of the waves, the echoing Clang of a wonderfullycharming voice, which sings a song from the crystal castle, and withsorrow and fear he thinks on the young Count Hermann, seduced by theNymph. "

Here is the music, and the German words by Heinrich Heine. This song hasbeen a favorite in Germany for forty years, and will remain a favoritealways, maybe. [Figure 5]

I have a prejudice against people who print things in a foreign languageand add no translation. When I am the reader, and the author considersme able to do the translating myself, he pays me quite a nicecompliment--but if he would do the translating for me I would try to getalong without the compliment. 

If I were at home, no doubt I could get a translation of this poem, butI am abroad and can't; therefore I will make a translation myself. Itmay not be a good one, for poetry is out of my line, but it will servemy purpose--which is, to give the unGerman young girl a jingle of wordsto hang the tune on until she can get hold of a good version, made bysome one who is a poet and knows how to convey a poetical thought fromone language to another. 

 THE LORELEI

 I cannot divine what it meaneth, This haunting nameless pain: A tale of the bygone ages Keeps brooding through my brain:

 The faint air cools in the glooming, And peaceful flows the Rhine, The thirsty summits are drinking The sunset's flooding wine;

 The loveliest maiden is sitting High-throned in yon blue air, Her golden jewels are shining, She combs her golden hair;

 She combs with a comb that is golden, And sings a weird refrain That steeps in a deadly enchantment The list'ner's ravished brain:

 The doomed in his drifting shallop, Is tranced with the sad sweet tone, He sees not the yawning breakers, He sees but the maid alone:

 The pitiless billows engulf him!-- So perish sailor and bark; And this, with her baleful singing, Is the Lorelei's gruesome work. 

I have a translation by Garnham, Bachelor of Arts, in the LEGENDS OF THERHINE, but it would not answer the purpose I mentioned above, becausethe measure is too nobly irregular; it don't fit the tune snugly enough;in places it hangs over at the ends too far, and in other places oneruns out of words before he gets to the end of a bar. Still, Garnham'stranslation has high merits, and I am not dreaming of leaving it out ofmy book. I believe this poet is wholly unknown in America and England; Itake peculiar pleasure in bringing him forward because I consider that Idiscovered him:

 THE LORELEI

 Translated by L. W. Garnham, B. A. 

 I do not know what it signifies. That I am so sorrowful? A fable of old Times so terrifies, Leaves my heart so thoughtful. 

 The air is cool and it darkens, And calmly flows the Rhine; The summit of the mountain hearkens In evening sunshine line. 

 The most beautiful Maiden entrances Above wonderfully there, Her beautiful golden attire glances, She combs her golden hair. 

 With golden comb so lustrous, And thereby a song sings, It has a tone so wondrous, That powerful melody rings. 

 The shipper in the little ship It effects with woe sad might; He does not see the rocky slip, He only regards dreaded height. 

 I believe the turbulent waves Swallow the last shipper and boat; She with her singing craves All to visit hermagic moat. 

No translation could be closer. He has got in all the facts; and intheir regular order, too. There is not a statistic wanting. It is assuccinct as an invoice. That is what a translation ought to be; itshould exactly reflect the thought of the original. You can't SING"Above wonderfully there, " because it simply won't go to the tune, without damaging the singer; but it is a most clingingly exacttranslation of DORT OBEN WUNDERBAR--fits it like a blister. Mr. Garnham's reproduction has other merits--a hundred of them--but it isnot necessary to point them out. They will be detected. 

No one with a specialty can hope to have a monopoly of it. Even Garnhamhas a rival. Mr. X had a small pamphlet with him which he had boughtwhile on a visit to Munich. It was entitled A CATALOGUE OF PICTURES INTHE OLD PINACOTEK, and was written in a peculiar kind of English. Hereare a few extracts:

"It is not permitted to make use of the work in question to apublication of the same contents as well as to the pirated edition ofit. "

"An evening landscape. In the foreground near a pond and a group ofwhite beeches is leading a footpath animated by travelers. "

"A learned man in a cynical and torn dress holding an open book in hishand. "

"St. Bartholomew and the Executioner with the knife to fulfil themartyr. "

"Portrait of a young man. A long while this picture was thought to beBindi Altoviti's portrait; now somebody will again have it to be theself-portrait of Raphael. "

"Susan bathing, surprised by the two old man. In the background thelapidation of the condemned. "

("Lapidation" is good; it is much more elegant than "stoning. ")

"St. Rochus sitting in a landscape with an angel who looks at hisplague-sore, whilst the dog the bread in his mouth attents him. "

"Spring. The Goddess Flora, sitting. Behind her a fertile valleyperfused by a river. "

"A beautiful bouquet animated by May-bugs, etc. "

"A warrior in armor with a gypseous pipe in his hand leans against atable and blows the smoke far away of himself. "

"A Dutch landscape along a navigable river which perfuses it till to thebackground. "

"Some peasants singing in a cottage. A woman lets drink a child out of acup. "

"St. John's head as a boy--painted in fresco on a brick. " (Meaning atile. )

"A young man of the Riccio family, his hair cut off right at the end, dressed in black with the same cap. Attributed to Raphael, but thesignation is false. "

"The Virgin holding the Infant. It is very painted in the manner ofSassoferrato. "

"A Larder with greens and dead game animated by a cook-maid and twokitchen-boys. "

However, the English of this catalogue is at least as happy as thatwhich distinguishes an inscription upon a certain picture in Rome--towit:

"Revelations-View. St. John in Patterson's Island. "

But meanwhile the raft is moving on. 

CHAPTER XVII

[Why Germans Wear Spectacles]

A mile or two above Eberbach we saw a peculiar ruin projecting above thefoliage which clothed the peak of a high and very steep hill. This ruinconsisted of merely a couple of crumbling masses of masonry which borea rude resemblance to human faces; they leaned forward and touchedforeheads, and had the look of being absorbed in conversation. Thisruin had nothing very imposing or picturesque about it, and there was nogreat deal of it, yet it was called the "Spectacular Ruin. "

LEGEND OF THE "SPECTACULAR RUIN" The captain of the raft, who was asfull of history as he could stick, said that in the Middle Ages a mostprodigious fire-breathing dragon used to live in that region, and mademore trouble than a tax-collector. He was as long as a railway-train, and had the customary impenetrable green scales all over him. His breathbred pestilence and conflagration, and his appetite bred famine. He atemen and cattle impartially, and was exceedingly unpopular. The Germanemperor of that day made the usual offer: he would grant to thedestroyer of the dragon, any one solitary thing he might ask for; for hehad a surplusage of daughters, and it was customary for dragon-killersto take a daughter for pay. 

So the most renowned knights came from the four corners of the earth andretired down the dragon's throat one after the other. A panic arose andspread. Heroes grew cautious. The procession ceased. The dragon becamemore destructive than ever. The people lost all hope of succor, and fledto the mountains for refuge. 

At last Sir Wissenschaft, a poor and obscure knight, out of a farcountry, arrived to do battle with the monster. A pitiable object hewas, with his armor hanging in rags about him, and his strange-shapedknapsack strapped upon his back. Everybody turned up their noses at him, and some openly jeered him. But he was calm. He simply inquired ifthe emperor's offer was still in force. The emperor said it was--butcharitably advised him to go and hunt hares and not endanger so preciousa life as his in an attempt which had brought death to so many of theworld's most illustrious heroes. 

But this tramp only asked--"Were any of these heroes men of science?"This raised a laugh, of course, for science was despised in those days. But the tramp was not in the least ruffled. He said he might be a littlein advance of his age, but no matter--science would come to be honored, some time or other. He said he would march against the dragon in themorning. Out of compassion, then, a decent spear was offered him, buthe declined, and said, "spears were useless to men of science. " Theyallowed him to sup in the servants' hall, and gave him a bed in thestables. 

When he started forth in the morning, thousands were gathered to see. The emperor said:

"Do not be rash, take a spear, and leave off your knapsack. "

But the tramp said:

"It is not a knapsack, " and moved straight on. 

The dragon was waiting and ready. He was breathing forth vast volumesof sulphurous smoke and lurid blasts of flame. The ragged knightstole warily to a good position, then he unslung his cylindricalknapsack--which was simply the common fire-extinguisher known to moderntimes--and the first chance he got he turned on his hose and shot thedragon square in the center of his cavernous mouth. Out went the firesin an instant, and the dragon curled up and died. 

This man had brought brains to his aid. He had reared dragons from theegg, in his laboratory, he had watched over them like a mother, andpatiently studied them and experimented upon them while they grew. Thushe had found out that fire was the life principle of a dragon; put outthe dragon's fires and it could make steam no longer, and must die. He could not put out a fire with a spear, therefore he invented theextinguisher. The dragon being dead, the emperor fell on the hero's neckand said:

"Deliverer, name your request, " at the same time beckoning out behindwith his heel for a detachment of his daughters to form and advance. Butthe tramp gave them no observance. He simply said:

"My request is, that upon me be conferred the monopoly of themanufacture and sale of spectacles in Germany. "

The emperor sprang aside and exclaimed:

"This transcends all the impudence I ever heard! A modest demand, by myhalidome! Why didn't you ask for the imperial revenues at once, and bedone with it?"

But the monarch had given his word, and he kept it. To everybody'ssurprise, the unselfish monopolist immediately reduced the price ofspectacles to such a degree that a great and crushing burden was removedfrom the nation. The emperor, to commemorate this generous act, and totestify his appreciation of it, issued a decree commanding everybody tobuy this benefactor's spectacles and wear them, whether they needed themor not. 

So originated the wide-spread custom of wearing spectacles in Germany;and as a custom once established in these old lands is imperishable, this one remains universal in the empire to this day. Such is the legendof the monopolist's once stately and sumptuous castle, now called the"Spectacular Ruin. "

On the right bank, two or three miles below the Spectacular Ruin, wepassed by a noble pile of castellated buildings overlooking the waterfrom the crest of a lofty elevation. A stretch of two hundred yards ofthe high front wall was heavily draped with ivy, and out of the massof buildings within rose three picturesque old towers. The place was infine order, and was inhabited by a family of princely rank. This castlehad its legend, too, but I should not feel justified in repeating itbecause I doubted the truth of some of its minor details. 

Along in this region a multitude of Italian laborers were blasting awaythe frontage of the hills to make room for the new railway. They werefifty or a hundred feet above the river. As we turned a sharp cornerthey began to wave signals and shout warnings to us to look out for theexplosions. It was all very well to warn us, but what could WE do? Youcan't back a raft upstream, you can't hurry it downstream, you can'tscatter out to one side when you haven't any room to speak of, you won'ttake to the perpendicular cliffs on the other shore when they appear tobe blasting there, too. Your resources are limited, you see. There issimply nothing for it but to watch and pray. 

For some hours we had been making three and a half or four miles an hourand we were still making that. We had been dancing right along untilthose men began to shout; then for the next ten minutes it seemed to methat I had never seen a raft go so slowly. When the first blast wentoff we raised our sun-umbrellas and waited for the result. No harmdone; none of the stones fell in the water. Another blast followed, andanother and another. Some of the rubbish fell in the water just asternof us. 

We ran that whole battery of nine blasts in a row, and it was certainlyone of the most exciting and uncomfortable weeks I ever spent, eitheraship or ashore. Of course we frequently manned the poles and shovedearnestly for a second or so, but every time one of those spurts of dustand debris shot aloft every man dropped his pole and looked up to getthe bearings of his share of it. It was very busy times along there fora while. It appeared certain that we must perish, but even that wasnot the bitterest thought; no, the abjectly unheroic nature of thedeath--that was the sting--that and the bizarre wording of the resultingobituary: "SHOT WITH A ROCK, ON A RAFT. " There would be no poetrywritten about it. None COULD be written about it. Example:

NOT by war's shock, or war's shaft, --SHOT, with a rock, on a raft. 

No poet who valued his reputation would touch such a theme as that. Ishould be distinguished as the only "distinguished dead" who went downto the grave unsonneted, in 1878. 

But we escaped, and I have never regretted it. The last blast was apeculiarly strong one, and after the small rubbish was done rainingaround us and we were just going to shake hands over our deliverance, alater and larger stone came down amongst our little group of pedestriansand wrecked an umbrella. It did no other harm, but we took to the waterjust the same. 

It seems that the heavy work in the quarries and the new railwaygradings is done mainly by Italians. That was a revelation. We havethe notion in our country that Italians never do heavy work at all, butconfine themselves to the lighter arts, like organ-grinding, operaticsinging, and assassination. We have blundered, that is plain. 

All along the river, near every village, we saw little station-housesfor the future railway. They were finished and waiting for the rails andbusiness. They were as trim and snug and pretty as they could be. Theywere always of brick or stone; they were of graceful shape, they hadvines and flowers about them already, and around them the grass wasbright and green, and showed that it was carefully looked after. Theywere a decoration to the beautiful landscape, not an offense. Whereverone saw a pile of gravel or a pile of broken stone, it was always heapedas trimly and exactly as a new grave or a stack of cannon-balls; nothingabout those stations or along the railroad or the wagon-road wasallowed to look shabby or be unornamental. The keeping a country in suchbeautiful order as Germany exhibits, has a wise practical side toit, too, for it keeps thousands of people in work and bread who wouldotherwise be idle and mischievous. 

As the night shut down, the captain wanted to tie up, but I thoughtmaybe we might make Hirschhorn, so we went on. Presently the sky becameovercast, and the captain came aft looking uneasy. He cast his eyealoft, then shook his head, and said it was coming on to blow. My partywanted to land at once--therefore I wanted to go on. The captain said weought to shorten sail anyway, out of common prudence. Consequently, thelarboard watch was ordered to lay in his pole. It grew quite dark, now, and the wind began to rise. It wailed through the swaying branches ofthe trees, and swept our decks in fitful gusts. Things were taking on anugly look. The captain shouted to the steersman on the forward log:

"How's she landing?"

The answer came faint and hoarse from far forward:

"Nor'-east-and-by-nor'--east-by-east, half-east, sir. "

"Let her go off a point!"

"Aye-aye, sir!"

"What water have you got?"

"Shoal, sir. Two foot large, on the stabboard, two and a half scant onthe labboard!"

"Let her go off another point!"

"Aye-aye, sir!"

"Forward, men, all of you! Lively, now! Stand by to crowd her round theweather corner!"

"Aye-aye, sir!"

Then followed a wild running and trampling and hoarse shouting, but theforms of the men were lost in the darkness and the sounds were distortedand confused by the roaring of the wind through the shingle-bundles. Bythis time the sea was running inches high, and threatening every momentto engulf the frail bark. Now came the mate, hurrying aft, and said, close to the captain's ear, in a low, agitated voice:

"Prepare for the worst, sir--we have sprung a leak!"

"Heavens! where?"

"Right aft the second row of logs. "

"Nothing but a miracle can save us! Don't let the men know, or therewill be a panic and mutiny! Lay her in shore and stand by to jump withthe stern-line the moment she touches. Gentlemen, I must look to you tosecond my endeavors in this hour of peril. You have hats--go forward andbail for your lives!"

Down swept another mighty blast of wind, clothed in spray and thickdarkness. At such a moment as this, came from away forward that mostappalling of all cries that are ever heard at sea:

"MAN OVERBOARD!"

The captain shouted:

"Hard a-port! Never mind the man! Let him climb aboard or wade ashore!"

Another cry came down the wind:

"Breakers ahead!"

"Where away?"

"Not a log's length off her port fore-foot!"

We had groped our slippery way forward, and were now bailing with thefrenzy of despair, when we heard the mate's terrified cry, from far aft:

"Stop that dashed bailing, or we shall be aground!"

But this was immediately followed by the glad shout:

"Land aboard the starboard transom!"

"Saved!" cried the captain. "Jump ashore and take a turn around a treeand pass the bight aboard!"

The next moment we were all on shore weeping and embracing for joy, while the rain poured down in torrents. The captain said he had been amariner for forty years on the Neckar, and in that time had seen stormsto make a man's cheek blanch and his pulses stop, but he had never, never seen a storm that even approached this one. How familiar thatsounded! For I have been at sea a good deal and have heard that remarkfrom captains with a frequency accordingly. 

We framed in our minds the usual resolution of thanks and admirationand gratitude, and took the first opportunity to vote it, and put itin writing and present it to the captain, with the customary speech. Wetramped through the darkness and the drenching summer rain full threemiles, and reached "The Naturalist Tavern" in the village of Hirschhornjust an hour before midnight, almost exhausted from hardship, fatigue, and terror. I can never forget that night. 

The landlord was rich, and therefore could afford to be crusty anddisobliging; he did not at all like being turned out of his warm bed toopen his house for us. But no matter, his household got up and cookeda quick supper for us, and we brewed a hot punch for ourselves, to keepoff consumption. After supper and punch we had an hour's soothing smokewhile we fought the naval battle over again and voted the resolutions;then we retired to exceedingly neat and pretty chambers upstairs thathad clean, comfortable beds in them with heirloom pillowcases mostelaborately and tastefully embroidered by hand. 

Such rooms and beds and embroidered linen are as frequent in Germanvillage inns as they are rare in ours. Our villages are superiorto German villages in more merits, excellences, conveniences, andprivileges than I can enumerate, but the hotels do not belong in thelist. 

"The Naturalist Tavern" was not a meaningless name; for all the hallsand all the rooms were lined with large glass cases which were filledwith all sorts of birds and animals, glass-eyed, ably stuffed, and setup in the most natural eloquent and dramatic attitudes. The moment wewere abed, the rain cleared away and the moon came out. I dozed off tosleep while contemplating a great white stuffed owl which was lookingintently down on me from a high perch with the air of a person whothought he had met me before, but could not make out for certain. 

But young Z did not get off so easily. He said that as he was sinkingdeliciously to sleep, the moon lifted away the shadows and developeda huge cat, on a bracket, dead and stuffed, but crouching, with everymuscle tense, for a spring, and with its glittering glass eyes aimedstraight at him. It made Z uncomfortable. He tried closing his own eyes, but that did not answer, for a natural instinct kept making him openthem again to see if the cat was still getting ready to launch athim--which she always was. He tried turning his back, but that was afailure; he knew the sinister eyes were on him still. So at last he hadto get up, after an hour or two of worry and experiment, and set the catout in the hall. So he won, that time. 

CHAPTER XVIII

[The Kindly Courtesy of Germans]

In the morning we took breakfast in the garden, under the trees, in thedelightful German summer fashion. The air was filled with the fragranceof flowers and wild animals; the living portion of the menagerie of the"Naturalist Tavern" was all about us. There were great cages populouswith fluttering and chattering foreign birds, and other great cages andgreater wire pens, populous with quadrupeds, both native and foreign. There were some free creatures, too, and quite sociable ones they were. White rabbits went loping about the place, and occasionally came andsniffed at our shoes and shins; a fawn, with a red ribbon on its neck, walked up and examined us fearlessly; rare breeds of chickens and dovesbegged for crumbs, and a poor old tailless raven hopped about witha humble, shamefaced mein which said, "Please do not notice myexposure--think how you would feel in my circumstances, and becharitable. " If he was observed too much, he would retire behindsomething and stay there until he judged the party's interest had foundanother object. I never have seen another dumb creature that wasso morbidly sensitive. Bayard Taylor, who could interpret the dimreasonings of animals, and understood their moral natures better thanmost men, would have found some way to make this poor old chap forgethis troubles for a while, but we have not his kindly art, and so had toleave the raven to his griefs. 

After breakfast we climbed the hill and visited the ancient castle ofHirschhorn, and the ruined church near it. There were some curious oldbas-reliefs leaning against the inner walls of the church--sculpturedlords of Hirschhorn in complete armor, and ladies of Hirschhorn inthe picturesque court costumes of the Middle Ages. These things aresuffering damage and passing to decay, for the last Hirschhorn has beendead two hundred years, and there is nobody now who cares to preservethe family relics. In the chancel was a twisted stone column, and thecaptain told us a legend about it, of course, for in the matter oflegends he could not seem to restrain himself; but I do not repeat histale because there was nothing plausible about it except that the Herowrenched this column into its present screw-shape with his hands --justone single wrench. All the rest of the legend was doubtful. 

But Hirschhorn is best seen from a distance, down the river. Thenthe clustered brown towers perched on the green hilltop, and the oldbattlemented stone wall, stretching up and over the grassy ridge anddisappearing in the leafy sea beyond, make a picture whose grace andbeauty entirely satisfy the eye. 

We descended from the church by steep stone stairways which curved thisway and that down narrow alleys between the packed and dirty tenementsof the village. It was a quarter well stocked with deformed, leering, unkempt and uncombed idiots, who held out hands or caps and beggedpiteously. The people of the quarter were not all idiots, of course, butall that begged seemed to be, and were said to be. 

I was thinking of going by skiff to the next town, Necharsteinach; so Iran to the riverside in advance of the party and asked a man there ifhe had a boat to hire. I suppose I must have spoken High German--CourtGerman--I intended it for that, anyway--so he did not understand me. Iturned and twisted my question around and about, trying to strike thatman's average, but failed. He could not make out what I wanted. Now Mr. X arrived, faced this same man, looked him in the eye, and emptied thissentence on him, in the most glib and confident way: "Can man boat gethere?"

The mariner promptly understood and promptly answered. I can comprehendwhy he was able to understand that particular sentence, because by mereaccident all the words in it except "get" have the same sound and thesame meaning in German that they have in English; but how he managed tounderstand Mr. X's next remark puzzled me. I will insert it, presently. X turned away a moment, and I asked the mariner if he could not finda board, and so construct an additional seat. I spoke in the purestGerman, but I might as well have spoken in the purest Choctaw for allthe good it did. The man tried his best to understand me; he tried, andkept on trying, harder and harder, until I saw it was really of no use, and said:

"There, don't strain yourself--it is of no consequence. "

Then X turned to him and crisply said:

"MACHEN SIE a flat board. "

I wish my epitaph may tell the truth about me if the man did not answerup at once, and say he would go and borrow a board as soon as he had litthe pipe which he was filling. 

We changed our mind about taking a boat, so we did not have to go. Ihave given Mr. X's two remarks just as he made them. Four of the fivewords in the first one were English, and that they were also German wasonly accidental, not intentional; three out of the five words in thesecond remark were English, and English only, and the two German onesdid not mean anything in particular, in such a connection. 

X always spoke English to Germans, but his plan was to turn the sentencewrong end first and upside down, according to German construction, andsprinkle in a German word without any essential meaning to it, here andthere, by way of flavor. Yet he always made himself understood. He couldmake those dialect-speaking raftsmen understand him, sometimes, wheneven young Z had failed with them; and young Z was a pretty good Germanscholar. For one thing, X always spoke with such confidence--perhapsthat helped. And possibly the raftsmen's dialect was what is calledPLATT-DEUTSCH, and so they found his English more familiar to their earsthan another man's German. Quite indifferent students of German can readFritz Reuter's charming platt-Deutch tales with some little facilitybecause many of the words are English. I suppose this is the tonguewhich our Saxon ancestors carried to England with them. By and by I willinquire of some other philologist. 

However, in the mean time it had transpired that the men employed tocalk the raft had found that the leak was not a leak at all, but onlya crack between the logs--a crack that belonged there, and was notdangerous, but had been magnified into a leak by the disorderedimagination of the mate. Therefore we went aboard again with a gooddegree of confidence, and presently got to sea without accident. As weswam smoothly along between the enchanting shores, we fell to swappingnotes about manners and customs in Germany and elsewhere. 

As I write, now, many months later, I perceive that each of us, byobserving and noting and inquiring, diligently and day by day, hadmanaged to lay in a most varied and opulent stock of misinformation. Butthis is not surprising; it is very difficult to get accurate details inany country. For example, I had the idea once, in Heidelberg, to findout all about those five student-corps. I started with the White Capcorps. I began to inquire of this and that and the other citizen, andhere is what I found out:

1. It is called the Prussian Corps, because none but Prussians areadmitted to it. 

2. It is called the Prussian Corps for no particular reason. It hassimply pleased each corps to name itself after some German state. 

3. It is not named the Prussian Corps at all, but only the White CapCorps. 

4. Any student can belong to it who is a German by birth. 

5. Any student can belong to it who is European by birth. 

6. Any European-born student can belong to it, except he be a Frenchman. 

7. Any student can belong to it, no matter where he was born. 

8. No student can belong to it who is not of noble blood. 

9. No student can belong to it who cannot show three full generations ofnoble descent. 

10. Nobility is not a necessary qualification. 

11. No moneyless student can belong to it. 

12. Money qualification is nonsense--such a thing has never been thoughtof. 

I got some of this information from students themselves--students whodid not belong to the corps. 

I finally went to headquarters--to the White Caps--where I wouldhave gone in the first place if I had been acquainted. But even atheadquarters I found difficulties; I perceived that there were thingsabout the White Cap Corps which one member knew and another one didn't. It was natural; for very few members of any organization know ALL thatcan be known about it. I doubt there is a man or a woman in Heidelbergwho would not answer promptly and confidently three out of every fivequestions about the White Cap Corps which a stranger might ask; yetit is a very safe bet that two of the three answers would be incorrectevery time. 

There is one German custom which is universal--the bowing courteouslyto strangers when sitting down at table or rising up from it. Thisbow startles a stranger out of his self-possession, the first timeit occurs, and he is likely to fall over a chair or something, in hisembarrassment, but it pleases him, nevertheless. One soon learns toexpect this bow and be on the lookout and ready to return it; but tolearn to lead off and make the initial bow one's self is a difficultmatter for a diffident man. One thinks, "If I rise to go, and tender mybow, and these ladies and gentlemen take it into their heads to ignorethe custom of their nation, and not return it, how shall I feel, in caseI survive to feel anything. " Therefore he is afraid to venture. He sitsout the dinner, and makes the strangers rise first and originate thebowing. A table d'hôte dinner is a tedious affair for a man who seldomtouches anything after the three first courses; therefore I used to dosome pretty dreary waiting because of my fears. It took me months toassure myself that those fears were groundless, but I did assure myselfat last by experimenting diligently through my agent. I made Harris getup and bow and leave; invariably his bow was returned, then I got up andbowed myself and retired. 

Thus my education proceeded easily and comfortably for me, but not forHarris. Three courses of a table d'hôte dinner were enough for me, butHarris preferred thirteen. 

Even after I had acquired full confidence, and no longer needed theagent's help, I sometimes encountered difficulties. Once at Baden-BadenI nearly lost a train because I could not be sure that three youngladies opposite me at table were Germans, since I had not heard themspeak; they might be American, they might be English, it was not safeto venture a bow; but just as I had got that far with my thought, one ofthem began a German remark, to my great relief and gratitude; and beforeshe got out her third word, our bows had been delivered and graciouslyreturned, and we were off. 

There is a friendly something about the German character which is verywinning. When Harris and I were making a pedestrian tour through theBlack Forest, we stopped at a little country inn for dinner one day;two young ladies and a young gentleman entered and sat down opposite us. They were pedestrians, too. Our knapsacks were strapped upon our backs, but they had a sturdy youth along to carry theirs for them. All partieswere hungry, so there was no talking. By and by the usual bows wereexchanged, and we separated. 

As we sat at a late breakfast in the hotel at Allerheiligen, nextmorning, these young people entered and took places near us withoutobserving us; but presently they saw us and at once bowed and smiled;not ceremoniously, but with the gratified look of people who have foundacquaintances where they were expecting strangers. Then they spoke ofthe weather and the roads. We also spoke of the weather and the roads. Next, they said they had had an enjoyable walk, notwithstanding theweather. We said that that had been our case, too. Then they said theyhad walked thirty English miles the day before, and asked how many wehad walked. I could not lie, so I told Harris to do it. Harris toldthem we had made thirty English miles, too. That was true; we had "made"them, though we had had a little assistance here and there. 

After breakfast they found us trying to blast some information outof the dumb hotel clerk about routes, and observing that we were notsucceeding pretty well, they went and got their maps and things, andpointed out and explained our course so clearly that even a New Yorkdetective could have followed it. And when we started they spoke out ahearty good-by and wished us a pleasant journey. Perhaps they were moregenerous with us than they might have been with native wayfarers becausewe were a forlorn lot and in a strange land; I don't know; I only knowit was lovely to be treated so. 

Very well, I took an American young lady to one of the fine balls inBaden-Baden, one night, and at the entrance-door upstairs we were haltedby an official--something about Miss Jones's dress was not according torule; I don't remember what it was, now; something was wanting--her backhair, or a shawl, or a fan, or a shovel, or something. The official wasever so polite, and ever so sorry, but the rule was strict, and he couldnot let us in. It was very embarrassing, for many eyes were on us. Butnow a richly dressed girl stepped out of the ballroom, inquired into thetrouble, and said she could fix it in a moment. She took Miss Jones tothe robing-room, and soon brought her back in regulation trim, and thenwe entered the ballroom with this benefactress unchallenged. 

Being safe, now, I began to puzzle through my sincere but ungrammaticalthanks, when there was a sudden mutual recognition --the benefactressand I had met at Allerheiligen. Two weeks had not altered her good face, and plainly her heart was in the right place yet, but there was sucha difference between these clothes and the clothes I had seen her inbefore, when she was walking thirty miles a day in the Black Forest, that it was quite natural that I had failed to recognize her sooner. Ihad on MY other suit, too, but my German would betray me to a person whohad heard it once, anyway. She brought her brother and sister, and theymade our way smooth for that evening. 

Well--months afterward, I was driving through the streets of Munich in acab with a German lady, one day, when she said:

"There, that is Prince Ludwig and his wife, walking along there. "

Everybody was bowing to them--cabmen, little children, and everybodyelse--and they were returning all the bows and overlooking nobody, whena young lady met them and made a deep courtesy. 

"That is probably one of the ladies of the court, " said my Germanfriend. 

I said:

"She is an honor to it, then. I know her. I don't know her name, but Iknow HER. I have known her at Allerheiligen and Baden-Baden. She oughtto be an Empress, but she may be only a Duchess; it is the way things goin this way. "

If one asks a German a civil question, he will be quite sure to get acivil answer. If you stop a German in the street and ask him to directyou to a certain place, he shows no sign of feeling offended. If theplace be difficult to find, ten to one the man will drop his own mattersand go with you and show you. 

In London, too, many a time, strangers have walked several blocks withme to show me my way. 

There is something very real about this sort of politeness. Quite often, in Germany, shopkeepers who could not furnish me the article I wantedhave sent one of their employees with me to show me a place where itcould be had. 

CHAPTER XIX

[The Deadly Jest of Dilsberg]

However, I wander from the raft. We made the port of Necharsteinach ingood season, and went to the hotel and ordered a trout dinner, the sameto be ready against our return from a two-hour pedestrian excursion tothe village and castle of Dilsberg, a mile distant, on the other sideof the river. I do not mean that we proposed to be two hours making twomiles--no, we meant to employ most of the time in inspecting Dilsberg. 

For Dilsberg is a quaint place. It is most quaintly and picturesquelysituated, too. Imagine the beautiful river before you; then a few rodsof brilliant green sward on its opposite shore; then a sudden hill--nopreparatory gently rising slopes, but a sort of instantaneous hill--ahill two hundred and fifty or three hundred feet high, as round as abowl, with the same taper upward that an inverted bowl has, and withabout the same relation of height to diameter that distinguishes abowl of good honest depth--a hill which is thickly clothed with greenbushes--a comely, shapely hill, rising abruptly out of the dead levelof the surrounding green plains, visible from a great distance down thebends of the river, and with just exactly room on the top of its headfor its steepled and turreted and roof-clustered cap of architecture, which same is tightly jammed and compacted within the perfectly roundhoop of the ancient village wall. 

There is no house outside the wall on the whole hill, or any vestige ofa former house; all the houses are inside the wall, but there isn't roomfor another one. It is really a finished town, and has been finished avery long time. There is no space between the wall and the first circleof buildings; no, the village wall is itself the rear wall of the firstcircle of buildings, and the roofs jut a little over the wall andthus furnish it with eaves. The general level of the massed roofs isgracefully broken and relieved by the dominating towers of the ruinedcastle and the tall spires of a couple of churches; so, from a distanceDilsberg has rather more the look of a king's crown than a cap. Thatlofty green eminence and its quaint coronet form quite a strikingpicture, you may be sure, in the flush of the evening sun. 

We crossed over in a boat and began the ascent by a narrow, steep pathwhich plunged us at once into the leafy deeps of the bushes. But theywere not cool deeps by any means, for the sun's rays were weltering hotand there was little or no breeze to temper them. As we panted up thesharp ascent, we met brown, bareheaded and barefooted boys and girls, occasionally, and sometimes men; they came upon us without warning, theygave us good day, flashed out of sight in the bushes, and were goneas suddenly and mysteriously as they had come. They were bound for theother side of the river to work. This path had been traveled by manygenerations of these people. They have always gone down to the valley toearn their bread, but they have always climbed their hill again to eatit, and to sleep in their snug town. 

It is said that the Dilsbergers do not emigrate much; they find thatliving up there above the world, in their peaceful nest, is pleasanterthan living down in the troublous world. The seven hundred inhabitantsare all blood-kin to each other, too; they have always been blood-kin toeach other for fifteen hundred years; they are simply one large family, and they like the home folks better than they like strangers, hence theypersistently stay at home. It has been said that for ages Dilsberghas been merely a thriving and diligent idiot-factory. I saw no idiotsthere, but the captain said, "Because of late years the government hastaken to lugging them off to asylums and otherwheres; and governmentwants to cripple the factory, too, and is trying to get theseDilsbergers to marry out of the family, but they don't like to. "

The captain probably imagined all this, as modern science denies thatthe intermarrying of relatives deteriorates the stock. 

Arrived within the wall, we found the usual village sights and life. Wemoved along a narrow, crooked lane which had been paved in the MiddleAges. A strapping, ruddy girl was beating flax or some such stuff ina little bit of a good-box of a barn, and she swung her flail with awill--if it was a flail; I was not farmer enough to know what she wasat; a frowsy, barelegged girl was herding half a dozen geese witha stick--driving them along the lane and keeping them out of thedwellings; a cooper was at work in a shop which I know he did not makeso large a thing as a hogshead in, for there was not room. In the frontrooms of dwellings girls and women were cooking or spinning, and ducksand chickens were waddling in and out, over the threshold, picking upchance crumbs and holding pleasant converse; a very old and wrinkledman sat asleep before his door, with his chin upon his breast and hisextinguished pipe in his lap; soiled children were playing in the dirteverywhere along the lane, unmindful of the sun. 

Except the sleeping old man, everybody was at work, but the place wasvery still and peaceful, nevertheless; so still that the distantcackle of the successful hen smote upon the ear but little dulledby intervening sounds. That commonest of village sights was lackinghere--the public pump, with its great stone tank or trough of limpidwater, and its group of gossiping pitcher-bearers; for there is no wellor fountain or spring on this tall hill; cisterns of rain-water areused. 

Our alpenstocks and muslin tails compelled attention, and as we movedthrough the village we gathered a considerable procession of little boysand girls, and so went in some state to the castle. It proved to be anextensive pile of crumbling walls, arches, and towers, massive, properlygrouped for picturesque effect, weedy, grass-grown, and satisfactory. The children acted as guides; they walked us along the top of thehighest walls, then took us up into a high tower and showed us a wideand beautiful landscape, made up of wavy distances of woody hills, anda nearer prospect of undulating expanses of green lowlands, on the onehand, and castle-graced crags and ridges on the other, with the shiningcurves of the Neckar flowing between. But the principal show, the chiefpride of the children, was the ancient and empty well in the grass-growncourt of the castle. Its massive stone curb stands up three or four feetabove-ground, and is whole and uninjured. The children said that in theMiddle Ages this well was four hundred feet deep, and furnished all thevillage with an abundant supply of water, in war and peace. They saidthat in the old day its bottom was below the level of the Neckar, hencethe water-supply was inexhaustible. 

But there were some who believed it had never been a well at all, andwas never deeper than it is now--eighty feet; that at that depth asubterranean passage branched from it and descended gradually to aremote place in the valley, where it opened into somebody's cellar orother hidden recess, and that the secret of this locality is now lost. Those who hold this belief say that herein lies the explanation thatDilsberg, besieged by Tilly and many a soldier before him, wasnever taken: after the longest and closest sieges the besiegers wereastonished to perceive that the besieged were as fat and hearty as ever, and were well furnished with munitions of war--therefore it must bethat the Dilsbergers had been bringing these things in through thesubterranean passage all the time. 

The children said that there was in truth a subterranean outlet downthere, and they would prove it. So they set a great truss of straw onfire and threw it down the well, while we leaned on the curb and watchedthe glowing mass descend. It struck bottom and gradually burned out. Nosmoke came up. The children clapped their hands and said:

"You see! Nothing makes so much smoke as burning straw--now where didthe smoke go to, if there is no subterranean outlet?"

So it seemed quite evident that the subterranean outlet indeed existed. But the finest thing within the ruin's limits was a noble linden, whichthe children said was four hundred years old, and no doubt it was. Ithad a mighty trunk and a mighty spread of limb and foliage. The limbsnear the ground were nearly the thickness of a barrel. 

That tree had witnessed the assaults of men in mail--how remote such atime seems, and how ungraspable is the fact that real men ever did fightin real armor!--and it had seen the time when these broken arches andcrumbling battlements were a trim and strong and stately fortress, fluttering its gay banners in the sun, and peopled with vigoroushumanity--how impossibly long ago that seems!--and here it stands yet, and possibly may still be standing here, sunning itself and dreaming itshistorical dreams, when today shall have been joined to the days called"ancient. "

Well, we sat down under the tree to smoke, and the captain deliveredhimself of his legend: THE LEGEND OF DILSBERG CASTLE It was to thiseffect. In the old times there was once a great company assembled at thecastle, and festivity ran high. Of course there was a haunted chamberin the castle, and one day the talk fell upon that. It was said thatwhoever slept in it would not wake again for fifty years. Now when ayoung knight named Conrad von Geisberg heard this, he said that if thecastle were his he would destroy that chamber, so that no foolish personmight have the chance to bring so dreadful a misfortune upon himselfand afflict such as loved him with the memory of it. Straightway, thecompany privately laid their heads together to contrive some way to getthis superstitious young man to sleep in that chamber. 

And they succeeded--in this way. They persuaded his betrothed, a lovelymischievous young creature, niece of the lord of the castle, to helpthem in their plot. She presently took him aside and had speech withhim. She used all her persuasions, but could not shake him; he said hisbelief was firm, that if he should sleep there he would wake no more forfifty years, and it made him shudder to think of it. Catharina began toweep. This was a better argument; Conrad could not hold out against it. He yielded and said she should have her wish if she would only smile andbe happy again. She flung her arms about his neck, and the kisses shegave him showed that her thankfulness and her pleasure were very real. Then she flew to tell the company her success, and the applause shereceived made her glad and proud she had undertaken her mission, sinceall alone she had accomplished what the multitude had failed in. 

At midnight, that night, after the usual feasting, Conrad was taken tothe haunted chamber and left there. He fell asleep, by and by. 

When he awoke again and looked about him, his heart stood still withhorror! The whole aspect of the chamber was changed. The walls weremoldy and hung with ancient cobwebs; the curtains and beddings wererotten; the furniture was rickety and ready to fall to pieces. He sprangout of bed, but his quaking knees sunk under him and he fell to thefloor. 

"This is the weakness of age, " he said. 

He rose and sought his clothing. It was clothing no longer. The colorswere gone, the garments gave way in many places while he was puttingthem on. He fled, shuddering, into the corridor, and along it tothe great hall. Here he was met by a middle-aged stranger of a kindcountenance, who stopped and gazed at him with surprise. Conrad said:

"Good sir, will you send hither the lord Ulrich?"

The stranger looked puzzled a moment, then said:

"The lord Ulrich?"

"Yes--if you will be so good. "

The stranger called--"Wilhelm!" A young serving-man came, and thestranger said to him:

"Is there a lord Ulrich among the guests?"

"I know none of the name, so please your honor. "

Conrad said, hesitatingly:

"I did not mean a guest, but the lord of the castle, sir. "

The stranger and the servant exchanged wondering glances. Then theformer said:

"I am the lord of the castle. "

"Since when, sir?"

"Since the death of my father, the good lord Ulrich more than fortyyears ago. "

Conrad sank upon a bench and covered his face with his hands while herocked his body to and fro and moaned. The stranger said in a low voiceto the servant:

"I fear me this poor old creature is mad. Call some one. "

In a moment several people came, and grouped themselves about, talkingin whispers. Conrad looked up and scanned the faces about him wistfully. 

Then he shook his head and said, in a grieved voice:

"No, there is none among ye that I know. I am old and alone in theworld. They are dead and gone these many years that cared for me. Butsure, some of these aged ones I see about me can tell me some littleword or two concerning them. "

Several bent and tottering men and women came nearer and answered hisquestions about each former friend as he mentioned the names. This onethey said had been dead ten years, that one twenty, another thirty. Eachsucceeding blow struck heavier and heavier. At last the sufferer said:

"There is one more, but I have not the courage to--O my lost Catharina!"

One of the old dames said:

"Ah, I knew her well, poor soul. A misfortune overtook her lover, andshe died of sorrow nearly fifty years ago. She lieth under the lindentree without the court. "

Conrad bowed his head and said:

"Ah, why did I ever wake! And so she died of grief for me, poor child. So young, so sweet, so good! She never wittingly did a hurtful thing inall the little summer of her life. Her loving debt shall be repaid--forI will die of grief for her. "

His head drooped upon his breast. In the moment there was a wild burstof joyous laughter, a pair of round young arms were flung about Conrad'sneck and a sweet voice cried:

"There, Conrad mine, thy kind words kill me--the farce shall go nofurther! Look up, and laugh with us--'twas all a jest!"

And he did look up, and gazed, in a dazed wonderment--for the disguiseswere stripped away, and the aged men and women were bright and young andgay again. Catharina's happy tongue ran on:

"'Twas a marvelous jest, and bravely carried out. They gave you a heavysleeping-draught before you went to bed, and in the night they bore youto a ruined chamber where all had fallen to decay, and placed these ragsof clothing by you. And when your sleep was spent and you came forth, two strangers, well instructed in their parts, were here to meet you;and all we, your friends, in our disguises, were close at hand, to seeand hear, you may be sure. Ah, 'twas a gallant jest! Come, now, and makethee ready for the pleasures of the day. How real was thy misery for themoment, thou poor lad! Look up and have thy laugh, now!"

He looked up, searched the merry faces about him in a dreamy way, thensighed and said:

"I am aweary, good strangers, I pray you lead me to her grave. "

All the smile vanished away, every cheek blanched, Catharina sunk to theground in a swoon. 

All day the people went about the castle with troubled faces, andcommuned together in undertones. A painful hush pervaded the place whichhad lately been so full of cheery life. Each in his turn tried to arouseConrad out of his hallucination and bring him to himself; but all theanswer any got was a meek, bewildered stare, and then the words:

"Good stranger, I have no friends, all are at rest these many years;ye speak me fair, ye mean me well, but I know ye not; I am alone andforlorn in the world--prithee lead me to her grave. "

During two years Conrad spent his days, from the early morning till thenight, under the linden tree, mourning over the imaginary grave of hisCatharina. Catharina was the only company of the harmless madman. He wasvery friendly toward her because, as he said, in some ways she remindedhim of his Catharina whom he had lost "fifty years ago. " He often said:

"She was so gay, so happy-hearted--but you never smile; and always whenyou think I am not looking, you cry. "

When Conrad died, they buried him under the linden, according to hisdirections, so that he might rest "near his poor Catharina. " ThenCatharina sat under the linden alone, every day and all day long, agreat many years, speaking to no one, and never smiling; and at last herlong repentance was rewarded with death, and she was buried by Conrad'sside. 

Harris pleased the captain by saying it was good legend; and pleased himfurther by adding:

"Now that I have seen this mighty tree, vigorous with its four hundredyears, I feel a desire to believe the legend for ITS sake; so I willhumor the desire, and consider that the tree really watches over thosepoor hearts and feels a sort of human tenderness for them. "

We returned to Necharsteinach, plunged our hot heads into the trough atthe town pump, and then went to the hotel and ate our trout dinner inleisurely comfort, in the garden, with the beautiful Neckar flowing atour feet, the quaint Dilsberg looming beyond, and the graceful towersand battlements of a couple of medieval castles (called the "Swallow'sNest" [1] and "The Brothers. ") assisting the rugged scenery of a bendof the river down to our right. We got to sea in season to make theeight-mile run to Heidelberg before the night shut down. We sailed bythe hotel in the mellow glow of sunset, and came slashing down withthe mad current into the narrow passage between the dikes. I believed Icould shoot the bridge myself, and I went to the forward triplet of logsand relieved the pilot of his pole and his responsibility. 

 1. The seeker after information is referred to Appendix E for our captain's legend of the "Swallow's Nest" and "The Brothers. "

We went tearing along in a most exhilarating way, and I performed thedelicate duties of my office very well indeed for a first attempt;but perceiving, presently, that I really was going to shoot the bridgeitself instead of the archway under it, I judiciously stepped ashore. The next moment I had my long-coveted desire: I saw a raft wrecked. Ithit the pier in the center and went all to smash and scatteration like abox of matches struck by lightning. 

I was the only one of our party who saw this grand sight; the otherswere attitudinizing, for the benefit of the long rank of young ladieswho were promenading on the bank, and so they lost it. But I helped tofish them out of the river, down below the bridge, and then described itto them as well as I could. 

They were not interested, though. They said they were wet and feltridiculous and did not care anything for descriptions of scenery. Theyoung ladies, and other people, crowded around and showed a great dealof sympathy, but that did not help matters; for my friends said they didnot want sympathy, they wanted a back alley and solitude. 

CHAPTER XX

[My Precious, Priceless Tear-Jug]

Next morning brought good news--our trunks had arrived from Hamburgat last. Let this be a warning to the reader. The Germans are veryconscientious, and this trait makes them very particular. Therefore ifyou tell a German you want a thing done immediately, he takes youat your word; he thinks you mean what you say; so he does that thingimmediately--according to his idea of immediately--which is about aweek; that is, it is a week if it refers to the building of a garment, or it is an hour and a half if it refers to the cooking of a trout. Verywell; if you tell a German to send your trunk to you by "slow freight, "he takes you at your word; he sends it by "slow freight, " and youcannot imagine how long you will go on enlarging your admiration of theexpressiveness of that phrase in the German tongue, before you get thattrunk. The hair on my trunk was soft and thick and youthful, when Igot it ready for shipment in Hamburg; it was baldheaded when it reachedHeidelberg. However, it was still sound, that was a comfort, it wasnot battered in the least; the baggagemen seemed to be conscientiouslycareful, in Germany, of the baggage entrusted to their hands. Therewas nothing now in the way of our departure, therefore we set about ourpreparations. 

Naturally my chief solicitude was about my collection of Ceramics. Ofcourse I could not take it with me, that would be inconvenient, anddangerous besides. I took advice, but the best brick-a-brackers weredivided as to the wisest course to pursue; some said pack the collectionand warehouse it; others said try to get it into the Grand Ducal Museumat Mannheim for safe keeping. So I divided the collection, and followedthe advice of both parties. I set aside, for the Museum, those articleswhich were the most frail and precious. 

Among these was my Etruscan tear-jug. I have made a little sketch ofit here; that thing creeping up the side is not a bug, it is a hole. I bought this tear-jug of a dealer in antiquities for four hundred andfifty dollars. It is very rare. The man said the Etruscans used to keeptears or something in these things, and that it was very hard to gethold of a broken one, now. 

I also set aside my Henri II. Plate. See sketch from my pencil; it isin the main correct, though I think I have foreshortened one end of ita little too much, perhaps. This is very fine and rare; the shape isexceedingly beautiful and unusual. It has wonderful decorations on it, but I am not able to reproduce them. It cost more than the tear-jug, asthe dealer said there was not another plate just like it in theworld. He said there was much false Henri II ware around, but that thegenuineness of this piece was unquestionable. 

He showed me its pedigree, or its history, if you please; it was adocument which traced this plate's movements all the way down from itsbirth--showed who bought it, from whom, and what he paid for it--fromthe first buyer down to me, whereby I saw that it had gone steadily upfrom thirty-five cents to seven hundred dollars. He said that the wholeCeramic world would be informed that it was now in my possession andwould make a note of it, with the price paid. [Figure 8]

There were Masters in those days, but, alas--it is not so now. Of coursethe main preciousness of this piece lies in its color; it is that oldsensuous, pervading, ramifying, interpolating, transboreal blue which isthe despair of modern art. The little sketch which I have made of thisgem cannot and does not do it justice, since I have been obliged toleave out the color. But I've got the expression, though. 

However, I must not be frittering away the reader's time with thesedetails. I did not intend to go into any detail at all, at first, butit is the failing of the true ceramiker, or the true devotee in anydepartment of brick-a-brackery, that once he gets his tongue or his penstarted on his darling theme, he cannot well stop until he drops fromexhaustion. He has no more sense of the flight of time than has anyother lover when talking of his sweetheart. The very "marks" on thebottom of a piece of rare crockery are able to throw me into a gibberingecstasy; and I could forsake a drowning relative to help dispute aboutwhether the stopple of a departed Buon Retiro scent-bottle was genuineor spurious. 

Many people say that for a male person, bric-a-brac hunting is about asrobust a business as making doll-clothes, or decorating Japanese potswith decalcomania butterflies would be, and these people fling mud atthe elegant Englishman, Byng, who wrote a book called THE BRIC-A-BRACHUNTER, and make fun of him for chasing around after what they choose tocall "his despicable trifles"; and for "gushing" over these trifles;and for exhibiting his "deep infantile delight" in what they call his"tuppenny collection of beggarly trivialities"; and for beginning hisbook with a picture of himself seated, in a "sappy, self-complacentattitude, in the midst of his poor little ridiculous bric-a-brac junkshop. "

It is easy to say these things; it is easy to revile us, easy to despiseus; therefore, let these people rail on; they cannot feel as Byng andI feel--it is their loss, not ours. For my part I am content to be abrick-a-bracker and a ceramiker--more, I am proud to be so named. I amproud to know that I lose my reason as immediately in the presence of arare jug with an illustrious mark on the bottom of it, as if I hadjust emptied that jug. Very well; I packed and stored a part of mycollection, and the rest of it I placed in the care of the Grand DucalMuseum in Mannheim, by permission. My Old Blue China Cat remains thereyet. I presented it to that excellent institution. 

I had but one misfortune with my things. An egg which I had kept backfrom breakfast that morning, was broken in packing. It was a great pity. I had shown it to the best connoisseurs in Heidelberg, and they all saidit was an antique. We spent a day or two in farewell visits, and thenleft for Baden-Baden. We had a pleasant trip to it, for the Rhine valleyis always lovely. The only trouble was that the trip was too short. IfI remember rightly it only occupied a couple of hours, therefore I judgethat the distance was very little, if any, over fifty miles. Wequitted the train at Oos, and walked the entire remaining distance toBaden-Baden, with the exception of a lift of less than an hour whichwe got on a passing wagon, the weather being exhaustingly warm. We cameinto town on foot. 

One of the first persons we encountered, as we walked up the street, was the Rev. Mr. ------, an old friend from America--a lucky encounter, indeed, for his is a most gentle, refined, and sensitive nature, and hiscompany and companionship are a genuine refreshment. We knew he had beenin Europe some time, but were not at all expecting to run across him. Both parties burst forth into loving enthusiasms, and Rev. Mr. ------said:

"I have got a brimful reservoir of talk to pour out on you, and an emptyone ready and thirsting to receive what you have got; we will sit uptill midnight and have a good satisfying interchange, for I leave hereearly in the morning. " We agreed to that, of course. 

I had been vaguely conscious, for a while, of a person who was walkingin the street abreast of us; I had glanced furtively at him once ortwice, and noticed that he was a fine, large, vigorous young fellow, with an open, independent countenance, faintly shaded with a pale andeven almost imperceptible crop of early down, and that he was clothedfrom head to heel in cool and enviable snow-white linen. I thought I hadalso noticed that his head had a sort of listening tilt to it. Now aboutthis time the Rev. Mr. ------ said:

"The sidewalk is hardly wide enough for three, so I will walk behind;but keep the talk going, keep the talk going, there's no time to lose, and you may be sure I will do my share. " He ranged himself behind us, and straightway that stately snow-white young fellow closed up to thesidewalk alongside him, fetched him a cordial slap on the shoulder withhis broad palm, and sung out with a hearty cheeriness:

"AMERICANS for two-and-a-half and the money up! HEY?"

The Reverend winced, but said mildly:

"Yes--we are Americans. "

"Lord love you, you can just bet that's what _I_ am, every time! Put itthere!"

He held out his Sahara of his palm, and the Reverend laid his diminutivehand in it, and got so cordial a shake that we heard his glove burstunder it. 

"Say, didn't I put you up right?"

"Oh, yes. "

"Sho! I spotted you for MY kind the minute I heard your clack. You beenover here long?"

"About four months. Have you been over long?"

"LONG? Well, I should say so! Going on two YEARS, by geeminy! Say, areyou homesick?"

"No, I can't say that I am. Are you?"

"Oh, HELL, yes!" This with immense enthusiasm. 

The Reverend shrunk a little, in his clothes, and we were aware, ratherby instinct than otherwise, that he was throwing out signals of distressto us; but we did not interfere or try to succor him, for we were quitehappy. 

The young fellow hooked his arm into the Reverend's, now, with theconfiding and grateful air of a waif who has been longing for a friend, and a sympathetic ear, and a chance to lisp once more the sweet accentsof the mother-tongue--and then he limbered up the muscles of his mouthand turned himself loose--and with such a relish! Some of his words werenot Sunday-school words, so I am obliged to put blanks where they occur. 

"Yes indeedy! If _I_ ain't an American there AIN'T any Americans, that'sall. And when I heard you fellows gassing away in the good old Americanlanguage, I'm ------ if it wasn't all I could do to keep from huggingyou! My tongue's all warped with trying to curl it around these ------forsaken wind-galled nine-jointed German words here; now I TELL you it'sawful good to lay it over a Christian word once more and kind of let theold taste soak it. I'm from western New York. My name is Cholley Adams. I'm a student, you know. Been here going on two years. I'm learning tobe a horse-doctor! I LIKE that part of it, you know, but ------thesepeople, they won't learn a fellow in his own language, they make himlearn in German; so before I could tackle the horse-doctoring I had totackle this miserable language. 

"First off, I thought it would certainly give me the botts, but I don'tmind now. I've got it where the hair's short, I think; and dontchuknow, they made me learn Latin, too. Now between you and me, I wouldn't give a------for all the Latin that was ever jabbered; and the first thing _I_calculate to do when I get through, is to just sit down and forget it. 'Twon't take me long, and I don't mind the time, anyway. And I tellyou what! the difference between school-teaching over yonder andschool-teaching over here--sho! WE don't know anything about it! Hereyou've got to peg and peg and peg and there just ain't any let-up--andwhat you learn here, you've got to KNOW, dontchuknow --or else you'llhave one of these ------ spavined, spectacles, ring-boned, knock-kneedold professors in your hair. I've been here long ENOUGH, and I'm gettingblessed tired of it, mind I TELL you. The old man wrote me that he wascoming over in June, and said he'd take me home in August, whether I wasdone with my education or not, but durn him, he didn't come; never saidwhy; just sent me a hamper of Sunday-school books, and told me tobe good, and hold on a while. I don't take to Sunday-school books, dontchuknow--I don't hanker after them when I can get pie--but I READthem, anyway, because whatever the old man tells me to do, that's thething that I'm a-going to DO, or tear something, you know. I buckledin and read all those books, because he wanted me to; but that kind ofthing don't excite ME, I like something HEARTY. But I'm awful homesick. I'm homesick from ear-socket to crupper, and from crupper to hock-joint;but it ain't any use, I've got to stay here, till the old man drops therag and give the word--yes, SIR, right here in this ------ countryI've got to linger till the old man says COME!--and you bet your bottomdollar, Johnny, it AIN'T just as easy as it is for a cat to have twins!"

At the end of this profane and cordial explosion he fetched a prodigious"WHOOSH!" to relieve his lungs and make recognition of the heat, andthen he straightway dived into his narrative again for "Johnny's"benefit, beginning, "Well, ------it ain't any use talking, some of thoseold American words DO have a kind of a bully swing to them; a mancan EXPRESS himself with 'em--a man can get at what he wants to SAY, dontchuknow. "

When we reached our hotel and it seemed that he was about to lose theReverend, he showed so much sorrow, and begged so hard and so earnestlythat the Reverend's heart was not hard enough to hold out against thepleadings--so he went away with the parent-honoring student, like aright Christian, and took supper with him in his lodgings, and sat inthe surf-beat of his slang and profanity till near midnight, and thenleft him--left him pretty well talked out, but grateful "clear downto his frogs, " as he expressed it. The Reverend said it had transpiredduring the interview that "Cholley" Adams's father was an extensivedealer in horses in western New York; this accounted for Cholley'schoice of a profession. The Reverend brought away a pretty high opinionof Cholley as a manly young fellow, with stuff in him for a usefulcitizen; he considered him rather a rough gem, but a gem, nevertheless. 

CHAPTER XXI

[Insolent Shopkeepers and Gabbling Americans]

Baden-Baden sits in the lap of the hills, and the natural and artificialbeauties of the surroundings are combined effectively and charmingly. The level strip of ground which stretches through and beyond the town islaid out in handsome pleasure grounds, shaded by noble trees and adornedat intervals with lofty and sparkling fountain-jets. Thrice a day a fineband makes music in the public promenade before the ConversationHouse, and in the afternoon and evening that locality is populous withfashionably dressed people of both sexes, who march back and forth pastthe great music-stand and look very much bored, though they make ashow of feeling otherwise. It seems like a rather aimless and stupidexistence. A good many of these people are there for a real purpose, however; they are racked with rheumatism, and they are there to stew itout in the hot baths. These invalids looked melancholy enough, limpingabout on their canes and crutches, and apparently brooding over allsorts of cheerless things. People say that Germany, with her damp stonehouses, is the home of rheumatism. If that is so, Providence must haveforeseen that it would be so, and therefore filled the land with thehealing baths. Perhaps no other country is so generously supplied withmedicinal springs as Germany. Some of these baths are good for oneailment, some for another; and again, peculiar ailments are conqueredby combining the individual virtues of several different baths. Forinstance, for some forms of disease, the patient drinks the native hotwater of Baden-Baden, with a spoonful of salt from the Carlsbad springsdissolved in it. That is not a dose to be forgotten right away. 

They don't SELL this hot water; no, you go into the great Trinkhalle, and stand around, first on one foot and then on the other, while two orthree young girls sit pottering at some sort of ladylike sewing-workin your neighborhood and can't seem to see you --polite as three-dollarclerks in government offices. 

By and by one of these rises painfully, and "stretches"--stretches fistsand body heavenward till she raises her heels from the floor, at thesame time refreshing herself with a yawn of such comprehensiveness thatthe bulk of her face disappears behind her upper lip and one is able tosee how she is constructed inside--then she slowly closes hercavern, brings down her fists and her heels, comes languidly forward, contemplates you contemptuously, draws you a glass of hot water and setsit down where you can get it by reaching for it. You take it and say:

"How much?"--and she returns you, with elaborate indifference, abeggar's answer:

"NACH BELIEBE" (what you please. )

This thing of using the common beggar's trick and the common beggar'sshibboleth to put you on your liberality when you were expecting asimple straightforward commercial transaction, adds a little to yourprospering sense of irritation. You ignore her reply, and ask again:

"How much?"

--and she calmly, indifferently, repeats:

"NACH BELIEBE. "

You are getting angry, but you are trying not to show it; you resolveto keep on asking your question till she changes her answer, or at leasther annoyingly indifferent manner. Therefore, if your case be like mine, you two fools stand there, and without perceptible emotion of any kind, or any emphasis on any syllable, you look blandly into each other'seyes, and hold the following idiotic conversation:

"How much?"

"NACH BELIEBE. "

"How much?"

"NACH BELIEBE. "

"How much?"

"NACH BELIEBE. "

"How much?"

"NACH BELIEBE. "

"How much?"

"NACH BELIEBE. "

"How much?"

"NACH BELIEBE. "

I do not know what another person would have done, but at this point Igave up; that cast-iron indifference, that tranquil contemptuousness, conquered me, and I struck my colors. Now I knew she was used toreceiving about a penny from manly people who care nothing about theopinions of scullery-maids, and about tuppence from moral cowards; butI laid a silver twenty-five cent piece within her reach and tried toshrivel her up with this sarcastic speech:

"If it isn't enough, will you stoop sufficiently from your officialdignity to say so?"

She did not shrivel. Without deigning to look at me at all, shelanguidly lifted the coin and bit it!--to see if it was good. Then sheturned her back and placidly waddled to her former roost again, tossingthe money into an open till as she went along. She was victor to thelast, you see. 

I have enlarged upon the ways of this girl because they are typical;her manners are the manners of a goodly number of the Baden-Badenshopkeepers. The shopkeeper there swindles you if he can, and insultsyou whether he succeeds in swindling you or not. The keepers of bathsalso take great and patient pains to insult you. The frowsy woman whosat at the desk in the lobby of the great Friederichsbad and sold bathtickets, not only insulted me twice every day, with rigid fidelityto her great trust, but she took trouble enough to cheat me out of ashilling, one day, to have fairly entitled her to ten. Baden-Baden'ssplendid gamblers are gone, only her microscopic knaves remain. 

An English gentleman who had been living there several years, said:

"If you could disguise your nationality, you would not find anyinsolence here. These shopkeepers detest the English and despise theAmericans; they are rude to both, more especially to ladies of yournationality and mine. If these go shopping without a gentleman ora man-servant, they are tolerably sure to be subjected to pettyinsolences--insolences of manner and tone, rather than word, thoughwords that are hard to bear are not always wanting. I know of aninstance where a shopkeeper tossed a coin back to an American lady withthe remark, snappishly uttered, 'We don't take French money here. ' AndI know of a case where an English lady said to one of these shopkeepers, 'Don't you think you ask too much for this article?' and he replied withthe question, 'Do you think you are obliged to buy it?' However, thesepeople are not impolite to Russians or Germans. And as to rank, theyworship that, for they have long been used to generals and nobles. Ifyou wish to see what abysses servility can descend, present yourselfbefore a Baden-Baden shopkeeper in the character of a Russian prince. "

It is an inane town, filled with sham, and petty fraud, and snobbery, but the baths are good. I spoke with many people, and they were allagreed in that. I had the twinges of rheumatism unceasingly during threeyears, but the last one departed after a fortnight's bathing there, and I have never had one since. I fully believe I left my rheumatism inBaden-Baden. Baden-Baden is welcome to it. It was little, but it wasall I had to give. I would have preferred to leave something that wascatching, but it was not in my power. 

There are several hot springs there, and during two thousand years theyhave poured forth a never-diminishing abundance of the healing water. This water is conducted in pipe to the numerous bath-houses, and isreduced to an endurable temperature by the addition of cold water. Thenew Friederichsbad is a very large and beautiful building, and in it onemay have any sort of bath that has ever been invented, and with allthe additions of herbs and drugs that his ailment may need or that thephysician of the establishment may consider a useful thing to put intothe water. You go there, enter the great door, get a bow graduated toyour style and clothes from the gorgeous portier, and a bath ticket andan insult from the frowsy woman for a quarter; she strikes a bell anda serving-man conducts you down a long hall and shuts you into acommodious room which has a washstand, a mirror, a bootjack, and a sofain it, and there you undress at your leisure. 

The room is divided by a great curtain; you draw this curtain aside, andfind a large white marble bathtub, with its rim sunk to the level of thefloor, and with three white marble steps leading down to it. This tubis full of water which is as clear as crystal, and is tempered to 28degrees Re'aumur (about 95 degrees Fahrenheit). Sunk into the floor, bythe tub, is a covered copper box which contains some warm towels and asheet. You look fully as white as an angel when you are stretched outin that limpid bath. You remain in it ten minutes, the first time, and afterward increase the duration from day to day, till you reachtwenty-five or thirty minutes. There you stop. The appointments of theplace are so luxurious, the benefit so marked, the price so moderate, and the insults so sure, that you very soon find yourself adoring theFriederichsbad and infesting it. 

We had a plain, simple, unpretending, good hotel, in Baden-Baden--theHôtel de France--and alongside my room I had a giggling, cackling, chattering family who always went to bed just two hours after me andalways got up two hours ahead of me. But this is common in Germanhotels; the people generally go to bed long after eleven and get uplong before eight. The partitions convey sound like a drum-head, andeverybody knows it; but no matter, a German family who are all kindnessand consideration in the daytime make apparently no effort to moderatetheir noises for your benefit at night. They will sing, laugh, and talkloudly, and bang furniture around in a most pitiless way. If you knockon your wall appealingly, they will quiet down and discuss the mattersoftly among themselves for a moment--then, like the mice, they fall topersecuting you again, and as vigorously as before. They keep cruellylate and early hours, for such noisy folk. 

Of course, when one begins to find fault with foreign people's ways, heis very likely to get a reminder to look nearer home, before he gets farwith it. I open my note-book to see if I can find some more informationof a valuable nature about Baden-Baden, and the first thing I fall uponis this:

"BADEN-BADEN (no date). Lot of vociferous Americans at breakfastthis morning. Talking AT everybody, while pretending to talk amongthemselves. On their first travels, manifestly. Showing off. The usualsigns--airy, easy-going references to grand distances and foreignplaces. 'Well GOOD-by, old fellow--if I don't run across you in Italy, you hunt me up in London before you sail. '"

The next item which I find in my note-book is this one:

"The fact that a band of 6, 000 Indians are now murdering ourfrontiersmen at their impudent leisure, and that we are only ableto send 1, 200 soldiers against them, is utilized here to discourageemigration to America. The common people think the Indians are in NewJersey. "

This is a new and peculiar argument against keeping our army down to aridiculous figure in the matter of numbers. It is rather a strikingone, too. I have not distorted the truth in saying that the facts inthe above item, about the army and the Indians, are made use of todiscourage emigration to America. That the common people should berather foggy in their geography, and foggy as to the location of theIndians, is a matter for amusement, maybe, but not of surprise. 

There is an interesting old cemetery in Baden-Baden, and we spentseveral pleasant hours in wandering through it and spelling out theinscriptions on the aged tombstones. Apparently after a man has laidthere a century or two, and has had a good many people buried on topof him, it is considered that his tombstone is not needed by him anylonger. I judge so from the fact that hundreds of old gravestones havebeen removed from the graves and placed against the inner walls of thecemetery. What artists they had in the old times! They chiseled angelsand cherubs and devils and skeletons on the tombstones in the mostlavish and generous way--as to supply--but curiously grotesque andoutlandish as to form. It is not always easy to tell which of thefigures belong among the blest and which of them among the oppositeparty. But there was an inscription, in French, on one of those oldstones, which was quaint and pretty, and was plainly not the work of anyother than a poet. It was to this effect:

Here Reposes in God, Caroline de Clery, a Religieuse of St. Denis aged83 years--and blind. The light was restored to her in Baden the 5th ofJanuary, 1839

We made several excursions on foot to the neighboring villages, overwinding and beautiful roads and through enchanting woodland scenery. The woods and roads were similar to those at Heidelberg, but notso bewitching. I suppose that roads and woods which are up to theHeidelberg mark are rare in the world. 

Once we wandered clear away to La Favorita Palace, which is severalmiles from Baden-Baden. The grounds about the palace were fine; thepalace was a curiosity. It was built by a Margravine in 1725, andremains as she left it at her death. We wandered through a great manyof its rooms, and they all had striking peculiarities of decoration. For instance, the walls of one room were pretty completely coveredwith small pictures of the Margravine in all conceivable varieties offanciful costumes, some of them male. 

The walls of another room were covered with grotesquely and elaboratelyfigured hand-wrought tapestry. The musty ancient beds remained in thechambers, and their quilts and curtains and canopies were decorated withcurious handwork, and the walls and ceilings frescoed with historicaland mythological scenes in glaring colors. There was enough crazy androtten rubbish in the building to make a true brick-a-bracker green withenvy. A painting in the dining-hall verged upon the indelicate--but thenthe Margravine was herself a trifle indelicate. 

It is in every way a wildly and picturesquely decorated house, andbrimful of interest as a reflection of the character and tastes of thatrude bygone time. 

In the grounds, a few rods from the palace, stands the Margravine'schapel, just as she left it--a coarse wooden structure, wholly barrenof ornament. It is said that the Margravine would give herself up todebauchery and exceedingly fast living for several months at a time, and then retire to this miserable wooden den and spend a few months inrepenting and getting ready for another good time. She was a devotedCatholic, and was perhaps quite a model sort of a Christian asChristians went then, in high life. 

Tradition says she spent the last two years of her life in the strangeden I have been speaking of, after having indulged herself in one final, triumphant, and satisfying spree. She shut herself up there, withoutcompany, and without even a servant, and so abjured and forsook theworld. In her little bit of a kitchen she did her own cooking; she worea hair shirt next the skin, and castigated herself with whips--theseaids to grace are exhibited there yet. She prayed and told her beads, in another little room, before a waxen Virgin niched in a little boxagainst the wall; she bedded herself like a slave. 

In another small room is an unpainted wooden table, and behind it sithalf-life-size waxen figures of the Holy Family, made by the very worstartist that ever lived, perhaps, and clothed in gaudy, flimsy drapery. [1] The margravine used to bring her meals to this table and DINE WITHTHE HOLY FAMILY. What an idea that was! What a grisly spectacle it musthave been! Imagine it: Those rigid, shock-headed figures, with corpsycomplexions and fish glass eyes, occupying one side of the table in theconstrained attitudes and dead fixedness that distinguish all men thatare born of wax, and this wrinkled, smoldering old fire-eater occupyingthe other side, mumbling her prayers and munching her sausages in theghostly stillness and shadowy indistinctness of a winter twilight. Itmakes one feel crawly even to think of it. 

 [1] The Savior was represented as a lad of about fifteen years of age. This figure had lost one eye. 

In this sordid place, and clothed, bedded, and fed like a pauper, thisstrange princess lived and worshiped during two years, and in it shedied. Two or three hundred years ago, this would have made the poor denholy ground; and the church would have set up a miracle-factory thereand made plenty of money out of it. The den could be moved into someportions of France and made a good property even now. 

A TRAMP ABROAD, Part 4. 

By Mark Twain

(Samuel L. Clemens)

First published in 1880

Illustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition

 * * * * * *

ILLUSTRATIONS:

 1.     PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR 2.     TITIAN'S MOSES 3.     THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES 119.   BLACK FOREST GRANDEE 120.   THE GRANDEE'S DAUGHTER 121.   RICH OLD HUSS 122.   GRETCHEN 123.   PAUL HOCH 124.   HANS SCHMIDT 125.   ELECTING A NEW MEMBER 126.   OVERCOMING OBSTACLES 127.   FRIENDS 128.   PROSPECTING 129.   TAIL PIECE 130.   A GENERAL HOWL 131.   SEEKING A SITUATION 132.   STANDING GUARD 133.   RESULT OF A JOKE 134.   DESCENDING A FARM 155.   A GERMAN SABBATH 136.   AN OBJECT OF SYMPATHY 137.   A NON-CLASSICAL STYLE 138.   THE TRADITIONAL CHAMOIS 139.   HUNTING CHAMOIS THE TRUE WAY 140.   CHAMOIS HUNTER AS REPORTED 141.   MARKING ALPENSTOCKS 142.   IS SHE EIGHTEEN OR TWENTY 143.   I KNEW I WASN'T MISTAKEN 144.   HARRIS ASTONISHED 145.   TAIL PIECE 146.   THE LION OF LUCERNE 147.   HE LIKED CLOCKS 148.   "I WILL TELL YOU" 149.   COULDN'T WAIT 150.   DIDN'T CARE FOR STYLE 151.   A PAIR BETTER THAN FOUR 152.   TWO WASN'T NECESSARY 153.   JUST THE TRICK 154.   GOING TO MAKE THEM STARE 155.   NOT THROWN AWAY 156.   WHAT THE DOCTOR RECOMMENDED 157.   WANTED TO FEEL SAFE 158.   PREFERRED TO TRAMP ON FOOT 159.   DERN A DOG, ANYWAY 160.   TAIL PIECE 161.   THE GLACIER GARDEN 162.   LAKE AND MOUNTAINS (MONT PILATUS) 163.   MOUNTAIN PATHS 164.   "YOU'RE AN AMERICAN--SO AM I" 165.   ENTERPRISE 166.   THE CONSTANT SEARCHER 167.   THE MOUNTAIN BOY 168.   THE ENGLISHMAN 169.   THE JODLER 170.   ANOTHER VOCALIST 171.   THE FELSENTHOR 172.   A VIEW FROM THE STATION 173.   LOST IN THE MIST 174.   THE RIGI-KULM HOTEL 175.   WHAT AWAKENED US 176.   A SUMMIT SUNRISE 177.   TAIL PIECE

CONTENTS:

CHAPTER XXII The Black Forest--A Grandee and his Family--The WealthyNabob--A New Standard of Wealth--Skeleton for a New Novel--TryingSituation--The Common Council--Choosing a New Member Studying NaturalHistory--The Ant a Fraud--Eccentricities of the Ant--His Deceit andIgnorance--A German Dish--Boiled Oranges

CHAPTER XXIII Off for a Day's Tramp--Tramping and Talking--StoryTelling--Dentistry in Camp--Nicodemus Dodge--Seeking a Situation--AButt for Jokes--Jimmy Finn's Skeleton--Descending a Farm--UnexpectedNotoriety

CHAPTER XXIV Sunday on the Continent--A Day of Rest--An Incidentat Church--An Object of Sympathy--Royalty at Church--Public GroundsConcert--Power and Grades of Music--Hiring a Courier

CHAPTER XXV Lucerne--Beauty of its Lake--The Wild Chamois--A GreatError Exposed--Methods of Hunting the Chamois--Beauties of Lucerne--TheAlpenstock--Marking Alpenstocks--Guessing at Nationalities--An AmericanParty--An Unexpected Acquaintance--Getting Mixed Up--Following BlindTrails--A Happy Half--hour--Defeat and Revenge

CHAPTER XXVI Commerce of Lucerne--Benefits of Martyrdom--A Bit ofHistory--The Home of Cuckoo Clocks--A Satisfactory Revenge--The AlanWho Put Up at Gadsby's--A Forgotten Story--Wanted to be Postmaster--ATennessean at Washington--He Concluded to Stay A While--Application ofthe Story

CHAPTER XXVII The Glacier Garden--Excursion on the Lake--Life on theMountains--A Specimen Tourist--"Where're you From?"--An AdvertisingDodge--A Righteous Verdict--The Guide-book Student--I Believe that's All

CHAPTER XXVIII The Rigi-Kulm--Its Ascent--Stripping for Business--AMountain Lad--An English Tourist--Railroad up the Mountain--Villages andMountain--The Jodlers--About Ice Water--The Felsenthor--Too Late--Lostin the Fog--The Rigi-Kulm Hotel--The Alpine Horn--Sunrise at Night

CHAPTER XXII

[The Black Forest and Its Treasures]

From Baden-Baden we made the customary trip into the Black Forest. Wewere on foot most of the time. One cannot describe those noble woods, nor the feeling with which they inspire him. A feature of the feeling, however, is a deep sense of contentment; another feature of it is abuoyant, boyish gladness; and a third and very conspicuous feature ofit is one's sense of the remoteness of the work-day world and his entireemancipation from it and its affairs. 

Those woods stretch unbroken over a vast region; and everywhere they aresuch dense woods, and so still, and so piney and fragrant. The stems ofthe trees are trim and straight, and in many places all the ground ishidden for miles under a thick cushion of moss of a vivid green color, with not a decayed or ragged spot in its surface, and not a fallen leafor twig to mar its immaculate tidiness. A rich cathedral gloom pervadesthe pillared aisles; so the stray flecks of sunlight that strike a trunkhere and a bough yonder are strongly accented, and when they strike themoss they fairly seem to burn. But the weirdest effect, and the mostenchanting is that produced by the diffused light of the low afternoonsun; no single ray is able to pierce its way in, then, but the diffusedlight takes color from moss and foliage, and pervades the place likea faint, green-tinted mist, the theatrical fire of fairyland. Thesuggestion of mystery and the supernatural which haunts the forest atall times is intensified by this unearthly glow. 

We found the Black Forest farmhouses and villages all that the BlackForest stories have pictured them. The first genuine specimen whichwe came upon was the mansion of a rich farmer and member of the CommonCouncil of the parish or district. He was an important personage in theland and so was his wife also, of course. 

His daughter was the "catch" of the region, and she may be alreadyentering into immortality as the heroine of one of Auerbach's novels, for all I know. We shall see, for if he puts her in I shall recognizeher by her Black Forest clothes, and her burned complexion, her plumpfigure, her fat hands, her dull expression, her gentle spirit, her generous feet, her bonnetless head, and the plaited tails ofhemp-colored hair hanging down her back. 

The house was big enough for a hotel; it was a hundred feet long andfifty wide, and ten feet high, from ground to eaves; but from the eavesto the comb of the mighty roof was as much as forty feet, or maybe evenmore. This roof was of ancient mud-colored straw thatch a foot thick, and was covered all over, except in a few trifling spots, with athriving and luxurious growth of green vegetation, mainly moss. Themossless spots were places where repairs had been made by the insertionof bright new masses of yellow straw. The eaves projected far down, likesheltering, hospitable wings. Across the gable that fronted the road, and about ten feet above the ground, ran a narrow porch, with a woodenrailing; a row of small windows filled with very small panes looked uponthe porch. Above were two or three other little windows, one clear upunder the sharp apex of the roof. Before the ground-floor door was ahuge pile of manure. The door of the second-story room on the side ofthe house was open, and occupied by the rear elevation of a cow. Wasthis probably the drawing-room? All of the front half of the house fromthe ground up seemed to be occupied by the people, the cows, and thechickens, and all the rear half by draught-animals and hay. But thechief feature, all around this house, was the big heaps of manure. 

We became very familiar with the fertilizer in the Forest. We fellunconsciously into the habit of judging of a man's station in lifeby this outward and eloquent sign. Sometimes we said, "Here is a poordevil, this is manifest. " When we saw a stately accumulation, we said, "Here is a banker. " When we encountered a country-seat surrounded by anAlpine pomp of manure, we said, "Doubtless a duke lives here. "

The importance of this feature has not been properly magnified in theBlack Forest stories. Manure is evidently the Black-Forester's maintreasure--his coin, his jewel, his pride, his Old Master, his ceramics, his bric-a-brac, his darling, his title to public consideration, envy, veneration, and his first solicitude when he gets ready to make hiswill. The true Black Forest novel, if it is ever written, will beskeletoned somewhat in this way:

SKELETON FOR A BLACK FOREST NOVEL

Rich old farmer, named Huss. 

Has inherited great wealth of manure, and by diligence has added to it. It is double-starred in Baedeker. [1] The Black forest artist paintsit--his masterpiece. The king comes to see it. Gretchen Huss, daughter and heiress. Paul Hoch, young neighbor, suitor for Gretchen'shand--ostensibly; he really wants the manure. 

Hoch has a good many cart-loads of the Black Forest currency himself, and therefore is a good catch; but he is sordid, mean, and withoutsentiment, whereas Gretchen is all sentiment and poetry. Hans Schmidt, young neighbor, full of sentiment, full of poetry, loves Gretchen, Gretchen loves him. But he has no manure. Old Huss forbids him in thehouse. His heart breaks, he goes away to die in the woods, far from thecruel world--for he says, bitterly, "What is man, without manure?"

1. When Baedeker's guide-books mention a thing and put two stars (**)after it, it means well worth visiting. M. T. 

[Interval of six months. ]

Paul Hoch comes to old Huss and says, "I am at last as rich as yourequired--come and view the pile. " Old Huss views it and says, "It issufficient--take her and be happy, "--meaning Gretchen. 

[Interval of two weeks. ]

Wedding party assembled in old Huss's drawing-room. Hoch placid andcontent, Gretchen weeping over her hard fate. Enter old Huss's headbookkeeper. Huss says fiercely, "I gave you three weeks to find out whyyour books don't balance, and to prove that you are not a defaulter;the time is up--find me the missing property or you go to prison asa thief. " Bookkeeper: "I have found it. " "Where?" Bookkeeper(sternly--tragically): "In the bridegroom's pile!--behold the thief--seehim blench and tremble!" [Sensation. ] Paul Hoch: "Lost, lost!"--fallsover the cow in a swoon and is handcuffed. Gretchen: "Saved!" Falls overthe calf in a swoon of joy, but is caught in the arms of Hans Schmidt, who springs in at that moment. Old Huss: "What, you here, varlet? Unhandthe maid and quit the place. " Hans (still supporting the insensiblegirl): "Never! Cruel old man, know that I come with claims which evenyou cannot despise. "

Huss: "What, YOU? name them. "

Hans: "Listen then. The world has forsaken me, I forsook the world, Iwandered in the solitude of the forest, longing for death but findingnone. I fed upon roots, and in my bitterness I dug for the bitterest, loathing the sweeter kind. Digging, three days agone, I struck a manuremine!--a Golconda, a limitless Bonanza, of solid manure! I can buy youALL, and have mountain ranges of manure left! Ha-ha, NOW thou smilest asmile!" [Immense sensation. ] Exhibition of specimens from the mine. OldHuss (enthusiastically): "Wake her up, shake her up, noble young man, she is yours!" Wedding takes place on the spot; bookkeeper restored tohis office and emoluments; Paul Hoch led off to jail. The Bonanza kingof the Black Forest lives to a good old age, blessed with the love ofhis wife and of his twenty-seven children, and the still sweeter envy ofeverybody around. 

We took our noon meal of fried trout one day at the Plow Inn, in a verypretty village (Ottenhoefen), and then went into the public room to restand smoke. There we found nine or ten Black Forest grandees assembledaround a table. They were the Common Council of the parish. They hadgathered there at eight o'clock that morning to elect a new member, andthey had now been drinking beer four hours at the new member's expense. 

They were men of fifty or sixty years of age, with grave good-naturedfaces, and were all dressed in the costume made familiar to us by theBlack Forest stories; broad, round-topped black felt hats with the brimscurled up all round; long red waistcoats with large metal buttons, blackalpaca coats with the waists up between the shoulders. There were nospeeches, there was but little talk, there were no frivolities; theCouncil filled themselves gradually, steadily, but surely, with beer, and conducted themselves with sedate decorum, as became men of position, men of influence, men of manure. 

We had a hot afternoon tramp up the valley, along the grassy bank of arushing stream of clear water, past farmhouses, water-mills, and no endof wayside crucifixes and saints and Virgins. These crucifixes, etc. , are set up in memory of departed friends, by survivors, and are almostas frequent as telegraph-poles are in other lands. 

We followed the carriage-road, and had our usual luck; we traveled undera beating sun, and always saw the shade leave the shady places before wecould get to them. In all our wanderings we seldom managed to strikea piece of road at its time for being shady. We had a particularly hottime of it on that particular afternoon, and with no comfort but what wecould get out of the fact that the peasants at work away up on the steepmountainsides above our heads were even worse off than we were. By andby it became impossible to endure the intolerable glare and heatany longer; so we struck across the ravine and entered the deep cooltwilight of the forest, to hunt for what the guide-book called the "oldroad. "

We found an old road, and it proved eventually to be the right one, though we followed it at the time with the conviction that it was thewrong one. If it was the wrong one there could be no use in hurrying;therefore we did not hurry, but sat down frequently on the soft moss andenjoyed the restful quiet and shade of the forest solitudes. Therehad been distractions in the carriage-road--school-children, peasants, wagons, troops of pedestrianizing students from all over Germany--but wehad the old road to ourselves. 

Now and then, while we rested, we watched the laborious ant at his work. I found nothing new in him--certainly nothing to change my opinion ofhim. It seems to me that in the matter of intellect the ant must be astrangely overrated bird. During many summers, now, I have watched him, when I ought to have been in better business, and I have not yet comeacross a living ant that seemed to have any more sense than a dead one. I refer to the ordinary ant, of course; I have had no experience ofthose wonderful Swiss and African ones which vote, keep drilled armies, hold slaves, and dispute about religion. Those particular ants may beall that the naturalist paints them, but I am persuaded that theaverage ant is a sham. I admit his industry, of course; he is thehardest-working creature in the world--when anybody is looking--buthis leather-headedness is the point I make against him. He goes outforaging, he makes a capture, and then what does he do? Go home? No--hegoes anywhere but home. He doesn't know where home is. His home may beonly three feet away--no matter, he can't find it. He makes his capture, as I have said; it is generally something which can be of no sort ofuse to himself or anybody else; it is usually seven times bigger thanit ought to be; he hunts out the awkwardest place to take hold of it;he lifts it bodily up in the air by main force, and starts; not towardhome, but in the opposite direction; not calmly and wisely, but with afrantic haste which is wasteful of his strength; he fetches up againsta pebble, and instead of going around it, he climbs over it backwarddragging his booty after him, tumbles down on the other side, jumps upin a passion, kicks the dust off his clothes, moistens his hands, grabshis property viciously, yanks it this way, then that, shoves it aheadof him a moment, turns tail and lugs it after him another moment, gets madder and madder, then presently hoists it into the air and goestearing away in an entirely new direction; comes to a weed; it neveroccurs to him to go around it; no, he must climb it; and he does climbit, dragging his worthless property to the top--which is as brighta thing to do as it would be for me to carry a sack of flour fromHeidelberg to Paris by way of Strasburg steeple; when he gets up therehe finds that that is not the place; takes a cursory glance at thescenery and either climbs down again or tumbles down, and starts offonce more--as usual, in a new direction. At the end of half an hour, hefetches up within six inches of the place he started from and lays hisburden down; meantime he has been over all the ground for two yardsaround, and climbed all the weeds and pebbles he came across. Now hewipes the sweat from his brow, strokes his limbs, and then marchesaimlessly off, in as violently a hurry as ever. He does not remember tohave ever seen it before; he looks around to see which is not the wayhome, grabs his bundle and starts; he goes through the same adventureshe had before; finally stops to rest, and a friend comes along. Evidently the friend remarks that a last year's grasshopper leg is avery noble acquisition, and inquires where he got it. 

Evidently the proprietor does not remember exactly where he did getit, but thinks he got it "around here somewhere. " Evidently the friendcontracts to help him freight it home. Then, with a judgment peculiarlyantic (pun not intended), they take hold of opposite ends of thatgrasshopper leg and begin to tug with all their might in oppositedirections. Presently they take a rest and confer together. They decidethat something is wrong, they can't make out what. Then they go atit again, just as before. Same result. Mutual recriminations follow. Evidently each accuses the other of being an obstructionist. They lockthemselves together and chew each other's jaws for a while; then theyroll and tumble on the ground till one loses a horn or a leg and has tohaul off for repairs. They make up and go to work again in the same oldinsane way, but the crippled ant is at a disadvantage; tug as he may, the other one drags off the booty and him at the end of it. Insteadof giving up, he hangs on, and gets his shins bruised against everyobstruction that comes in the way. By and by, when that grasshopper leghas been dragged all over the same old ground once more, it is finallydumped at about the spot where it originally lay, the two perspiringants inspect it thoughtfully and decide that dried grasshopper legsare a poor sort of property after all, and then each starts off in adifferent direction to see if he can't find an old nail or somethingelse that is heavy enough to afford entertainment and at the same timevalueless enough to make an ant want to own it. 

There in the Black Forest, on the mountainside, I saw an ant go throughwith such a performance as this with a dead spider of fully ten timeshis own weight. The spider was not quite dead, but too far gone toresist. He had a round body the size of a pea. The little ant--observingthat I was noticing--turned him on his back, sunk his fangs into histhroat, lifted him into the air and started vigorously off with him, stumbling over little pebbles, stepping on the spider's legs andtripping himself up, dragging him backward, shoving him bodily ahead, dragging him up stones six inches high instead of going around them, climbing weeds twenty times his own height and jumping from theirsummits--and finally leaving him in the middle of the road to beconfiscated by any other fool of an ant that wanted him. I measured theground which this ass traversed, and arrived at the conclusion that whathe had accomplished inside of twenty minutes would constitute somesuch job as this--relatively speaking--for a man; to wit: to strap twoeight-hundred-pound horses together, carry them eighteen hundred feet, mainly over (not around) boulders averaging six feet high, and in thecourse of the journey climb up and jump from the top of one precipicelike Niagara, and three steeples, each a hundred and twenty feet high;and then put the horses down, in an exposed place, without anybody towatch them, and go off to indulge in some other idiotic miracle forvanity's sake. 

Science has recently discovered that the ant does not lay up anythingfor winter use. This will knock him out of literature, to some extent. He does not work, except when people are looking, and only then when theobserver has a green, naturalistic look, and seems to be taking notes. This amounts to deception, and will injure him for the Sunday-schools. He has not judgment enough to know what is good to eat from what isn't. This amounts to ignorance, and will impair the world's respect forhim. He cannot stroll around a stump and find his way home again. Thisamounts to idiocy, and once the damaging fact is established, thoughtfulpeople will cease to look up to him, the sentimental will cease tofondle him. His vaunted industry is but a vanity and of no effect, sincehe never gets home with anything he starts with. This disposes of thelast remnant of his reputation and wholly destroys his main usefulnessas a moral agent, since it will make the sluggard hesitate to go to himany more. It is strange, beyond comprehension, that so manifest a humbugas the ant has been able to fool so many nations and keep it up so manyages without being found out. 

The ant is strong, but we saw another strong thing, where we had notsuspected the presence of much muscular power before. A toadstool--thatvegetable which springs to full growth in a single night--had torn looseand lifted a matted mass of pine needles and dirt of twice its own bulkinto the air, and supported it there, like a column supporting a shed. Ten thousand toadstools, with the right purchase, could lift a man, Isuppose. But what good would it do?

All our afternoon's progress had been uphill. About five or half past wereached the summit, and all of a sudden the dense curtain of the forestparted and we looked down into a deep and beautiful gorge and out over awide panorama of wooded mountains with their summits shining in the sunand their glade-furrowed sides dimmed with purple shade. The gorge underour feet--called Allerheiligen--afforded room in the grassy level at itshead for a cozy and delightful human nest, shut away from the world andits botherations, and consequently the monks of the old times had notfailed to spy it out; and here were the brown and comely ruins of theirchurch and convent to prove that priests had as fine an instinct sevenhundred years ago in ferreting out the choicest nooks and corners in aland as priests have today. 

A big hotel crowds the ruins a little, now, and drives a brisk tradewith summer tourists. We descended into the gorge and had a supper whichwould have been very satisfactory if the trout had not been boiled. The Germans are pretty sure to boil a trout or anything else if left totheir own devices. This is an argument of some value in support of thetheory that they were the original colonists of the wild islands of thecoast of Scotland. A schooner laden with oranges was wrecked upon oneof those islands a few years ago, and the gentle savages rendered thecaptain such willing assistance that he gave them as many oranges asthey wanted. Next day he asked them how they liked them. They shooktheir heads and said:

"Baked, they were tough; and even boiled, they warn't things for ahungry man to hanker after. "

We went down the glen after supper. It is beautiful--a mixture of sylvanloveliness and craggy wildness. A limpid torrent goes whistling downthe glen, and toward the foot of it winds through a narrow cleft betweenlofty precipices and hurls itself over a succession of falls. After onepasses the last of these he has a backward glimpse at the falls whichis very pleasing--they rise in a seven-stepped stairway of foamy andglittering cascades, and make a picture which is as charming as it isunusual. 

CHAPTER XXIII

[Nicodemus Dodge and the Skeleton]

We were satisfied that we could walk to Oppenau in one day, now thatwe were in practice; so we set out the next morning after breakfastdetermined to do it. It was all the way downhill, and we had theloveliest summer weather for it. So we set the pedometer and thenstretched away on an easy, regular stride, down through the clovenforest, drawing in the fragrant breath of the morning in deep refreshingdraughts, and wishing we might never have anything to do forever butwalk to Oppenau and keep on doing it and then doing it over again. 

Now, the true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walking, orin the scenery, but in the talking. The walking is good to time themovement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirredup and active; the scenery and the woodsy smells are good to bear inupon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm and solace to eye andsoul and sense; but the supreme pleasure comes from the talk. It is nomatter whether one talks wisdom or nonsense, the case is the same, thebulk of the enjoyment lies in the wagging of the gladsome jaw and theflapping of the sympathetic ear. 

And what motley variety of subjects a couple of people will casuallyrake over in the course of a day's tramp! There being no constraint, a change of subject is always in order, and so a body is not likely tokeep pegging at a single topic until it grows tiresome. We discussedeverything we knew, during the first fifteen or twenty minutes, thatmorning, and then branched out into the glad, free, boundless realm ofthe things we were not certain about. 

Harris said that if the best writer in the world once got the slovenlyhabit of doubling up his "haves" he could never get rid of it while helived. That is to say, if a man gets the habit of saying "I shouldhave liked to have known more about it" instead of saying simply andsensibly, "I should have liked to know more about it, " that man'sdisease is incurable. Harris said that his sort of lapse is to be foundin every copy of every newspaper that has ever been printed in English, and in almost all of our books. He said he had observed it in Kirkham'sgrammar and in Macaulay. Harris believed that milk-teeth are commoner inmen's mouths than those "doubled-up haves. "

I do not know that there have not been moments in the course of thepresent session when I should have been very glad to have accepted theproposal of my noble friend, and to have exchanged parts in some of ourevenings of work. --[From a Speech of the English Chancellor of theExchequer, August, 1879. ]

That changed the subject to dentistry. I said I believed the averageman dreaded tooth-pulling more than amputation, and that he would yellquicker under the former operation than he would under the latter. Thephilosopher Harris said that the average man would not yell in eithercase if he had an audience. Then he continued:

"When our brigade first went into camp on the Potomac, we used to bebrought up standing, occasionally, by an ear-splitting howl of anguish. That meant that a soldier was getting a tooth pulled in a tent. But thesurgeons soon changed that; they instituted open-air dentistry. Therenever was a howl afterward--that is, from the man who was having thetooth pulled. At the daily dental hour there would always be about fivehundred soldiers gathered together in the neighborhood of that dentalchair waiting to see the performance--and help; and the moment thesurgeon took a grip on the candidate's tooth and began to lift, everyone of those five hundred rascals would clap his hand to his jaw andbegin to hop around on one leg and howl with all the lungs he had!It was enough to raise your hair to hear that variegated and enormousunanimous caterwaul burst out!

With so big and so derisive an audience as that, a sufferer wouldn'temit a sound though you pulled his head off. The surgeons said thatpretty often a patient was compelled to laugh, in the midst of hispangs, but that they had never caught one crying out, after the open-airexhibition was instituted. "

Dental surgeons suggested doctors, doctors suggested death, deathsuggested skeletons--and so, by a logical process the conversationmelted out of one of these subjects and into the next, until the topicof skeletons raised up Nicodemus Dodge out of the deep grave in mymemory where he had lain buried and forgotten for twenty-five years. When I was a boy in a printing-office in Missouri, a loose-jointed, long-legged, tow-headed, jeans-clad countrified cub of about sixteenlounged in one day, and without removing his hands from the depths ofhis trousers pockets or taking off his faded ruin of a slouch hat, whosebroken rim hung limp and ragged about his eyes and ears like a bug-eatencabbage leaf, stared indifferently around, then leaned his hip againstthe editor's table, crossed his mighty brogans, aimed at a distantfly from a crevice in his upper teeth, laid him low, and said withcomposure:

"Whar's the boss?"

"I am the boss, " said the editor, following this curious bit ofarchitecture wonderingly along up to its clock-face with his eye. 

"Don't want anybody fur to learn the business, 'tain't likely?"

"Well, I don't know. Would you like to learn it?"

"Pap's so po' he cain't run me no mo', so I want to git a show somers ifI kin, 'taint no diffunce what--I'm strong and hearty, and I don't turnmy back on no kind of work, hard nur soft. "

"Do you think you would like to learn the printing business?"

"Well, I don't re'ly k'yer a durn what I DO learn, so's I git a chancefur to make my way. I'd jist as soon learn print'n's anything. "

"Can you read?"

"Yes--middlin'. "

"Write?"

"Well, I've seed people could lay over me thar. "

"Cipher?"

"Not good enough to keep store, I don't reckon, but up as fur astwelve-times-twelve I ain't no slouch. 'Tother side of that is what gitsme. "

"Where is your home?"

"I'm f'm old Shelby. "

"What's your father's religious denomination?"

"Him? Oh, he's a blacksmith. "

"No, no--I don't mean his trade. What's his RELIGIOUS DENOMINATION?"

"OH--I didn't understand you befo'. He's a Freemason. "

"No, no, you don't get my meaning yet. What I mean is, does he belong toany CHURCH?"

"NOW you're talkin'! Couldn't make out what you was a-tryin' to gitthrough yo' head no way. B'long to a CHURCH! Why, boss, he's ben thepizenest kind of Free-will Babtis' for forty year. They ain't no pizenerones 'n what HE is. Mighty good man, pap is. Everybody says that. Ifthey said any diffrunt they wouldn't say it whar I wuz--not MUCH theywouldn't. "

"What is your own religion?"

"Well, boss, you've kind o' got me, there--and yit you hain't got me somighty much, nuther. I think 't if a feller he'ps another feller whenhe's in trouble, and don't cuss, and don't do no mean things, nurnoth'n' he ain' no business to do, and don't spell the Saviour's namewith a little g, he ain't runnin' no resks--he's about as saift as heb'longed to a church. "

"But suppose he did spell it with a little g--what then?"

"Well, if he done it a-purpose, I reckon he wouldn't stand no chance--heOUGHTN'T to have no chance, anyway, I'm most rotten certain 'bout that. "

"What is your name?"

"Nicodemus Dodge. "

"I think maybe you'll do, Nicodemus. We'll give you a trial, anyway. "

"All right. "

"When would you like to begin?"

"Now. "

So, within ten minutes after we had first glimpsed this nondescript hewas one of us, and with his coat off and hard at it. 

Beyond that end of our establishment which was furthest from the street, was a deserted garden, pathless, and thickly grown with the bloomy andvillainous "jimpson" weed and its common friend the stately sunflower. In the midst of this mournful spot was a decayed and aged little "frame"house with but one room, one window, and no ceiling--it had been asmoke-house a generation before. Nicodemus was given this lonely andghostly den as a bedchamber. 

The village smarties recognized a treasure in Nicodemus, right away--abutt to play jokes on. It was easy to see that he was inconceivablygreen and confiding. George Jones had the glory of perpetrating thefirst joke on him; he gave him a cigar with a firecracker in it andwinked to the crowd to come; the thing exploded presently and swept awaythe bulk of Nicodemus's eyebrows and eyelashes. He simply said:

"I consider them kind of seeg'yars dangersome, "--and seemed to suspectnothing. The next evening Nicodemus waylaid George and poured a bucketof ice-water over him. 

One day, while Nicodemus was in swimming, Tom McElroy "tied" hisclothes. Nicodemus made a bonfire of Tom's by way of retaliation. 

A third joke was played upon Nicodemus a day or two later--he walkedup the middle aisle of the village church, Sunday night, with a staringhandbill pinned between his shoulders. The joker spent the remainderof the night, after church, in the cellar of a deserted house, andNicodemus sat on the cellar door till toward breakfast-time to makesure that the prisoner remembered that if any noise was made, some roughtreatment would be the consequence. The cellar had two feet of stagnantwater in it, and was bottomed with six inches of soft mud. 

But I wander from the point. It was the subject of skeletons thatbrought this boy back to my recollection. Before a very long timehad elapsed, the village smarties began to feel an uncomfortableconsciousness of not having made a very shining success out of theirattempts on the simpleton from "old Shelby. " Experimenters grew scarceand chary. Now the young doctor came to the rescue. There was delightand applause when he proposed to scare Nicodemus to death, and explainedhow he was going to do it. He had a noble new skeleton--the skeleton ofthe late and only local celebrity, Jimmy Finn, the village drunkard--agrisly piece of property which he had bought of Jimmy Finn himself, atauction, for fifty dollars, under great competition, when Jimmy lay verysick in the tan-yard a fortnight before his death. The fifty dollars hadgone promptly for whiskey and had considerably hurried up the change ofownership in the skeleton. The doctor would put Jimmy Finn's skeleton inNicodemus's bed!

This was done--about half past ten in the evening. About Nicodemus'susual bedtime--midnight--the village jokers came creeping stealthilythrough the jimpson weeds and sunflowers toward the lonely frame den. They reached the window and peeped in. There sat the long-legged pauper, on his bed, in a very short shirt, and nothing more; he was danglinghis legs contentedly back and forth, and wheezing the music of "CamptownRaces" out of a paper-overlaid comb which he was pressing against hismouth; by him lay a new jewsharp, a new top, and solid india-rubberball, a handful of painted marbles, five pounds of "store" candy, anda well-gnawed slab of gingerbread as big and as thick as a volume ofsheet-music. He had sold the skeleton to a traveling quack for threedollars and was enjoying the result!

Just as we had finished talking about skeletons and were drifting intothe subject of fossils, Harris and I heard a shout, and glanced up thesteep hillside. We saw men and women standing away up there lookingfrightened, and there was a bulky object tumbling and floundering downthe steep slope toward us. We got out of the way, and when the objectlanded in the road it proved to be a boy. He had tripped and fallen, andthere was nothing for him to do but trust to luck and take what mightcome. 

When one starts to roll down a place like that, there is no stoppingtill the bottom is reached. Think of people FARMING on a slant which isso steep that the best you can say of it--if you want to be fastidiouslyaccurate--is, that it is a little steeper than a ladder and not quiteso steep as a mansard roof. But that is what they do. Some of the littlefarms on the hillside opposite Heidelberg were stood up "edgeways. "The boy was wonderfully jolted up, and his head was bleeding, from cutswhich it had got from small stones on the way. 

Harris and I gathered him up and set him on a stone, and by that timethe men and women had scampered down and brought his cap. 

Men, women, and children flocked out from neighboring cottagesand joined the crowd; the pale boy was petted, and stared at, andcommiserated, and water was brought for him to drink and bathe hisbruises in. And such another clatter of tongues! All who had seen thecatastrophe were describing it at once, and each trying to talk louderthan his neighbor; and one youth of a superior genius ran a little wayup the hill, called attention, tripped, fell, rolled down among us, andthus triumphantly showed exactly how the thing had been done. 

Harris and I were included in all the descriptions; how we were comingalong; how Hans Gross shouted; how we looked up startled; how we sawPeter coming like a cannon-shot; how judiciously we got out of the way, and let him come; and with what presence of mind we picked him up andbrushed him off and set him on a rock when the performance was over. We were as much heroes as anybody else, except Peter, and were sorecognized; we were taken with Peter and the populace to Peter'smother's cottage, and there we ate bread and cheese, and drank milk andbeer with everybody, and had a most sociable good time; and when we leftwe had a handshake all around, and were receiving and shouting back LEB'WOHL's until a turn in the road separated us from our cordial and kindlynew friends forever. 

We accomplished our undertaking. At half past eight in the eveningwe stepped into Oppenau, just eleven hours and a half out ofAllerheiligen--one hundred and forty-six miles. This is the distance bypedometer; the guide-book and the Imperial Ordinance maps make it onlyten and a quarter--a surprising blunder, for these two authorities areusually singularly accurate in the matter of distances. 

CHAPTER XXIV

[I Protect the Empress of Germany]

That was a thoroughly satisfactory walk--and the only one we were everto have which was all the way downhill. We took the train next morningand returned to Baden-Baden through fearful fogs of dust. Every seat wascrowded, too; for it was Sunday, and consequently everybody was takinga "pleasure" excursion. Hot! the sky was an oven--and a sound one, too, with no cracks in it to let in any air. An odd time for a pleasureexcursion, certainly!

Sunday is the great day on the continent--the free day, the happy day. One can break the Sabbath in a hundred ways without committing any sin. 

We do not work on Sunday, because the commandment forbids it; theGermans do not work on Sunday, because the commandment forbids it. Werest on Sunday, because the commandment requires it; the Germans rest onSunday because the commandment requires it. But in the definition ofthe word "rest" lies all the difference. With us, its Sunday meaningis, stay in the house and keep still; with the Germans its Sunday andweek-day meanings seem to be the same--rest the TIRED PART, and nevermind the other parts of the frame; rest the tired part, and use themeans best calculated to rest that particular part. Thus: If one'sduties have kept him in the house all the week, it will rest him tobe out on Sunday; if his duties have required him to read weighty andserious matter all the week, it will rest him to read light matter onSunday; if his occupation has busied him with death and funerals all theweek, it will rest him to go to the theater Sunday night and put in twoor three hours laughing at a comedy; if he is tired with digging ditchesor felling trees all the week, it will rest him to lie quiet in thehouse on Sunday; if the hand, the arm, the brain, the tongue, or anyother member, is fatigued with inanition, it is not to be rested byaddeding a day's inanition; but if a member is fatigued with exertion, inanition is the right rest for it. Such is the way in which the Germansseem to define the word "rest"; that is to say, they rest a member byrecreating, recuperating, restoring its forces. But our definition isless broad. We all rest alike on Sunday--by secluding ourselves andkeeping still, whether that is the surest way to rest the most of us ornot. The Germans make the actors, the preachers, etc. , work on Sunday. We encourage the preachers, the editors, the printers, etc. , to work onSunday, and imagine that none of the sin of it falls upon us; but I donot know how we are going to get around the fact that if it is wrong forthe printer to work at his trade on Sunday it must be equally wrong forthe preacher to work at his, since the commandment has made no exceptionin his favor. We buy Monday morning's paper and read it, and thusencourage Sunday printing. But I shall never do it again. 

The Germans remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy, by abstainingfrom work, as commanded; we keep it holy by abstaining from work, ascommanded, and by also abstaining from play, which is not commanded. Perhaps we constructively BREAK the command to rest, because the restingwe do is in most cases only a name, and not a fact. 

These reasonings have sufficed, in a measure, to mend the rent in myconscience which I made by traveling to Baden-Baden that Sunday. Wearrived in time to furbish up and get to the English church beforeservices began. We arrived in considerable style, too, for the landlordhad ordered the first carriage that could be found, since there was notime to lose, and our coachman was so splendidly liveried that we wereprobably mistaken for a brace of stray dukes; why else were we honoredwith a pew all to ourselves, away up among the very elect at the left ofthe chancel? That was my first thought. In the pew directly in front ofus sat an elderly lady, plainly and cheaply dressed; at her side sata young lady with a very sweet face, and she also was quite simplydressed; but around us and about us were clothes and jewels which itwould do anybody's heart good to worship in. 

I thought it was pretty manifest that the elderly lady was embarrassedat finding herself in such a conspicuous place arrayed in such cheapapparel; I began to feel sorry for her and troubled about her. Shetried to seem very busy with her prayer-book and her responses, andunconscious that she was out of place, but I said to myself, "She isnot succeeding--there is a distressed tremulousness in her voice whichbetrays increasing embarrassment. " Presently the Savior's name wasmentioned, and in her flurry she lost her head completely, and rose andcourtesied, instead of making a slight nod as everybody else did. Thesympathetic blood surged to my temples and I turned and gave those finebirds what I intended to be a beseeching look, but my feelings got thebetter of me and changed it into a look which said, "If any of you petsof fortune laugh at this poor soul, you will deserve to be flayed forit. " Things went from bad to worse, and I shortly found myself mentallytaking the unfriended lady under my protection. My mind was wholly uponher. I forgot all about the sermon. Her embarrassment took strongerand stronger hold upon her; she got to snapping the lid of hersmelling-bottle--it made a loud, sharp sound, but in her trouble shesnapped and snapped away, unconscious of what she was doing. The lastextremity was reached when the collection-plate began its rounds; themoderate people threw in pennies, the nobles and the rich contributedsilver, but she laid a twenty-mark gold piece upon the book-rest beforeher with a sounding slap! I said to myself, "She has parted with all herlittle hoard to buy the consideration of these unpitying people--it is asorrowful spectacle. " I did not venture to look around this time; butas the service closed, I said to myself, "Let them laugh, it is theiropportunity; but at the door of this church they shall see her step intoour fine carriage with us, and our gaudy coachman shall drive her home. "

Then she rose--and all the congregation stood while she walked down theaisle. She was the Empress of Germany!

No--she had not been so much embarrassed as I had supposed. Myimagination had got started on the wrong scent, and that is alwayshopeless; one is sure, then, to go straight on misinterpretingeverything, clear through to the end. The young lady with her imperialMajesty was a maid of honor--and I had been taking her for one of herboarders, all the time. 

This is the only time I have ever had an Empress under my personalprotection; and considering my inexperience, I wonder I got throughwith it so well. I should have been a little embarrassed myself if I hadknown earlier what sort of a contract I had on my hands. 

We found that the Empress had been in Baden-Baden several days. It issaid that she never attends any but the English form of church service. 

I lay abed and read and rested from my journey's fatigues the remainderof that Sunday, but I sent my agent to represent me at the afternoonservice, for I never allow anything to interfere with my habit ofattending church twice every Sunday. 

There was a vast crowd in the public grounds that night to hear the bandplay the "Fremersberg. " This piece tells one of the old legends of theregion; how a great noble of the Middle Ages got lost in the mountains, and wandered about with his dogs in a violent storm, until at lastthe faint tones of a monastery bell, calling the monks to a midnightservice, caught his ear, and he followed the direction the sounds camefrom and was saved. A beautiful air ran through the music, withoutceasing, sometimes loud and strong, sometimes so soft that it couldhardly be distinguished--but it was always there; it swung grandly alongthrough the shrill whistling of the storm-wind, the rattling patter ofthe rain, and the boom and crash of the thunder; it wound soft and lowthrough the lesser sounds, the distant ones, such as the throbbingof the convent bell, the melodious winding of the hunter's horn, thedistressed bayings of his dogs, and the solemn chanting of the monks;it rose again, with a jubilant ring, and mingled itself with the countrysongs and dances of the peasants assembled in the convent hall tocheer up the rescued huntsman while he ate his supper. The instrumentsimitated all these sounds with a marvelous exactness. More than one manstarted to raise his umbrella when the storm burst forth and the sheetsof mimic rain came driving by; it was hardly possible to keep fromputting your hand to your hat when the fierce wind began to rage andshriek; and it was NOT possible to refrain from starting when thosesudden and charmingly real thunder-crashes were let loose. 

I suppose the "Fremersberg" is a very low-grade music; I know, indeed, that it MUST be low-grade music, because it delighted me, warmed me, moved me, stirred me, uplifted me, enraptured me, that I was full ofcry all the time, and mad with enthusiasm. My soul had never had such ascouring out since I was born. The solemn and majestic chanting of themonks was not done by instruments, but by men's voices; and it roseand fell, and rose again in that rich confusion of warring sounds, andpulsing bells, and the stately swing of that ever-present enchantingair, and it seemed to me that nothing but the very lowest of low-grademusic COULD be so divinely beautiful. The great crowd which the"Fremersberg" had called out was another evidence that it was low-grademusic; for only the few are educated up to a point where high-grademusic gives pleasure. I have never heard enough classic music to be ableto enjoy it. I dislike the opera because I want to love it and can't. 

I suppose there are two kinds of music--one kind which one feels, justas an oyster might, and another sort which requires a higher faculty, a faculty which must be assisted and developed by teaching. Yet if basemusic gives certain of us wings, why should we want any other? But wedo. We want it because the higher and better like it. We want it withoutgiving it the necessary time and trouble; so we climb into that uppertier, that dress-circle, by a lie; we PRETEND we like it. I know severalof that sort of people--and I propose to be one of them myself when Iget home with my fine European education. 

And then there is painting. What a red rag is to a bull, Turner's "SlaveShip" was to me, before I studied art. Mr. Ruskin is educated in artup to a point where that picture throws him into as mad an ecstasy ofpleasure as it used to throw me into one of rage, last year, when I wasignorant. His cultivation enables him--and me, now--to see water in thatglaring yellow mud, and natural effects in those lurid explosionsof mixed smoke and flame, and crimson sunset glories; it reconcileshim--and me, now--to the floating of iron cable-chains and otherunfloatable things; it reconciles us to fishes swimming around on topof the mud--I mean the water. The most of the picture is a manifestimpossibility--that is to say, a lie; and only rigid cultivation canenable a man to find truth in a lie. But it enabled Mr. Ruskin to doit, and it has enabled me to do it, and I am thankful for it. A Bostonnewspaper reporter went and took a look at the Slave Ship flounderingabout in that fierce conflagration of reds and yellows, and said itreminded him of a tortoise-shell cat having a fit in a platterof tomatoes. In my then uneducated state, that went home to mynon-cultivation, and I thought here is a man with an unobstructed eye. Mr. Ruskin would have said: This person is an ass. That is what I wouldsay, now. 

Months after this was written, I happened into the National Gallery inLondon, and soon became so fascinated with the Turner pictures that Icould hardly get away from the place. I went there often, afterward, meaning to see the rest of the gallery, but the Turner spell was toostrong; it could not be shaken off. However, the Turners which attractedme most did not remind me of the Slave Ship. 

However, our business in Baden-Baden this time, was to join our courier. I had thought it best to hire one, as we should be in Italy, by and by, and we did not know the language. Neither did he. We found him at thehotel, ready to take charge of us. I asked him if he was "all fixed. " Hesaid he was. That was very true. He had a trunk, two small satchels, and an umbrella. I was to pay him fifty-five dollars a month and railwayfares. On the continent the railway fare on a trunk is about the sameit is on a man. Couriers do not have to pay any board and lodging. Thisseems a great saving to the tourist--at first. It does not occur to thetourist that SOMEBODY pays that man's board and lodging. It occurs tohim by and by, however, in one of his lucid moments. 

CHAPTER XXV

[Hunted by the Little Chamois]

Next morning we left in the train for Switzerland, and reached Lucerneabout ten o'clock at night. The first discovery I made was that thebeauty of the lake had not been exaggerated. Within a day or two I madeanother discovery. This was, that the lauded chamois is not a wild goat;that it is not a horned animal; that it is not shy; that it does notavoid human society; and that there is no peril in hunting it. 

The chamois is a black or brown creature no bigger than a mustard seed;you do not have to go after it, it comes after you; it arrives in vastherds and skips and scampers all over your body, inside your clothes;thus it is not shy, but extremely sociable; it is not afraid of man, onthe contrary, it will attack him; its bite is not dangerous, but neitheris it pleasant; its activity has not been overstated --if you try to putyour finger on it, it will skip a thousand times its own length at onejump, and no eye is sharp enough to see where it lights. A great dealof romantic nonsense has been written about the Swiss chamois and theperils of hunting it, whereas the truth is that even women and childrenhunt it, and fearlessly; indeed, everybody hunts it; the hunting isgoing on all the time, day and night, in bed and out of it. It is poeticfoolishness to hunt it with a gun; very few people do that; there isnot one man in a million who can hit it with a gun. It is much easier tocatch it than it is to shoot it, and only the experienced chamois-huntercan do either. Another common piece of exaggeration is that about the"scarcity" of the chamois. It is the reverse of scarce. Droves of onehundred million chamois are not unusual in the Swiss hotels. Indeed, they are so numerous as to be a great pest. The romancers always dressup the chamois-hunter in a fanciful and picturesque costume, whereas thebest way to hunt this game is to do it without any costume at all. 

The article of commerce called chamois-skin is another fraud; nobodycould skin a chamois, it is too small. The creature is a humbug inevery way, and everything which has been written about it is sentimentalexaggeration. It was no pleasure to me to find the chamois out, for hehad been one of my pet illusions; all my life it had been my dream tosee him in his native wilds some day, and engage in the adventuroussport of chasing him from cliff to cliff. It is no pleasure to me toexpose him, now, and destroy the reader's delight in him and respect forhim, but still it must be done, for when an honest writer discovers animposition it is his simple duty to strip it bare and hurl it down fromits place of honor, no matter who suffers by it; any other course wouldrender him unworthy of the public confidence. 

Lucerne is a charming place. It begins at the water's edge, with afringe of hotels, and scrambles up and spreads itself over two or threesharp hills in a crowded, disorderly, but picturesque way, offeringto the eye a heaped-up confusion of red roofs, quaint gables, dormerwindows, toothpick steeples, with here and there a bit of ancientembattled wall bending itself over the ridges, worm-fashion, and hereand there an old square tower of heavy masonry. And also here and therea town clock with only one hand--a hand which stretches across the dialand has no joint in it; such a clock helps out the picture, but youcannot tell the time of day by it. Between the curving line of hotelsand the lake is a broad avenue with lamps and a double rank of low shadetrees. The lake-front is walled with masonry like a pier, and hasa railing, to keep people from walking overboard. All day long thevehicles dash along the avenue, and nurses, children, and tourists sitin the shade of the trees, or lean on the railing and watch the schoolsof fishes darting about in the clear water, or gaze out over the lakeat the stately border of snow-hooded mountain peaks. Little pleasuresteamers, black with people, are coming and going all the time; andeverywhere one sees young girls and young men paddling about in fancifulrowboats, or skimming along by the help of sails when there is any wind. The front rooms of the hotels have little railed balconies, where onemay take his private luncheon in calm, cool comfort and look down uponthis busy and pretty scene and enjoy it without having to do any of thework connected with it. 

Most of the people, both male and female, are in walking costume, andcarry alpenstocks. Evidently, it is not considered safe to go about inSwitzerland, even in town, without an alpenstock. If the tourist forgetsand comes down to breakfast without his alpenstock he goes back and getsit, and stands it up in the corner. When his touring in Switzerland isfinished, he does not throw that broomstick away, but lugs it homewith him, to the far corners of the earth, although this costs himmore trouble and bother than a baby or a courier could. You see, thealpenstock is his trophy; his name is burned upon it; and if he hasclimbed a hill, or jumped a brook, or traversed a brickyard with it, hehas the names of those places burned upon it, too. 

Thus it is his regimental flag, so to speak, and bears the record of hisachievements. It is worth three francs when he buys it, but a bonanzacould not purchase it after his great deeds have been inscribed upon it. There are artisans all about Switzerland whose trade it is to burnthese things upon the alpenstock of the tourist. And observe, a man isrespected in Switzerland according to his alpenstock. I found I couldget no attention there, while I carried an unbranded one. However, branding is not expected, so I soon remedied that. The effect uponthe next detachment of tourists was very marked. I felt repaid for mytrouble. 

Half of the summer horde in Switzerland is made up of English people;the other half is made up of many nationalities, the Germans leading andthe Americans coming next. The Americans were not as numerous as I hadexpected they would be. 

The seven-thirty table d'hôte at the great Schweitzerhof furnisheda mighty array and variety of nationalities, but it offered a betteropportunity to observe costumes than people, for the multitude satat immensely long tables, and therefore the faces were mainly seen inperspective; but the breakfasts were served at small round tables, and then if one had the fortune to get a table in the midst of theassemblage he could have as many faces to study as he could desire. We used to try to guess out the nationalities, and generally succeededtolerably well. Sometimes we tried to guess people's names; but thatwas a failure; that is a thing which probably requires a good deal ofpractice. We presently dropped it and gave our efforts to less difficultparticulars. One morning I said:

"There is an American party. "

Harris said:

"Yes--but name the state. "

I named one state, Harris named another. We agreed upon one thing, however--that the young girl with the party was very beautiful, andvery tastefully dressed. But we disagreed as to her age. I said she waseighteen, Harris said she was twenty. The dispute between us waxed warm, and I finally said, with a pretense of being in earnest:

"Well, there is one way to settle the matter--I will go and ask her. "

Harris said, sarcastically, "Certainly, that is the thing to do. All youneed to do is to use the common formula over here: go and say, 'I'm anAmerican!' Of course she will be glad to see you. "

Then he hinted that perhaps there was no great danger of my venturing tospeak to her. 

I said, "I was only talking--I didn't intend to approach her, but I seethat you do not know what an intrepid person I am. I am not afraid ofany woman that walks. I will go and speak to this young girl. "

The thing I had in my mind was not difficult. I meant to address herin the most respectful way and ask her to pardon me if her strongresemblance to a former acquaintance of mine was deceiving me; and whenshe should reply that the name I mentioned was not the name she bore, Imeant to beg pardon again, most respectfully, and retire. There would beno harm done. I walked to her table, bowed to the gentleman, then turnedto her and was about to begin my little speech when she exclaimed:

"I KNEW I wasn't mistaken--I told John it was you! John said it probablywasn't, but I knew I was right. I said you would recognize me presentlyand come over; and I'm glad you did, for I shouldn't have felt muchflattered if you had gone out of this room without recognizing me. Sit down, sit down--how odd it is--you are the last person I was everexpecting to see again. "

This was a stupefying surprise. It took my wits clear away, for aninstant. However, we shook hands cordially all around, and I sat down. But truly this was the tightest place I ever was in. I seemed to vaguelyremember the girl's face, now, but I had no idea where I had seen itbefore, or what name belonged with it. I immediately tried to get up adiversion about Swiss scenery, to keep her from launching into topicsthat might betray that I did not know her, but it was of no use, shewent right along upon matters which interested her more:

"Oh dear, what a night that was, when the sea washed the forward boatsaway--do you remember it?"

"Oh, DON'T I!" said I--but I didn't. I wished the sea had washed therudder and the smoke-stack and the captain away--then I could havelocated this questioner. 

"And don't you remember how frightened poor Mary was, and how shecried?"

"Indeed I do!" said I. "Dear me, how it all comes back!"

I fervently wished it WOULD come back--but my memory was a blank. Thewise way would have been to frankly own up; but I could not bring myselfto do that, after the young girl had praised me so for recognizing her;so I went on, deeper and deeper into the mire, hoping for a chance cluebut never getting one. The Unrecognizable continued, with vivacity:

"Do you know, George married Mary, after all?"

"Why, no! Did he?"

"Indeed he did. He said he did not believe she was half as much to blameas her father was, and I thought he was right. Didn't you?"

"Of course he was. It was a perfectly plain case. I always said so. "

"Why, no you didn't!--at least that summer. "

"Oh, no, not that summer. No, you are perfectly right about that. It wasthe following winter that I said it. "

"Well, as it turned out, Mary was not in the least to blame --it was allher father's fault--at least his and old Darley's. "

It was necessary to say something--so I said:

"I always regarded Darley as a troublesome old thing. "

"So he was, but then they always had a great affection for him, althoughhe had so many eccentricities. You remember that when the weather wasthe least cold, he would try to come into the house. "

I was rather afraid to proceed. Evidently Darley was not a man--hemust be some other kind of animal--possibly a dog, maybe an elephant. However, tails are common to all animals, so I ventured to say:

"And what a tail he had!"

"ONE! He had a thousand!"

This was bewildering. I did not quite know what to say, so I only said:

"Yes, he WAS rather well fixed in the matter of tails. "

"For a negro, and a crazy one at that, I should say he was, " said she. 

It was getting pretty sultry for me. I said to myself, "Is it possibleshe is going to stop there, and wait for me to speak? If she does, theconversation is blocked. A negro with a thousand tails is a topic whicha person cannot talk upon fluently and instructively without more orless preparation. As to diving rashly into such a vast subject--"

But here, to my gratitude, she interrupted my thoughts by saying:

"Yes, when it came to tales of his crazy woes, there was simply noend to them if anybody would listen. His own quarters were comfortableenough, but when the weather was cold, the family were sure to have hiscompany--nothing could keep him out of the house. But they always boreit kindly because he had saved Tom's life, years before. You rememberTom?

"Oh, perfectly. Fine fellow he was, too. "

"Yes he was. And what a pretty little thing his child was!"

"You may well say that. I never saw a prettier child. "

"I used to delight to pet it and dandle it and play with it. "

"So did I. "

"You named it. What WAS that name? I can't call it to mind. "

It appeared to me that the ice was getting pretty thin, here. I wouldhave given something to know what the child's was. However, I had thegood luck to think of a name that would fit either sex--so I brought itout:

"I named it Frances. "

"From a relative, I suppose? But you named the one that died, too--onethat I never saw. What did you call that one?"

I was out of neutral names, but as the child was dead and she hadnever seen it, I thought I might risk a name for it and trust to luck. Therefore I said:

"I called that one Thomas Henry. "

She said, musingly:

"That is very singular ... Very singular. "

I sat still and let the cold sweat run down. I was in a good deal oftrouble, but I believed I could worry through if she wouldn't ask meto name any more children. I wondered where the lightning was going tostrike next. She was still ruminating over that last child's title, butpresently she said:

"I have always been sorry you were away at the time--I would have hadyou name my child. "

"YOUR child! Are you married?"

"I have been married thirteen years. "

"Christened, you mean. "

`"No, married. The youth by your side is my son. "

"It seems incredible--even impossible. I do not mean any harm by it, butwould you mind telling me if you are any over eighteen?--that is to say, will you tell me how old you are?"

"I was just nineteen the day of the storm we were talking about. Thatwas my birthday. "

That did not help matters, much, as I did not know the date of thestorm. I tried to think of some non-committal thing to say, to keep upmy end of the talk, and render my poverty in the matter of reminiscencesas little noticeable as possible, but I seemed to be about out ofnon-committal things. I was about to say, "You haven't changed a bitsince then"--but that was risky. I thought of saying, "You have improvedever so much since then"--but that wouldn't answer, of course. I wasabout to try a shy at the weather, for a saving change, when the girlslipped in ahead of me and said:

"How I have enjoyed this talk over those happy old times--haven't you?"

"I never have spent such a half-hour in all my life before!" said I, with emotion; and I could have added, with a near approach to truth, "and I would rather be scalped than spend another one like it. " I washolily grateful to be through with the ordeal, and was about to make mygood-bys and get out, when the girl said:

"But there is one thing that is ever so puzzling to me. "

"Why, what is that?"

"That dead child's name. What did you say it was?"

Here was another balmy place to be in: I had forgotten the child's name;I hadn't imagined it would be needed again. However, I had to pretend toknow, anyway, so I said:

"Joseph William. "

The youth at my side corrected me, and said:

"No, Thomas Henry. "

I thanked him--in words--and said, with trepidation:

"O yes--I was thinking of another child that I named--I have nameda great many, and I get them confused--this one was named HenryThompson--"

"Thomas Henry, " calmly interposed the boy. 

I thanked him again--strictly in words--and stammered out:

"Thomas Henry--yes, Thomas Henry was the poor child's name. I namedhim for Thomas--er--Thomas Carlyle, the great author, you know--andHenry--er--er--Henry the Eighth. The parents were very grateful to havea child named Thomas Henry. "

"That makes it more singular than ever, " murmured my beautiful friend. 

"Does it? Why?"

"Because when the parents speak of that child now, they always call itSusan Amelia. "

That spiked my gun. I could not say anything. I was entirely out ofverbal obliquities; to go further would be to lie, and that I would notdo; so I simply sat still and suffered--sat mutely and resignedly there, and sizzled--for I was being slowly fried to death in my own blushes. Presently the enemy laughed a happy laugh and said:

"I HAVE enjoyed this talk over old times, but you have not. I saw verysoon that you were only pretending to know me, and so as I had wasted acompliment on you in the beginning, I made up my mind to punish you. AndI have succeeded pretty well. I was glad to see that you knew George andTom and Darley, for I had never heard of them before and therefore couldnot be sure that you had; and I was glad to learn the names of thoseimaginary children, too. One can get quite a fund of information outof you if one goes at it cleverly. Mary and the storm, and the sweepingaway of the forward boats, were facts--all the rest was fiction. Marywas my sister; her full name was Mary ------. NOW do you remember me?"

"Yes, " I said, "I do remember you now; and you are as hard-headed as youwere thirteen years ago in that ship, else you wouldn't have punished meso. You haven't changed your nature nor your person, in any way at all;you look as young as you did then, you are just as beautiful as you werethen, and you have transmitted a deal of your comeliness to this fineboy. There--if that speech moves you any, let's fly the flag of truce, with the understanding that I am conquered and confess it. "

All of which was agreed to and accomplished, on the spot. When I wentback to Harris, I said:

"Now you see what a person with talent and address can do. "

"Excuse me, I see what a person of colossal ignorance and simplicity cando. The idea of your going and intruding on a party of strangers, thatway, and talking for half an hour; why I never heard of a man in hisright mind doing such a thing before. What did you say to them?"

"I never said any harm. I merely asked the girl what her name was. "

"I don't doubt it. Upon my word I don't. I think you were capable of it. It was stupid in me to let you go over there and make such an exhibitionof yourself. But you know I couldn't really believe you would do such aninexcusable thing. What will those people think of us? But how did yousay it?--I mean the manner of it. I hope you were not abrupt. "

"No, I was careful about that. I said, 'My friend and I would like toknow what your name is, if you don't mind. '"

"No, that was not abrupt. There is a polish about it that does youinfinite credit. And I am glad you put me in; that was a delicateattention which I appreciate at its full value. What did she do?"

"She didn't do anything in particular. She told me her name. "

"Simply told you her name. Do you mean to say she did not show anysurprise?"

"Well, now I come to think, she did show something; maybe it wassurprise; I hadn't thought of that--I took it for gratification. "

"Oh, undoubtedly you were right; it must have been gratification; itcould not be otherwise than gratifying to be assaulted by a strangerwith such a question as that. Then what did you do?"

"I offered my hand and the party gave me a shake. "

"I saw it! I did not believe my own eyes, at the time. Did the gentlemansay anything about cutting your throat?"

"No, they all seemed glad to see me, as far as I could judge. "

"And do you know, I believe they were. I think they said to themselves, 'Doubtless this curiosity has got away from his keeper--let us amuseourselves with him. ' There is no other way of accounting for theirfacile docility. You sat down. Did they ASK you to sit down?"

"No, they did not ask me, but I suppose they did not think of it. "

"You have an unerring instinct. What else did you do? What did you talkabout?"

"Well, I asked the girl how old she was. "

"UNdoubtedly. Your delicacy is beyond praise. Go on, go on--don't mindmy apparent misery--I always look so when I am steeped in a profound andreverent joy. Go on--she told you her age?"

"Yes, she told me her age, and all about her mother, and hergrandmother, and her other relations, and all about herself. "

"Did she volunteer these statistics?"

"No, not exactly that. I asked the questions and she answered them. "

"This is divine. Go on--it is not possible that you forgot to inquireinto her politics?"

"No, I thought of that. She is a democrat, her husband is a republican, and both of them are Baptists. "

"Her husband? Is that child married?"

"She is not a child. She is married, and that is her husband who isthere with her. "

"Has she any children. "

"Yes--seven and a half. "

"That is impossible. "

"No, she has them. She told me herself. "

"Well, but seven and a HALF? How do you make out the half? Where doesthe half come in?"

"There is a child which she had by another husband--not this onebut another one--so it is a stepchild, and they do not count in fullmeasure. "

"Another husband? Has she another husband?"

"Yes, four. This one is number four. "

"I don't believe a word of it. It is impossible, upon its face. Is thatboy there her brother?"

"No, that is her son. He is her youngest. He is not as old as he looked;he is only eleven and a half. "

"These things are all manifestly impossible. This is a wretchedbusiness. It is a plain case: they simply took your measure, andconcluded to fill you up. They seem to have succeeded. I am glad I amnot in the mess; they may at least be charitable enough to think thereain't a pair of us. Are they going to stay here long?"

"No, they leave before noon. "

"There is one man who is deeply grateful for that. How did you find out?You asked, I suppose?"

"No, along at first I inquired into their plans, in a general way, andthey said they were going to be here a week, and make trips round about;but toward the end of the interview, when I said you and I would touraround with them with pleasure, and offered to bring you over andintroduce you, they hesitated a little, and asked if you were from thesame establishment that I was. I said you were, and then they said theyhad changed their mind and considered it necessary to start at once andvisit a sick relative in Siberia. "

"Ah, me, you struck the summit! You struck the loftiest altitude ofstupidity that human effort has ever reached. You shall have a monumentof jackasses' skulls as high as the Strasburg spire if you die beforeI do. They wanted to know I was from the same 'establishment' that youhailed from, did they? What did they mean by 'establishment'?"

"I don't know; it never occurred to me to ask. "

"Well I know. They meant an asylum--an IDIOT asylum, do you understand?So they DO think there's a pair of us, after all. Now what do you thinkof yourself?"

"Well, I don't know. I didn't know I was doing any harm; I didn't MEANto do any harm. They were very nice people, and they seemed to like me. "

Harris made some rude remarks and left for his bedroom--to break somefurniture, he said. He was a singularly irascible man; any little thingwould disturb his temper. 

I had been well scorched by the young woman, but no matter, I took itout on Harris. One should always "get even" in some way, else the soreplace will go on hurting. 

CHAPTER XXVI

[The Nest of the Cuckoo-clock]

The Hofkirche is celebrated for its organ concerts. All summer long thetourists flock to that church about six o'clock in the evening, and paytheir franc, and listen to the noise. They don't stay to hear all ofit, but get up and tramp out over the sounding stone floor, meeting latecomers who tramp in in a sounding and vigorous way. This trampingback and forth is kept up nearly all the time, and is accented bythe continuous slamming of the door, and the coughing and barking andsneezing of the crowd. Meantime, the big organ is booming and crashingand thundering away, doing its best to prove that it is the biggest andbest organ in Europe, and that a tight little box of a church is themost favorable place to average and appreciate its powers in. It istrue, there were some soft and merciful passages occasionally, but thetramp-tramp of the tourists only allowed one to get fitful glimpses ofthem, so to speak. Then right away the organist would let go anotheravalanche. 

The commerce of Lucerne consists mainly in gimcrackery of the souvenirsort; the shops are packed with Alpine crystals, photographs ofscenery, and wooden and ivory carvings. I will not conceal the fact thatminiature figures of the Lion of Lucerne are to be had in them. Millionsof them. But they are libels upon him, every one of them. There is asubtle something about the majestic pathos of the original which thecopyist cannot get. Even the sun fails to get it; both the photographerand the carver give you a dying lion, and that is all. The shape isright, the attitude is right, the proportions are right, but thatindescribable something which makes the Lion of Lucerne the mostmournful and moving piece of stone in the world, is wanting. 

The Lion lies in his lair in the perpendicular face of a low cliff--forhe is carved from the living rock of the cliff. His size is colossal, his attitude is noble. His head is bowed, the broken spear is stickingin his shoulder, his protecting paw rests upon the lilies of France. Vines hang down the cliff and wave in the wind, and a clear streamtrickles from above and empties into a pond at the base, and in thesmooth surface of the pond the lion is mirrored, among the water-lilies. 

Around about are green trees and grass. The place is a sheltered, reposeful woodland nook, remote from noise and stir and confusion--andall this is fitting, for lions do die in such places, and not on granitepedestals in public squares fenced with fancy iron railings. The Lion ofLucerne would be impressive anywhere, but nowhere so impressive as wherehe is. 

Martyrdom is the luckiest fate that can befall some people. Louis XVIdid not die in his bed, consequently history is very gentle with him;she is charitable toward his failings, and she finds in him high virtueswhich are not usually considered to be virtues when they are lodged inkings. She makes him out to be a person with a meek and modest spirit, the heart of a female saint, and a wrong head. None of these qualitiesare kingly but the last. Taken together they make a character whichwould have fared harshly at the hands of history if its owner had hadthe ill luck to miss martyrdom. With the best intentions to do the rightthing, he always managed to do the wrong one. Moreover, nothing couldget the female saint out of him. He knew, well enough, that in nationalemergencies he must not consider how he ought to act, as a man, but howhe ought to act as a king; so he honestly tried to sink the man and bethe king--but it was a failure, he only succeeded in being the femalesaint. He was not instant in season, but out of season. He could not bepersuaded to do a thing while it could do any good--he was iron, he wasadamant in his stubbornness then--but as soon as the thing had reached apoint where it would be positively harmful to do it, do it he would, andnothing could stop him. He did not do it because it would be harmful, but because he hoped it was not yet too late to achieve by it the goodwhich it would have done if applied earlier. His comprehension wasalways a train or two behindhand. If a national toe required amputating, he could not see that it needed anything more than poulticing; whenothers saw that the mortification had reached the knee, he firstperceived that the toe needed cutting off--so he cut it off; and hesevered the leg at the knee when others saw that the disease had reachedthe thigh. He was good, and honest, and well meaning, in the matter ofchasing national diseases, but he never could overtake one. As a privateman, he would have been lovable; but viewed as a king, he was strictlycontemptible. 

His was a most unroyal career, but the most pitiable spectacle in it washis sentimental treachery to his Swiss guard on that memorable 10th ofAugust, when he allowed those heroes to be massacred in his cause, andforbade them to shed the "sacred French blood" purporting to be flowingin the veins of the red-capped mob of miscreants that was raging aroundthe palace. He meant to be kingly, but he was only the female saint oncemore. Some of his biographers think that upon this occasion the spiritof Saint Louis had descended upon him. It must have found pretty crampedquarters. If Napoleon the First had stood in the shoes of Louis XVI thatday, instead of being merely a casual and unknown looker-on, there wouldbe no Lion of Lucerne, now, but there would be a well-stocked Communistgraveyard in Paris which would answer just as well to remember the 10thof August by. 

Martyrdom made a saint of Mary Queen of Scots three hundred years ago, and she has hardly lost all of her saintship yet. Martyrdom made a saintof the trivial and foolish Marie Antoinette, and her biographersstill keep her fragrant with the odor of sanctity to this day, whileunconsciously proving upon almost every page they write that the onlycalamitous instinct which her husband lacked, she supplied--the instinctto root out and get rid of an honest, able, and loyal official, wherevershe found him. The hideous but beneficent French Revolution would havebeen deferred, or would have fallen short of completeness, or evenmight not have happened at all, if Marie Antoinette had made the unwisemistake of not being born. The world owes a great deal to the FrenchRevolution, and consequently to its two chief promoters, Louis the Poorin Spirit and his queen. 

We did not buy any wooden images of the Lion, nor any ivory or ebonyor marble or chalk or sugar or chocolate ones, or even any photographicslanders of him. The truth is, these copies were so common, souniversal, in the shops and everywhere, that they presently became asintolerable to the wearied eye as the latest popular melody usuallybecomes to the harassed ear. In Lucerne, too, the wood carvings ofother sorts, which had been so pleasant to look upon when one saw themoccasionally at home, soon began to fatigue us. We grew very tiredof seeing wooden quails and chickens picking and strutting aroundclock-faces, and still more tired of seeing wooden images of the allegedchamois skipping about wooden rocks, or lying upon them in familygroups, or peering alertly up from behind them. The first day, I wouldhave bought a hundred and fifty of these clocks if I had the money--andI did buy three--but on the third day the disease had run its course, I had convalesced, and was in the market once more--trying to sell. However, I had no luck; which was just as well, for the things will bepretty enough, no doubt, when I get them home. 

For years my pet aversion had been the cuckoo clock; now here I was, atlast, right in the creature's home; so wherever I went that distressing"HOO'hoo! HOO'hoo! HOO'hoo!" was always in my ears. For a nervous man, this was a fine state of things. Some sounds are hatefuler than others, but no sound is quite so inane, and silly, and aggravating as the"HOO'hoo" of a cuckoo clock, I think. I bought one, and am carrying ithome to a certain person; for I have always said that if the opportunityever happened, I would do that man an ill turn. 

What I meant, was, that I would break one of his legs, or something ofthat sort; but in Lucerne I instantly saw that I could impair his mind. That would be more lasting, and more satisfactory every way. So I boughtthe cuckoo clock; and if I ever get home with it, he is "my meat, " asthey say in the mines. I thought of another candidate--a book-reviewerwhom I could name if I wanted to--but after thinking it over, I didn'tbuy him a clock. I couldn't injure his mind. 

We visited the two long, covered wooden bridges which span the green andbrilliant Reuss just below where it goes plunging and hurrahing outof the lake. These rambling, sway-backed tunnels are very attractivethings, with their alcoved outlooks upon the lovely and inspiritingwater. They contain two or three hundred queer old pictures, by oldSwiss masters--old boss sign-painters, who flourished before thedecadence of art. 

The lake is alive with fishes, plainly visible to the eye, for the wateris very clear. The parapets in front of the hotels were usually fringedwith fishers of all ages. One day I thought I would stop and see afish caught. The result brought back to my mind, very forcibly, acircumstance which I had not thought of before for twelve years. Thisone:

THE MAN WHO PUT UP AT GADSBY'S

When my odd friend Riley and I were newspaper correspondents inWashington, in the winter of '67, we were coming down PennsylvaniaAvenue one night, near midnight, in a driving storm of snow, when theflash of a street-lamp fell upon a man who was eagerly tearing along inthe opposite direction. "This is lucky! You are Mr. Riley, ain't you?"

Riley was the most self-possessed and solemnly deliberate person in therepublic. He stopped, looked his man over from head to foot, and finallysaid:

"I am Mr. Riley. Did you happen to be looking for me?"

"That's just what I was doing, " said the man, joyously, "and it's thebiggest luck in the world that I've found you. My name is Lykins. I'mone of the teachers of the high school--San Francisco. As soon as Iheard the San Francisco postmastership was vacant, I made up my mind toget it--and here I am. "

"Yes, " said Riley, slowly, "as you have remarked ... Mr. Lykins ... Hereyou are. And have you got it?"

"Well, not exactly GOT it, but the next thing to it. I've brought apetition, signed by the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and allthe teachers, and by more than two hundred other people. Now I want you, if you'll be so good, to go around with me to the Pacific delegation, for I want to rush this thing through and get along home. "

"If the matter is so pressing, you will prefer that we visit thedelegation tonight, " said Riley, in a voice which had nothing mocking init--to an unaccustomed ear. 

"Oh, tonight, by all means! I haven't got any time to fool around. Iwant their promise before I go to bed--I ain't the talking kind, I'm theDOING kind!"

"Yes ... You've come to the right place for that. When did you arrive?"

"Just an hour ago. "

"When are you intending to leave?"

"For New York tomorrow evening--for San Francisco next morning. "

"Just so.... What are you going to do tomorrow?"

"DO! Why, I've got to go to the President with the petition and thedelegation, and get the appointment, haven't I?"

"Yes ... Very true ... That is correct. And then what?"

"Executive session of the Senate at 2 P. M. --got to get the appointmentconfirmed--I reckon you'll grant that?"

"Yes ... Yes, " said Riley, meditatively, "you are right again. Thenyou take the train for New York in the evening, and the steamer for SanFrancisco next morning?"

"That's it--that's the way I map it out!"

Riley considered a while, and then said:

"You couldn't stay ... A day ... Well, say two days longer?"

"Bless your soul, no! It's not my style. I ain't a man to go foolingaround--I'm a man that DOES things, I tell you. "

The storm was raging, the thick snow blowing in gusts. Riley stoodsilent, apparently deep in a reverie, during a minute or more, then helooked up and said:

"Have you ever heard about that man who put up at Gadsby's, once? ... But I see you haven't. "

He backed Mr. Lykins against an iron fence, buttonholed him, fastenedhim with his eye, like the Ancient Mariner, and proceeded to unfoldhis narrative as placidly and peacefully as if we were all stretchedcomfortably in a blossomy summer meadow instead of being persecuted by awintry midnight tempest:

"I will tell you about that man. It was in Jackson's time. Gadsby's wasthe principal hotel, then. Well, this man arrived from Tennesseeabout nine o'clock, one morning, with a black coachman and a splendidfour-horse carriage and an elegant dog, which he was evidently fondof and proud of; he drove up before Gadsby's, and the clerk and thelandlord and everybody rushed out to take charge of him, but he said, 'Never mind, ' and jumped out and told the coachman to wait--

said he hadn't time to take anything to eat, he only had a little claimagainst the government to collect, would run across the way, tothe Treasury, and fetch the money, and then get right along back toTennessee, for he was in considerable of a hurry. 

"Well, about eleven o'clock that night he came back and ordered a bedand told them to put the horses up--said he would collect the claim inthe morning. This was in January, you understand--January, 1834--the 3dof January--Wednesday. 

"Well, on the 5th of February, he sold the fine carriage, and boughta cheap second-hand one--said it would answer just as well to take themoney home in, and he didn't care for style. 

"On the 11th of August he sold a pair of the fine horses--said he'doften thought a pair was better than four, to go over the rough mountainroads with where a body had to be careful about his driving--and therewasn't so much of his claim but he could lug the money home with a paireasy enough. 

"On the 13th of December he sold another horse--said two warn'tnecessary to drag that old light vehicle with--in fact, one could snatchit along faster than was absolutely necessary, now that it was goodsolid winter weather and the roads in splendid condition. 

"On the 17th of February, 1835, he sold the old carriage and bought acheap second-hand buggy--said a buggy was just the trick to skim alongmushy, slushy early spring roads with, and he had always wanted to try abuggy on those mountain roads, anyway. 

"On the 1st August he sold the buggy and bought the remains of an oldsulky--said he just wanted to see those green Tennesseans stare and gawkwhen they saw him come a-ripping along in a sulky--didn't believe they'dever heard of a sulky in their lives. 

"Well, on the 29th of August he sold his colored coachman--said hedidn't need a coachman for a sulky--wouldn't be room enough for two init anyway--and, besides, it wasn't every day that Providence sent a mana fool who was willing to pay nine hundred dollars for such a third-ratenegro as that--been wanting to get rid of the creature for years, butdidn't like to THROW him away. 

"Eighteen months later--that is to say, on the 15th of February, 1837--he sold the sulky and bought a saddle--said horseback-riding waswhat the doctor had always recommended HIM to take, and dog'd if hewanted to risk HIS neck going over those mountain roads on wheels in thedead of winter, not if he knew himself. 

"On the 9th of April he sold the saddle--said he wasn't going to riskHIS life with any perishable saddle-girth that ever was made, over arainy, miry April road, while he could ride bareback and know and feelhe was safe--always HAD despised to ride on a saddle, anyway. 

"On the 24th of April he sold his horse--said 'I'm just fifty-seventoday, hale and hearty--it would be a PRETTY howdy-do for me to bewasting such a trip as that and such weather as this, on a horse, whenthere ain't anything in the world so splendid as a tramp on foot throughthe fresh spring woods and over the cheery mountains, to a man that ISa man--and I can make my dog carry my claim in a little bundle, anyway, when it's collected. So tomorrow I'll be up bright and early, make mylittle old collection, and mosey off to Tennessee, on my own hind legs, with a rousing good-by to Gadsby's. '

"On the 22d of June he sold his dog--said 'Dern a dog, anyway, whereyou're just starting off on a rattling bully pleasure tramp through thesummer woods and hills--perfect nuisance--chases the squirrels, barksat everything, goes a-capering and splattering around in the fords--mancan't get any chance to reflect and enjoy nature--and I'd a blamed sightruther carry the claim myself, it's a mighty sight safer; a dog'smighty uncertain in a financial way--always noticed it--well, GOOD-by, boys--last call--I'm off for Tennessee with a good leg and a gay heart, early in the morning. '"

There was a pause and a silence--except the noise of the wind and thepelting snow. Mr. Lykins said, impatiently:

"Well?"

Riley said:

"Well, --that was thirty years ago. "

"Very well, very well--what of it?"

"I'm great friends with that old patriarch. He comes every evening totell me good-by. I saw him an hour ago--he's off for Tennessee earlytomorrow morning--as usual; said he calculated to get his claim throughand be off before night-owls like me have turned out of bed. The tearswere in his eyes, he was so glad he was going to see his old Tennesseeand his friends once more. "

Another silent pause. The stranger broke it:

"Is that all?"

"That is all. "

"Well, for the TIME of night, and the KIND of night, it seems to me thestory was full long enough. But what's it all FOR?"

"Oh, nothing in particular. "

"Well, where's the point of it?"

"Oh, there isn't any particular point to it. Only, if you are not inTOO much of a hurry to rush off to San Francisco with that post-officeappointment, Mr. Lykins, I'd advise you to 'PUT UP AT GADSBY'S' for aspell, and take it easy. Good-by. GOD bless you!"

So saying, Riley blandly turned on his heel and left the astonishedschool-teacher standing there, a musing and motionless snow imageshining in the broad glow of the street-lamp. 

He never got that post-office. 

To go back to Lucerne and its fishers, I concluded, after aboutnine hours' waiting, that the man who proposes to tarry till he seessomething hook one of those well-fed and experienced fishes will findit wisdom to "put up at Gadsby's" and take it easy. It is likely thata fish has not been caught on that lake pier for forty years; but nomatter, the patient fisher watches his cork there all the day long, justthe same, and seems to enjoy it. One may see the fisher-loafers just asthick and contented and happy and patient all along the Seine at Paris, but tradition says that the only thing ever caught there in modern timesis a thing they don't fish for at all--the recent dog and the translatedcat. 

CHAPTER XXVII

[I Spare an Awful Bore]

Close by the Lion of Lucerne is what they call the "Glacier Garden"--andit is the only one in the world. It is on high ground. Four or fiveyears ago, some workmen who were digging foundations for a house cameupon this interesting relic of a long-departed age. Scientific menperceived in it a confirmation of their theories concerning the glacialperiod; so through their persuasions the little tract of ground wasbought and permanently protected against being built upon. The soil wasremoved, and there lay the rasped and guttered track which the ancientglacier had made as it moved along upon its slow and tedious journey. This track was perforated by huge pot-shaped holes in the bed-rock, formed by the furious washing-around in them of boulders by theturbulent torrent which flows beneath all glaciers. These huge roundboulders still remain in the holes; they and the walls of the holes areworn smooth by the long-continued chafing which they gave each other inthose old days. 

It took a mighty force to churn these big lumps of stone around in thatvigorous way. The neighboring country had a very different shape, atthat time--the valleys have risen up and become hills, since, and thehills have become valleys. The boulders discovered in the pots hadtraveled a great distance, for there is no rock like them nearer thanthe distant Rhone Glacier. 

For some days we were content to enjoy looking at the blue lakeLucerne and at the piled-up masses of snow-mountains that border it allaround--an enticing spectacle, this last, for there is a strange andfascinating beauty and charm about a majestic snow-peak with the sunblazing upon it or the moonlight softly enriching it--but finally weconcluded to try a bit of excursioning around on a steamboat, and a dashon foot at the Rigi. Very well, we had a delightful trip to Fluelen, ona breezy, sunny day. Everybody sat on the upper deck, on benches, underan awning; everybody talked, laughed, and exclaimed at the wonderfulscenery; in truth, a trip on that lake is almost the perfection ofpleasuring. 

The mountains were a never-ceasing marvel. Sometimes they rose straightup out of the lake, and towered aloft and overshadowed our pygmy steamerwith their prodigious bulk in the most impressive way. Not snow-cladmountains, these, yet they climbed high enough toward the sky to meetthe clouds and veil their foreheads in them. They were not barren andrepulsive, but clothed in green, and restful and pleasant to the eye. And they were so almost straight-up-and-down, sometimes, that one couldnot imagine a man being able to keep his footing upon such a surface, yet there are paths, and the Swiss people go up and down them every day. 

Sometimes one of these monster precipices had the slight inclination ofthe huge ship-houses in dockyards--then high aloft, toward the sky, ittook a little stronger inclination, like that of a mansard roof--andperched on this dizzy mansard one's eye detected little things likemartin boxes, and presently perceived that these were the dwellings ofpeasants--an airy place for a home, truly. And suppose a peasant shouldwalk in his sleep, or his child should fall out of the frontyard?--the friends would have a tedious long journey down out of thosecloud-heights before they found the remains. And yet those far-awayhomes looked ever so seductive, they were so remote from the troubledworld, they dozed in such an atmosphere of peace and dreams--surely noone who has learned to live up there would ever want to live on a meanerlevel. 

We swept through the prettiest little curving arms of the lake, amongthese colossal green walls, enjoying new delights, always, as thestately panorama unfolded itself before us and rerolled and hid itselfbehind us; and now and then we had the thrilling surprise of burstingsuddenly upon a tremendous white mass like the distant and dominatingJungfrau, or some kindred giant, looming head and shoulders above atumbled waste of lesser Alps. 

Once, while I was hungrily taking in one of these surprises, and doingmy best to get all I possibly could of it while it should last, I wasinterrupted by a young and care-free voice:

"You're an American, I think--so'm I. "

He was about eighteen, or possibly nineteen; slender and of mediumheight; open, frank, happy face; a restless but independent eye; a snubnose, which had the air of drawing back with a decent reserve fromthe silky new-born mustache below it until it should be introduced; aloosely hung jaw, calculated to work easily in the sockets. He wore alow-crowned, narrow-brimmed straw hat, with a broad blue ribbonaround it which had a white anchor embroidered on it in front; nobbyshort-tailed coat, pantaloons, vest, all trim and neat and up with thefashion; red-striped stockings, very low-quarter patent-leather shoes, tied with black ribbon; blue ribbon around his neck, wide-open collar;tiny diamond studs; wrinkleless kids; projecting cuffs, fastened withlarge oxidized silver sleeve-buttons, bearing the device of a dog'sface--English pug. He carried a slim cane, surmounted with an Englishpug's head with red glass eyes. Under his arm he carried a Germangrammar--Otto's. His hair was short, straight, and smooth, and presentlywhen he turned his head a moment, I saw that it was nicely partedbehind. He took a cigarette out of a dainty box, stuck it into ameerschaum holder which he carried in a morocco case, and reached for mycigar. While he was lighting, I said:

"Yes--I am an American. "

"I knew it--I can always tell them. What ship did you come over in?"

"HOLSATIA. "

"We came in the BATAVIA--Cunard, you know. What kind of passage did youhave?"

"Tolerably rough. "

"So did we. Captain said he'd hardly ever seen it rougher. Where are youfrom?"

"New England. "

"So'm I. I'm from New Bloomfield. Anybody with you?"

"Yes--a friend. "

"Our whole family's along. It's awful slow, going around alone--don'tyou think so?"

"Rather slow. "

"Ever been over here before?"

"Yes. "

"I haven't. My first trip. But we've been all around--Paris andeverywhere. I'm to enter Harvard next year. Studying German all thetime, now. Can't enter till I know German. I know considerable French--Iget along pretty well in Paris, or anywhere where they speak French. What hotel are you stopping at?"

"Schweitzerhof. "

"No! is that so? I never see you in the reception-room. I go tothe reception-room a good deal of the time, because there's so manyAmericans there. I make lots of acquaintances. I know an American assoon as I see him--and so I speak to him and make his acquaintance. Ilike to be always making acquaintances--don't you?"

"Lord, yes!"

"You see it breaks up a trip like this, first rate. I never got bored ona trip like this, if I can make acquaintances and have somebody totalk to. But I think a trip like this would be an awful bore, if a bodycouldn't find anybody to get acquainted with and talk to on a trip likethis. I'm fond of talking, ain't you?

"Passionately. "

"Have you felt bored, on this trip?"

"Not all the time, part of it. "

"That's it!--you see you ought to go around and get acquainted, andtalk. That's my way. That's the way I always do--I just go 'round, 'round, 'round and talk, talk, talk--I never get bored. You been up theRigi yet?"

"No. "

"Going?"

"I think so. "

"What hotel you going to stop at?"

"I don't know. Is there more than one?"

"Three. You stop at the Schreiber--you'll find it full of Americans. What ship did you say you came over in?"

"CITY OF ANTWERP. "

"German, I guess. You going to Geneva?"

"Yes. "

"What hotel you going to stop at?"

"Hôtel de l'Écu de Génève. "

"Don't you do it! No Americans there! You stop at one of those bighotels over the bridge--they're packed full of Americans. "

"But I want to practice my Arabic. "

"Good gracious, do you speak Arabic?"

"Yes--well enough to get along. "

"Why, hang it, you won't get along in Geneva--THEY don't speak Arabic, they speak French. What hotel are you stopping at here?"

"Hotel Pension-Beaurivage. "

"Sho, you ought to stop at the Schweitzerhof. Didn't you know theSchweitzerhof was the best hotel in Switzerland?-- look at yourBaedeker. "

"Yes, I know--but I had an idea there warn't any Americans there. "

"No Americans! Why, bless your soul, it's just alive with them! I'm inthe great reception-room most all the time. I make lots of acquaintancesthere. Not as many as I did at first, because now only the new ones stopin there--the others go right along through. Where are you from?"

"Arkansaw. "

"Is that so? I'm from New England--New Bloomfield's my town when I'm athome. I'm having a mighty good time today, ain't you?"

"Divine. "

"That's what I call it. I like this knocking around, loose and easy, andmaking acquaintances and talking. I know an American, soon as I see him;so I go and speak to him and make his acquaintance. I ain't ever bored, on a trip like this, if I can make new acquaintances and talk. I'm awfulfond of talking when I can get hold of the right kind of a person, ain'tyou?"

"I prefer it to any other dissipation. "

"That's my notion, too. Now some people like to take a book and sitdown and read, and read, and read, or moon around yawping at the lake orthese mountains and things, but that ain't my way; no, sir, if they likeit, let 'em do it, I don't object; but as for me, talking's what I like. You been up the Rigi?"

"Yes. "

"What hotel did you stop at?"

"Schreiber. "

"That's the place!--I stopped there too. FULL of Americans, WASN'T it?It always is--always is. That's what they say. Everybody says that. Whatship did you come over in?"

"VILLE DE PARIS. "

"French, I reckon. What kind of a passage did ... Excuse me a minute, there's some Americans I haven't seen before. "

And away he went. He went uninjured, too--I had the murderous impulse toharpoon him in the back with my alpenstock, but as I raised the weaponthe disposition left me; I found I hadn't the heart to kill him, he wassuch a joyous, innocent, good-natured numbskull. 

Half an hour later I was sitting on a bench inspecting, with stronginterest, a noble monolith which we were skimming by--a monolith notshaped by man, but by Nature's free great hand--a massy pyramidal rockeighty feet high, devised by Nature ten million years ago against theday when a man worthy of it should need it for his monument. The timecame at last, and now this grand remembrancer bears Schiller's name inhuge letters upon its face. Curiously enough, this rock was not degradedor defiled in any way. It is said that two years ago a stranger lethimself down from the top of it with ropes and pulleys, and painted allover it, in blue letters bigger than those in Schiller's name, thesewords: "Try Sozodont;" "Buy Sun Stove Polish;" "Helmbold's Buchu;" "TryBenzaline for the Blood. " He was captured and it turned out that he wasan American. Upon his trial the judge said to him:

"You are from a land where any insolent that wants to is privilegedto profane and insult Nature, and, through her, Nature's God, if byso doing he can put a sordid penny in his pocket. But here the case isdifferent. Because you are a foreigner and ignorant, I will make yoursentence light; if you were a native I would deal strenuously withyou. Hear and obey: --You will immediately remove every trace ofyour offensive work from the Schiller monument; you pay a fine of tenthousand francs; you will suffer two years' imprisonment at hard labor;you will then be horsewhipped, tarred and feathered, deprived of yourears, ridden on a rail to the confines of the canton, and banishedforever. The severest penalties are omitted in your case--not as a graceto you, but to that great republic which had the misfortune to give youbirth. "

The steamer's benches were ranged back to back across the deck. My backhair was mingling innocently with the back hair of a couple ofladies. Presently they were addressed by some one and I overheard thisconversation:

"You are Americans, I think? So'm I. "

"Yes--we are Americans. "

"I knew it--I can always tell them. What ship did you come over in?"

"CITY OF CHESTER. "

"Oh, yes--Inman line. We came in the BATAVIA--Cunard you know. What kindof a passage did you have?"

"Pretty fair. "

"That was luck. We had it awful rough. Captain said he'd hardly seen itrougher. Where are you from?"

"New Jersey. "

"So'm I. No--I didn't mean that; I'm from New England. New Bloomfield'smy place. These your children?--belong to both of you?"

"Only to one of us; they are mine; my friend is not married. "

"Single, I reckon? So'm I. Are you two ladies traveling alone?"

"No--my husband is with us. "

"Our whole family's along. It's awful slow, going around alone--don'tyou think so?"

"I suppose it must be. "

"Hi, there's Mount Pilatus coming in sight again. Named after PontiusPilate, you know, that shot the apple off of William Tell's head. Guide-book tells all about it, they say. I didn't read it--an Americantold me. I don't read when I'm knocking around like this, having a goodtime. Did you ever see the chapel where William Tell used to preach?"

"I did not know he ever preached there. "

"Oh, yes, he did. That American told me so. He don't ever shut uphis guide-book. He knows more about this lake than the fishes in it. Besides, they CALL it 'Tell's Chapel'--you know that yourself. You everbeen over here before?"

"Yes. "

"I haven't. It's my first trip. But we've been all around--Paris andeverywhere. I'm to enter Harvard next year. Studying German all the timenow. Can't enter till I know German. This book's Otto's grammar. It's amighty good book to get the ICH HABE GEHABT HABEN's out of. But I don'treally study when I'm knocking around this way. If the notion takes me, I just run over my little old ICH HABE GEHABT, DU HAST GEHABT, ER HATGEHABT, WIR HABEN GEHABT, IHR HABEN GEHABT, SIE HABEN GEHABT--kind of'Now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep' fashion, you know, and after that, maybeI don't buckle to it for three days. It's awful undermining to theintellect, German is; you want to take it in small doses, or first youknow your brains all run together, and you feel them sloshing around inyour head same as so much drawn butter. But French is different; FRENCHain't anything. I ain't any more afraid of French than a tramp's afraidof pie; I can rattle off my little J'AI, TU AS, IL A, and the rest ofit, just as easy as a-b-c. I get along pretty well in Paris, or anywherewhere they speak French. What hotel are you stopping at?"

"The Schweitzerhof. "

"No! is that so? I never see you in the big reception-room. I go inthere a good deal of the time, because there's so many Americans there. I make lots of acquaintances. You been up the Rigi yet?"

"No. "

"Going?"

"We think of it. "

"What hotel you going to stop at?"

"I don't know. "

"Well, then you stop at the Schreiber--it's full of Americans. What shipdid you come over in?"

"CITY OF CHESTER. "

"Oh, yes, I remember I asked you that before. But I always ask everybodywhat ship they came over in, and so sometimes I forget and ask again. You going to Geneva?"

"Yes. "

"What hotel you going to stop at?"

"We expect to stop in a pension. "

"I don't hardly believe you'll like that; there's very few Americans inthe pensions. What hotel are you stopping at here?"

"The Schweitzerhof. "

"Oh, yes. I asked you that before, too. But I always ask everybody whathotel they're stopping at, and so I've got my head all mixed up withhotels. But it makes talk, and I love to talk. It refreshes me upso--don't it you--on a trip like this?"

"Yes--sometimes. "

"Well, it does me, too. As long as I'm talking I never feel bored--ain'tthat the way with you?"

"Yes--generally. But there are exception to the rule. "

"Oh, of course. I don't care to talk to everybody, MYSELF. If a personstarts in to jabber-jabber-jabber about scenery, and history, andpictures, and all sorts of tiresome things, I get the fan-tods mightysoon. I say 'Well, I must be going now--hope I'll see you again'--andthen I take a walk. Where you from?"

"New Jersey. "

"Why, bother it all, I asked you THAT before, too. Have you seen theLion of Lucerne?"

"Not yet. "

"Nor I, either. But the man who told me about Mount Pilatus says it'sone of the things to see. It's twenty-eight feet long. It don't seemreasonable, but he said so, anyway. He saw it yesterday; said it wasdying, then, so I reckon it's dead by this time. But that ain't anymatter, of course they'll stuff it. Did you say the children areyours--or HERS?"

"Mine. "

"Oh, so you did. Are you going up the ... No, I asked you that. Whatship ... No, I asked you that, too. What hotel are you ... No, you toldme that. Let me see ... Um .... Oh, what kind of voy ... No, we'vebeen over that ground, too. Um ... Um ... Well, I believe that is all. BONJOUR--I am very glad to have made your acquaintance, ladies. GUTENTAG. "

CHAPTER XXVIII

[The Jodel and Its Native Wilds]

The Rigi-Kulm is an imposing Alpine mass, six thousand feet high, whichstands by itself, and commands a mighty prospect of blue lakes, greenvalleys, and snowy mountains--a compact and magnificent picturethree hundred miles in circumference. The ascent is made by rail, orhorseback, or on foot, as one may prefer. I and my agent panopliedourselves in walking-costume, one bright morning, and started downthe lake on the steamboat; we got ashore at the village of Waeggis;three-quarters of an hour distant from Lucerne. This village is at thefoot of the mountain. 

We were soon tramping leisurely up the leafy mule-path, and then thetalk began to flow, as usual. It was twelve o'clock noon, and a breezy, cloudless day; the ascent was gradual, and the glimpses, from underthe curtaining boughs, of blue water, and tiny sailboats, and beetlingcliffs, were as charming as glimpses of dreamland. All the circumstanceswere perfect--and the anticipations, too, for we should soon beenjoying, for the first time, that wonderful spectacle, an Alpinesunrise--the object of our journey. There was (apparently) no real needfor hurry, for the guide-book made the walking-distance from Waeggis tothe summit only three hours and a quarter. I say "apparently, " becausethe guide-book had already fooled us once--about the distance fromAllerheiligen to Oppenau--and for aught I knew it might be gettingready to fool us again. We were only certain as to the altitudes--wecalculated to find out for ourselves how many hours it is from thebottom to the top. The summit is six thousand feet above the sea, butonly forty-five hundred feet above the lake. When we had walked half anhour, we were fairly into the swing and humor of the undertaking, so wecleared for action; that is to say, we got a boy whom we met to carryour alpenstocks and satchels and overcoats and things for us; that leftus free for business. I suppose we must have stopped oftener to stretchout on the grass in the shade and take a bit of a smoke than this boywas used to, for presently he asked if it had been our idea to hire himby the job, or by the year? We told him he could move along if he wasin a hurry. He said he wasn't in such a very particular hurry, but hewanted to get to the top while he was young. 

We told him to clear out, then, and leave the things at the uppermosthotel and say we should be along presently. He said he would secure us ahotel if he could, but if they were all full he would ask them to buildanother one and hurry up and get the paint and plaster dry against wearrived. Still gently chaffing us, he pushed ahead, up the trail, andsoon disappeared. By six o'clock we were pretty high up in the air, and the view of lake and mountains had greatly grown in breadth andinterest. We halted awhile at a little public house, where we had breadand cheese and a quart or two of fresh milk, out on the porch, with thebig panorama all before us--and then moved on again. 

Ten minutes afterward we met a hot, red-faced man plunging down themountain, making mighty strides, swinging his alpenstock ahead of him, and taking a grip on the ground with its iron point to support thesebig strides. He stopped, fanned himself with his hat, swabbed theperspiration from his face and neck with a red handkerchief, panteda moment or two, and asked how far to Waeggis. I said three hours. Helooked surprised, and said:

"Why, it seems as if I could toss a biscuit into the lake from here, it's so close by. Is that an inn, there?"

I said it was. 

"Well, " said he, "I can't stand another three hours, I've had enoughtoday; I'll take a bed there. "

I asked:

"Are we nearly to the top?"

"Nearly to the TOP? Why, bless your soul, you haven't really started, yet. "

I said we would put up at the inn, too. So we turned back and ordered ahot supper, and had quite a jolly evening of it with this Englishman. 

The German landlady gave us neat rooms and nice beds, and when I and myagent turned in, it was with the resolution to be up early and make theutmost of our first Alpine sunrise. But of course we were dead tired, and slept like policemen; so when we awoke in the morning and ran to thewindow it was already too late, because it was half past eleven. Itwas a sharp disappointment. However, we ordered breakfast and told thelandlady to call the Englishman, but she said he was already up and offat daybreak--and swearing like mad about something or other. We couldnot find out what the matter was. He had asked the landlady the altitudeof her place above the level of the lake, and she told him fourteenhundred and ninety-five feet. That was all that was said; then he losthis temper. He said that between ------fools and guide-books, a mancould acquire ignorance enough in twenty-four hours in a country likethis to last him a year. Harris believed our boy had been loading himup with misinformation; and this was probably the case, for his epithetdescribed that boy to a dot. 

We got under way about the turn of noon, and pulled out for the summitagain, with a fresh and vigorous step. When we had gone about twohundred yards, and stopped to rest, I glanced to the left while I waslighting my pipe, and in the distance detected a long worm of blacksmoke crawling lazily up the steep mountain. Of course that was thelocomotive. We propped ourselves on our elbows at once, to gaze, for wehad never seen a mountain railway yet. Presently we could make out thetrain. It seemed incredible that that thing should creep straight up asharp slant like the roof of a house--but there it was, and it was doingthat very miracle. 

In the course of a couple hours we reached a fine breezy altitude wherethe little shepherd huts had big stones all over their roofs to holdthem down to the earth when the great storms rage. The country was wildand rocky about here, but there were plenty of trees, plenty of moss, and grass. 

Away off on the opposite shore of the lake we could see some villages, and now for the first time we could observe the real difference betweentheir proportions and those of the giant mountains at whose feet theyslept. When one is in one of those villages it seems spacious, andits houses seem high and not out of proportion to the mountain thatoverhangs them--but from our altitude, what a change! The mountains werebigger and grander than ever, as they stood there thinking their solemnthoughts with their heads in the drifting clouds, but the villagesat their feet--when the painstaking eye could trace them up and findthem--were so reduced, almost invisible, and lay so flat against theground, that the exactest simile I can devise is to compare them toant-deposits of granulated dirt overshadowed by the huge bulk of acathedral. The steamboats skimming along under the stupendous precipiceswere diminished by distance to the daintiest little toys, the sailboatsand rowboats to shallops proper for fairies that keep house in the cupsof lilies and ride to court on the backs of bumblebees. 

Presently we came upon half a dozen sheep nibbling grass in the sprayof a stream of clear water that sprang from a rock wall a hundred feethigh, and all at once our ears were startled with a melodious "Lul ... L ... L l l llul-lul-LAhee-o-o-o!" pealing joyously from a near butinvisible source, and recognized that we were hearing for the firsttime the famous Alpine JODEL in its own native wilds. And we recognized, also, that it was that sort of quaint commingling of baritone andfalsetto which at home we call "Tyrolese warbling. "

The jodeling (pronounced yOdling--emphasis on the O) continued, andwas very pleasant and inspiriting to hear. Now the jodeler appeared--ashepherd boy of sixteen--and in our gladness and gratitude we gave hima franc to jodel some more. So he jodeled and we listened. We movedon, presently, and he generously jodeled us out of sight. After aboutfifteen minutes we came across another shepherd boy who was jodeling, and gave him half a franc to keep it up. He also jodeled us out ofsight. After that, we found a jodeler every ten minutes; we gave thefirst one eight cents, the second one six cents, the third one four, thefourth one a penny, contributed nothing to Nos. 5, 6, and 7, and duringthe remainder of the day hired the rest of the jodelers, at a francapiece, not to jodel any more. There is somewhat too much of thejodeling in the Alps. 

About the middle of the afternoon we passed through a prodigious naturalgateway called the Felsenthor, formed by two enormous upright rocks, with a third lying across the top. There was a very attractive littlehotel close by, but our energies were not conquered yet, so we went on. 

Three hours afterward we came to the railway-track. It was plantedstraight up the mountain with the slant of a ladder that leans against ahouse, and it seemed to us that man would need good nerves who proposedto travel up it or down it either. 

During the latter part of the afternoon we cooled our roasting interiorswith ice-cold water from clear streams, the only really satisfying waterwe had tasted since we left home, for at the hotels on the continentthey merely give you a tumbler of ice to soak your water in, and thatonly modifies its hotness, doesn't make it cold. Water can only be madecold enough for summer comfort by being prepared in a refrigerator ora closed ice-pitcher. Europeans say ice-water impairs digestion. How dothey know?--they never drink any. 

At ten minutes past six we reached the Kaltbad station, where there isa spacious hotel with great verandas which command a majestic expanse oflake and mountain scenery. We were pretty well fagged out, now, but aswe did not wish to miss the Alpine sunrise, we got through our dinneras quickly as possible and hurried off to bed. It was unspeakablycomfortable to stretch our weary limbs between the cool, damp sheets. And how we did sleep!--for there is no opiate like Alpine pedestrianism. 

In the morning we both awoke and leaped out of bed at the same instantand ran and stripped aside the window-curtains; but we suffered a bitterdisappointment again: it was already half past three in the afternoon. 

We dressed sullenly and in ill spirits, each accusing the other ofoversleeping. Harris said if we had brought the courier along, as weought to have done, we should not have missed these sunrises. I said heknew very well that one of us would have to sit up and wake thecourier; and I added that we were having trouble enough to take careof ourselves, on this climb, without having to take care of a courierbesides. 

During breakfast our spirits came up a little, since we found by thisguide-book that in the hotels on the summit the tourist is not left totrust to luck for his sunrise, but is roused betimes by a man who goesthrough the halls with a great Alpine horn, blowing blasts that wouldraise the dead. And there was another consoling thing: the guide-booksaid that up there on the summit the guests did not wait to dress much, but seized a red bed blanket and sailed out arrayed like an Indian. Thiswas good; this would be romantic; two hundred and fifty people groupedon the windy summit, with their hair flying and their red blanketsflapping, in the solemn presence of the coming sun, would be a strikingand memorable spectacle. So it was good luck, not ill luck, that we hadmissed those other sunrises. 

We were informed by the guide-book that we were now 3, 228 feet abovethe level of the lake--therefore full two-thirds of our journey had beenaccomplished. We got away at a quarter past four P. M. ; a hundred yardsabove the hotel the railway divided; one track went straight up thesteep hill, the other one turned square off to the right, with a veryslight grade. We took the latter, and followed it more than a mile, turned a rocky corner, and came in sight of a handsome new hotel. If wehad gone on, we should have arrived at the summit, but Harrispreferred to ask a lot of questions--as usual, of a man who didn't knowanything--and he told us to go back and follow the other route. We didso. We could ill afford this loss of time. 

We climbed and climbed; and we kept on climbing; we reached about fortysummits, but there was always another one just ahead. It came on torain, and it rained in dead earnest. We were soaked through and itwas bitter cold. Next a smoky fog of clouds covered the whole regiondensely, and we took to the railway-ties to keep from getting lost. Sometimes we slopped along in a narrow path on the left-hand side of thetrack, but by and by when the fog blew aside a little and we saw that wewere treading the rampart of a precipice and that our left elbows wereprojecting over a perfectly boundless and bottomless vacancy, we gasped, and jumped for the ties again. 

The night shut down, dark and drizzly and cold. About eight in theevening the fog lifted and showed us a well-worn path which led up avery steep rise to the left. We took it, and as soon as we had got farenough from the railway to render the finding it again an impossibility, the fog shut down on us once more. 

We were in a bleak, unsheltered place, now, and had to trudge rightalong, in order to keep warm, though we rather expected to go over aprecipice, sooner or later. About nine o'clock we made an importantdiscovery--that we were not in any path. We groped around a while on ourhands and knees, but we could not find it; so we sat down in the mud andthe wet scant grass to wait. 

We were terrified into this by being suddenly confronted with a vastbody which showed itself vaguely for an instant and in the next instantwas smothered in the fog again. It was really the hotel we were after, monstrously magnified by the fog, but we took it for the face of aprecipice, and decided not to try to claw up it. 

We sat there an hour, with chattering teeth and quivering bodies, andquarreled over all sorts of trifles, but gave most of our attention toabusing each other for the stupidity of deserting the railway-track. Wesat with our backs to the precipice, because what little wind there wascame from that quarter. At some time or other the fog thinned a little;we did not know when, for we were facing the empty universe and thethinness could not show; but at last Harris happened to look around, andthere stood a huge, dim, spectral hotel where the precipice had been. One could faintly discern the windows and chimneys, and a dull blur oflights. Our first emotion was deep, unutterable gratitude, our next wasa foolish rage, born of the suspicion that possibly the hotel had beenvisible three-quarters of an hour while we sat there in those coldpuddles quarreling. 

Yes, it was the Rigi-Kulm hotel--the one that occupies the extremesummit, and whose remote little sparkle of lights we had often seenglinting high aloft among the stars from our balcony away down yonderin Lucerne. The crusty portier and the crusty clerks gave us thesurly reception which their kind deal out in prosperous times, but bymollifying them with an extra display of obsequiousness and servilitywe finally got them to show us to the room which our boy had engaged forus. 

We got into some dry clothing, and while our supper was preparing weloafed forsakenly through a couple of vast cavernous drawing-rooms, one of which had a stove in it. This stove was in a corner, and denselywalled around with people. We could not get near the fire, so we movedat large in the artic spaces, among a multitude of people who satsilent, smileless, forlorn, and shivering--thinking what fools they wereto come, perhaps. There were some Americans and some Germans, but onecould see that the great majority were English. 

We lounged into an apartment where there was a great crowd, to seewhat was going on. It was a memento-magazine. The tourists were eagerlybuying all sorts and styles of paper-cutters, marked "Souvenir of theRigi, " with handles made of the little curved horn of the ostensiblechamois; there were all manner of wooden goblets and such things, similarly marked. I was going to buy a paper-cutter, but I believedI could remember the cold comfort of the Rigi-Kulm without it, so Ismothered the impulse. 

Supper warmed us, and we went immediately to bed--but first, as Mr. Baedeker requests all tourists to call his attention to any errors whichthey may find in his guide-books, I dropped him a line to inform him hemissed it by just about three days. I had previously informed him of hismistake about the distance from Allerheiligen to Oppenau, and had alsoinformed the Ordnance Depart of the German government of the same errorin the imperial maps. I will add, here, that I never got any answer tothose letters, or any thanks from either of those sources; and, what isstill more discourteous, these corrections have not been made, either inthe maps or the guide-books. But I will write again when I get time, formy letters may have miscarried. 

We curled up in the clammy beds, and went to sleep without rocking. Wewere so sodden with fatigue that we never stirred nor turned over tillthe blooming blasts of the Alpine horn aroused us. 

It may well be imagined that we did not lose any time. We snatched ona few odds and ends of clothing, cocooned ourselves in the proper redblankets, and plunged along the halls and out into the whistling windbareheaded. We saw a tall wooden scaffolding on the very peak of thesummit, a hundred yards away, and made for it. We rushed up the stairsto the top of this scaffolding, and stood there, above the vast outlyingworld, with hair flying and ruddy blankets waving and cracking in thefierce breeze. 

"Fifteen minutes too late, at last!" said Harris, in a vexed voice. "Thesun is clear above the horizon. "

"No matter, " I said, "it is a most magnificent spectacle, and we willsee it do the rest of its rising anyway. "

In a moment we were deeply absorbed in the marvel before us, and dead toeverything else. The great cloud-barred disk of the sun stood just abovea limitless expanse of tossing white-caps--so to speak--a billowy chaosof massy mountain domes and peaks draped in imperishable snow, andflooded with an opaline glory of changing and dissolving splendors, while through rifts in a black cloud-bank above the sun, radiatinglances of diamond dust shot to the zenith. The cloven valleys of thelower world swam in a tinted mist which veiled the ruggedness of theircrags and ribs and ragged forests, and turned all the forbidding regioninto a soft and rich and sensuous paradise. 

We could not speak. We could hardly breathe. We could only gaze indrunken ecstasy and drink in it. Presently Harris exclaimed:

"Why--nation, it's going DOWN!"

Perfectly true. We had missed the MORNING hornblow, and slept all day. This was stupefying. 

Harris said:

"Look here, the sun isn't the spectacle--it's US--stacked up here on topof this gallows, in these idiotic blankets, and two hundred and fiftywell-dressed men and women down here gawking up at us and not caringa straw whether the sun rises or sets, as long as they've got such aridiculous spectacle as this to set down in their memorandum-books. Theyseem to be laughing their ribs loose, and there's one girl there thatappears to be going all to pieces. I never saw such a man as you before. I think you are the very last possibility in the way of an ass. "

"What have I done?" I answered, with heat. 

"What have you done? You've got up at half past seven o'clock in theevening to see the sun rise, that's what you've done. "

"And have you done any better, I'd like to know? I've always used toget up with the lark, till I came under the petrifying influence of yourturgid intellect. "

"YOU used to get up with the lark--Oh, no doubt--you'll get up with thehangman one of these days. But you ought to be ashamed to be jawinghere like this, in a red blanket, on a forty-foot scaffold on top of theAlps. And no end of people down here to boot; this isn't any place foran exhibition of temper. "

And so the customary quarrel went on. When the sun was fairly down, weslipped back to the hotel in the charitable gloaming, and went to bedagain. We had encountered the horn-blower on the way, and he had triedto collect compensation, not only for announcing the sunset, which wedid see, but for the sunrise, which we had totally missed; but we saidno, we only took our solar rations on the "European plan"--pay for whatyou get. He promised to make us hear his horn in the morning, if we werealive. 

A TRAMP ABROAD, Part 5. 

By Mark Twain

(Samuel L. Clemens)

First published in 1880

Illustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition

 * * * * * *

ILLUSTRATIONS:

 1.     PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR 2.     TITIAN'S MOSES 3.     THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES 178.   EXCEEDINGLY COMFORTABLE 179.   THE SUNRISE 180.   THE RIGI-KULM 181.   AN OPTICAL ILLUSION 182.   TAIL PIECE 183.   RAILWAY DOWN THE MOUNTAIN 184.   SOURCE OF THE RHONE 185.   A GLACIER TABLE 186.   GLACIER OF GRINDELWALD 187.   DAWN ON THE MOUNTAINS 188.   TAIL PIECE 189.   NEW AND OLD STYLE 190.   ST NICHOLAS, AS A HERMIT 191.   A LANDSLIDE 192.   GOLDAU VALLEY BEFORE AND AFTER THE LANDSLIDE 193.   THE WAY THEY DO IT 194.   OUR GALLANT DRIVER 195.   A MOUNTAIN PASS 196.   "I'M OFUL DRY" 197.   IT'S THE FASHION 198.   WHAT WE EXPECTED 199.   WE MISSED THE SCENERY 200.   THE TOURISTS 201.   THE YOUNG BRIDE 202.   "IT WAS A FAMOUS VICTORY 203.   PROMENADE IN INTERLAKEN 204.   THE JUNGFRAU BY M. T. 205.   STREET IN INTERLAKEN 206.   WITHOUT A COURIER 207.   TRAVELING WITH A COURIER 208.   TAIL PIECE 209.   GRAPE AND WHEY PATIENTS 210.   SOCIABLE DRIVERS 211.   A MOUNTAIN CASCADE 212.   THE GASTERNTHAL 213.   EXHILARATING SPORT 214.   FALLS 215.   WHAT MIGHT BE 216.   AN ALPINE BOUQUET 217.   THE END OF THE WORLD 218.   THE FORGET-ME-NOT 219.   A NEEDLE OF ICE 220.   CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN 221.   SNOW CREVASSES 222.   CUTTING STEPS 223.   THE GUIDE 224.   VIEW FROM THE CLIFF 225.   GEMMI PASS AND LAKE DAUBENSEE 226.   ALMOST A TRAGEDY 227.   THE ALPINE LITTER 228.   SOCIAL BATHERS 229.   DEATH OF COUNTESS HERLINCOURT 230.   THEY'VE GOT IT ALL 231.   MODEL FOR AN EMPRESS 232.   BATH HOUSES AT LEUKE 233.   THE BATHERS AT LEUKE 234.   RATTIER MIXED UP 235.   TAIL PIECE

CONTENTS:

CHAPTER XXIX Everything Convenient--Looking for a WesternSunrise--Mutual Recrimination--View from the Summit--Down theMountain--Railroading--Confidence Wanted and Acquired

CHAPTER XXX A Trip by Proxy--A Visit to the Furka Regions--Deadman'sLake--Source of the Rhone--Glacier Tables--Storm in the Mountains--AtGrindelwald--Dawn on the Mountains--An Explanation Required--DeadLanguage--Criticism of Harris's Report

CHAPTER XXXI Preparations for a Tramp--From Lucerne to Interlaken--TheBrunig Pass--Modern and Ancient Chalets--Death of Pontius Pilate--HermitHome of St Nicholas--Landslides--Children Selling Refreshments--How theyHarness a Horse--A Great Man--Honors to a Hero--A Thirsty Bride--ForBetter or Worse--German Fashions--Anticipations--Solid Comfort--AnUnsatisfactory Awakening--What we had Lost--Our Surroundings

CHAPTER XXXII The Jungfrau Hotel--A Whiskered Waitress--An ArkansasBride--Perfection in Discord--A Famous Victory--A Look from aWindow--About the Jungfrau

CHAPTER XXXIII The Giesbach Falls--The Spirit of the Alps--Why PeopleVisit Them--Whey and Grapes as Medicines--The Kursaal--A FormidableUndertaking--From Interlaken to Zermatt on Foot--We Concluded to takea Buggy--A Pair of Jolly Drivers--We meet with Companions--A CheerfulRide--Kandersteg Valley--An Alpine Parlor--Exercise and Amusement--ARace with a Log

CHAPTER XXXIV An Old Guide--Possible Accidents--DangerousHabitation--Mountain Flowers--Embryo Lions--Mountain Pigs--The Endof The World--Ghastly Desolation--Proposed Adventure--Reading-upAdventures--Ascent of Monte Rosa--Precipices and Crevasses--Amongthe Snows--Exciting Experiences--lee Ridges--The Summit--AdventuresPostponed

CHAPTER XXXV A New Interest--Magnificent Views--A Mule'sPrefereoces--Turning Mountain Corners--Terror of a Horse--LadyTourists--Death of a young Countess--A Search for a Hat--What We DidFind--Harris's Opinion of Chamois--A Disappointed Man--A Giantess--Modelfor an Empress--Baths at Leuk--Sport in the Water--The GemmiPrecipices--A Palace for an Emperor--The Famous Ladders--ConsiderablyMixed Up--Sad Plight of a Minister

CHAPTER XXIX

[Looking West for Sunrise]

He kept his word. We heard his horn and instantly got up. It was darkand cold and wretched. As I fumbled around for the matches, knockingthings down with my quaking hands, I wished the sun would rise in themiddle of the day, when it was warm and bright and cheerful, and onewasn't sleepy. We proceeded to dress by the gloom of a couple sicklycandles, but we could hardly button anything, our hands shook so. I thought of how many happy people there were in Europe, Asia, andAmerica, and everywhere, who were sleeping peacefully in their beds, and did not have to get up and see the Rigi sunrise--people who didnot appreciate their advantage, as like as not, but would get up in themorning wanting more boons of Providence. While thinking these thoughtsI yawned, in a rather ample way, and my upper teeth got hitched on anail over the door, and while I was mounting a chair to free myself, Harris drew the window-curtain, and said:

"Oh, this is luck! We shan't have to go out at all--yonder are themountains, in full view. "

That was glad news, indeed. It made us cheerful right away. One couldsee the grand Alpine masses dimly outlined against the black firmament, and one or two faint stars blinking through rifts in the night. Fullyclothed, and wrapped in blankets, and huddled ourselves up, by thewindow, with lighted pipes, and fell into chat, while we waited inexceeding comfort to see how an Alpine sunrise was going to look bycandlelight. By and by a delicate, spiritual sort of effulgence spreaditself by imperceptible degrees over the loftiest altitudes of the snowywastes--but there the effort seemed to stop. I said, presently:

"There is a hitch about this sunrise somewhere. It doesn't seem to go. What do you reckon is the matter with it?"

"I don't know. It appears to hang fire somewhere. I never saw a sunriseact like that before. Can it be that the hotel is playing anything onus?"

"Of course not. The hotel merely has a property interest in the sun, ithas nothing to do with the management of it. It is a precarious kind ofproperty, too; a succession of total eclipses would probably ruin thistavern. Now what can be the matter with this sunrise?"

Harris jumped up and said:

"I've got it! I know what's the matter with it! We've been looking atthe place where the sun SET last night!"

"It is perfectly true! Why couldn't you have thought of that sooner? Nowwe've lost another one! And all through your blundering. It was exactlylike you to light a pipe and sit down to wait for the sun to rise in thewest. "

"It was exactly like me to find out the mistake, too. You never wouldhave found it out. I find out all the mistakes. "

"You make them all, too, else your most valuable faculty would be wastedon you. But don't stop to quarrel, now--maybe we are not too late yet. "

But we were. The sun was well up when we got to the exhibition-ground. 

On our way up we met the crowd returning--men and women dressed inall sorts of queer costumes, and exhibiting all degrees of cold andwretchedness in their gaits and countenances. A dozen still remained onthe ground when we reached there, huddled together about the scaffoldwith their backs to the bitter wind. They had their red guide-books openat the diagram of the view, and were painfully picking out the severalmountains and trying to impress their names and positions on theirmemories. It was one of the saddest sights I ever saw. 

Two sides of this place were guarded by railings, to keep people frombeing blown over the precipices. The view, looking sheer down intothe broad valley, eastward, from this great elevation--almost aperpendicular mile--was very quaint and curious. Counties, towns, hillyribs and ridges, wide stretches of green meadow, great forest tracts, winding streams, a dozen blue lakes, a block of busy steamboats--we sawall this little world in unique circumstantiality of detail--saw it justas the birds see it--and all reduced to the smallest of scales and assharply worked out and finished as a steel engraving. The numerous toyvillages, with tiny spires projecting out of them, were just as thechildren might have left them when done with play the day before; theforest tracts were diminished to cushions of moss; one or two big lakeswere dwarfed to ponds, the smaller ones to puddles--though they did notlook like puddles, but like blue teardrops which had fallen and lodgedin slight depressions, conformable to their shapes, among the moss-bedsand the smooth levels of dainty green farm-land; the microscopicsteamboats glided along, as in a city reservoir, taking a mighty time tocover the distance between ports which seemed only a yard apart; and theisthmus which separated two lakes looked as if one might stretch out onit and lie with both elbows in the water, yet we knew invisible wagonswere toiling across it and finding the distance a tedious one. Thisbeautiful miniature world had exactly the appearance of those "reliefmaps" which reproduce nature precisely, with the heights and depressionsand other details graduated to a reduced scale, and with the rocks, trees, lakes, etc. , colored after nature. 

I believed we could walk down to Waeggis or Vitznau in a day, but I knewwe could go down by rail in about an hour, so I chose the latter method. I wanted to see what it was like, anyway. The train came along about themiddle of the afternoon, and an odd thing it was. The locomotive-boilerstood on end, and it and the whole locomotive were tilted sharplybackward. There were two passenger-cars, roofed, but wide open allaround. These cars were not tilted back, but the seats were; thisenables the passenger to sit level while going down a steep incline. 

There are three railway-tracks; the central one is cogged; the "lanternwheel" of the engine grips its way along these cogs, and pulls thetrain up the hill or retards its motion on the down trip. About the samespeed--three miles an hour--is maintained both ways. Whether going up ordown, the locomotive is always at the lower end of the train. It pushesin the one case, braces back in the other. The passenger rides backwardgoing up, and faces forward going down. 

We got front seats, and while the train moved along about fifty yardson level ground, I was not the least frightened; but now it startedabruptly downstairs, and I caught my breath. And I, like my neighbors, unconsciously held back all I could, and threw my weight to the rear, but, of course, that did no particular good. I had slidden down thebalusters when I was a boy, and thought nothing of it, but to slide downthe balusters in a railway-train is a thing to make one's flesh creep. Sometimes we had as much as ten yards of almost level ground, and thisgave us a few full breaths in comfort; but straightway we would turn acorner and see a long steep line of rails stretching down below us, andthe comfort was at an end. One expected to see the locomotive pause, or slack up a little, and approach this plunge cautiously, but itdid nothing of the kind; it went calmly on, and went it reached thejumping-off place it made a sudden bow, and went gliding smoothlydownstairs, untroubled by the circumstances. 

It was wildly exhilarating to slide along the edge of the precipices, after this grisly fashion, and look straight down upon that far-offvalley which I was describing a while ago. 

There was no level ground at the Kaltbad station; the railbed was assteep as a roof; I was curious to see how the stop was going to bemanaged. But it was very simple; the train came sliding down, and whenit reached the right spot it just stopped--that was all there was "toit"--stopped on the steep incline, and when the exchange of passengersand baggage had been made, it moved off and went sliding down again. Thetrain can be stopped anywhere, at a moment's notice. 

There was one curious effect, which I need not take the trouble todescribe--because I can scissor a description of it out of the railwaycompany's advertising pamphlet, and save my ink:

"On the whole tour, particularly at the Descent, we undergo an opticalillusion which often seems to be incredible. All the shrubs, fir trees, stables, houses, etc. , seem to be bent in a slanting direction, as by animmense pressure of air. They are all standing awry, so much awry thatthe chalets and cottages of the peasants seem to be tumbling down. Itis the consequence of the steep inclination of the line. Those whoare seated in the carriage do not observe that they are going down adeclivity of twenty to twenty-five degrees (their seats being adaptedto this course of proceeding and being bent down at their backs). Theymistake their carriage and its horizontal lines for a proper measure ofthe normal plain, and therefore all the objects outside which reallyare in a horizontal position must show a disproportion of twenty totwenty-five degrees declivity, in regard to the mountain. "

By the time one reaches Kaltbad, he has acquired confidence in therailway, and he now ceases to try to ease the locomotive by holdingback. Thenceforth he smokes his pipe in serenity, and gazes out upon themagnificent picture below and about him with unfettered enjoyment. Thereis nothing to interrupt the view or the breeze; it is like inspectingthe world on the wing. However--to be exact--there is one place wherethe serenity lapses for a while; this is while one is crossing theSchnurrtobel Bridge, a frail structure which swings its gossamer framedown through the dizzy air, over a gorge, like a vagrant spider-strand. 

One has no difficulty in remembering his sins while the train iscreeping down this bridge; and he repents of them, too; though he sees, when he gets to Vitznau, that he need not have done it, the bridge wasperfectly safe. 

So ends the eventual trip which we made to the Rigi-Kulm to see anAlpine sunrise. 

CHAPTER XXX

[Harris Climbs Mountains for Me]

An hour's sail brought us to Lucerne again. I judged it best to go tobed and rest several days, for I knew that the man who undertakes tomake the tour of Europe on foot must take care of himself. 

Thinking over my plans, as mapped out, I perceived that they did nottake in the Furka Pass, the Rhone Glacier, the Finsteraarhorn, theWetterhorn, etc. I immediately examined the guide-book to see if thesewere important, and found they were; in fact, a pedestrian tour ofEurope could not be complete without them. Of course that decided me atonce to see them, for I never allow myself to do things by halves, or ina slurring, slipshod way. 

I called in my agent and instructed him to go without delay and make acareful examination of these noted places, on foot, and bring me back awritten report of the result, for insertion in my book. I instructedhim to go to Hospenthal as quickly as possible, and make his grand startfrom there; to extend his foot expedition as far as the Giesbach fall, and return to me from thence by diligence or mule. I told him to takethe courier with him. 

He objected to the courier, and with some show of reason, since he wasabout to venture upon new and untried ground; but I thought he mightas well learn how to take care of the courier now as later, therefore Ienforced my point. I said that the trouble, delay, and inconvenienceof traveling with a courier were balanced by the deep respect which acourier's presence commands, and I must insist that as much style bethrown into my journeys as possible. 

So the two assumed complete mountaineering costumes and departed. A weeklater they returned, pretty well used up, and my agent handed me thefollowing: Official Report

OF A VISIT TO THE FURKA REGION. 

BY H. HARRIS, AGENT About seven o'clock in the morning, with perfectlyfine weather, we started from Hospenthal, and arrived at the MAISON onthe Furka in a little under QUATRE hours. The want of variety in thescenery from Hospenthal made the KAHKAHPONEEKA wearisome; but let nonebe discouraged; no one can fail to be completely R'ECOMPENS'EE for hisfatigue, when he sees, for the first time, the monarch of the Oberland, the tremendous Finsteraarhorn. A moment before all was dullness, buta PAS further has placed us on the summit of the Furka; and exactly infront of us, at a HOPOW of only fifteen miles, this magnificent mountainlifts its snow-wreathed precipices into the deep blue sky. The inferiormountains on each side of the pass form a sort of frame for the pictureof their dread lord, and close in the view so completely that no otherprominent feature in the Oberland is visible from this BONG-A-BONG;nothing withdraws the attention from the solitary grandeur of theFinsteraarhorn and the dependent spurs which form the abutments of thecentral peak. 

With the addition of some others, who were also bound for the Grimsel, we formed a large XHVLOJ as we descended the STEG which winds round theshoulder of a mountain toward the Rhone Glacier. We soon left the pathand took to the ice; and after wandering amongst the crevices UN PEU, toadmire the wonders of these deep blue caverns, and hear the rushing ofwaters through their subglacial channels, we struck out a course towardL'AUTRE CÔTE and crossed the glacier successfully, a little above thecave from which the infant Rhone takes its first bound from under thegrand precipice of ice. Half a mile below this we began to climb theflowery side of the Meienwand. One of our party started before the rest, but the HITZE was so great, that we found IHM quite exhausted, and lyingat full length in the shade of a large GESTEIN. We sat down with himfor a time, for all felt the heat exceedingly in the climb up this verysteep BOLWOGGOLY, and then we set out again together, and arrived atlast near the Dead Man's Lake, at the foot of the Sidelhorn. This lonelyspot, once used for an extempore burying-place, after a sanguinaryBATTUE between the French and Austrians, is the perfection ofdesolation; there is nothing in sight to mark the hand of man, exceptthe line of weather-beaten whitened posts, set up to indicate thedirection of the pass in the OWDAWAKK of winter. Near this point thefootpath joins the wider track, which connects the Grimsel with the headof the Rhone SCHNAWP; this has been carefully constructed, and leadswith a tortuous course among and over LES PIERRES, down to the bank ofthe gloomy little SWOSH-SWOSH, which almost washes against the walls ofthe Grimsel Hospice. We arrived a little before four o'clock at the endof our day's journey, hot enough to justify the step, taking by most ofthe PARTIE, of plunging into the crystal water of the snow-fed lake. 

The next afternoon we started for a walk up the Unteraar glacier, withthe intention of, at all events, getting as far as the Hütte which isused as a sleeping-place by most of those who cross the Strahleck Passto Grindelwald. We got over the tedious collection of stones and DÉBRISwhich covers the PIED of the GLETCHER, and had walked nearly three hoursfrom the Grimsel, when, just as we were thinking of crossing over to theright, to climb the cliffs at the foot of the hut, the clouds, which hadfor some time assumed a threatening appearance, suddenly dropped, anda huge mass of them, driving toward us from the Finsteraarhorn, poureddown a deluge of HABOOLONG and hail. Fortunately, we were not far froma very large glacier-table; it was a huge rock balanced on a pedestalof ice high enough to admit of our all creeping under it for GOWKARAK. A stream of PUCKITTYPUKK had furrowed a course for itself in the iceat its base, and we were obliged to stand with one FUSS on each side ofthis, and endeavor to keep ourselves CHAUD by cutting steps in the steepbank of the pedestal, so as to get a higher place for standing on, as the WASSER rose rapidly in its trench. A very cold BZZZZZZZZEEEaccompanied the storm, and made our position far from pleasant; andpresently came a flash of BLITZEN, apparently in the middle of ourlittle party, with an instantaneous clap of YOKKY, sounding like a largegun fired close to our ears; the effect was startling; but in a fewseconds our attention was fixed by the roaring echoes of the thunderagainst the tremendous mountains which completely surrounded us. Thiswas followed by many more bursts, none of WELCHE, however, was sodangerously near; and after waiting a long DEMI-hour in our icy prison, we sallied out to talk through a HABOOLONG which, though not so heavyas before, was quite enough to give us a thorough soaking before ourarrival at the Hospice. 

The Grimsel is CERTAINEMENT a wonderful place; situated at the bottomof a sort of huge crater, the sides of which are utterly savage GEBIRGE, composed of barren rocks which cannot even support a single pine ARBRE, and afford only scanty food for a herd of GMWKWLLOLP, it looks as ifit must be completely BEGRABEN in the winter snows. Enormous avalanchesfall against it every spring, sometimes covering everything to the depthof thirty or forty feet; and, in spite of walls four feet thick, andfurnished with outside shutters, the two men who stay here when theVOYAGEURS are snugly quartered in their distant homes can tell you thatthe snow sometimes shakes the house to its foundations. 

Next morning the HOGGLEBUMGULLUP still continued bad, but we made up ourminds to go on, and make the best of it. Half an hour after we started, the REGEN thickened unpleasantly, and we attempted to get shelter undera projecting rock, but being far to NASS already to make standing atall AGRÉABLE, we pushed on for the Handeck, consoling ourselves with thereflection that from the furious rushing of the river Aar at ourside, we should at all events see the celebrated WASSERFALL in GRANDEPERFECTION. Nor were we NAPPERSOCKET in our expectation; the waterwas roaring down its leap of two hundred and fifty feet in a mostmagnificent frenzy, while the trees which cling to its rocky sidesswayed to and fro in the violence of the hurricane which it brought downwith it; even the stream, which falls into the main cascade at rightangles, and TOUTEFOIS forms a beautiful feature in the scene, was nowswollen into a raging torrent; and the violence of this "meeting of thewaters, " about fifty feet below the frail bridge where we stood, wasfearfully grand. While we were looking at it, GLÜECKLICHEWEISE a gleamof sunshine came out, and instantly a beautiful rainbow was formed bythe spray, and hung in mid-air suspended over the awful gorge. 

On going into the CHALET above the fall, we were informed that a BRUECKEhad broken down near Guttanen, and that it would be impossible toproceed for some time; accordingly we were kept in our drenchedcondition for EIN STUNDE, when some VOYAGEURS arrived from Meiringen, and told us that there had been a trifling accident, ABER that we couldnow cross. On arriving at the spot, I was much inclined to suspect thatthe whole story was a ruse to make us SLOWWK and drink the more at theHandeck Inn, for only a few planks had been carried away, and thoughthere might perhaps have been some difficulty with mules, the gap wascertainly not larger than a MMBGLX might cross with a very slight leap. Near Guttanen the HABOOLONG happily ceased, and we had time to walkourselves tolerably dry before arriving at Reichenback, WO we enjoyed agood DINÉ at the Hotel des Alps. 

Next morning we walked to Rosenlaui, the BEAU IDÉAL of Swiss scenery, where we spent the middle of the day in an excursion to the glacier. This was more beautiful than words can describe, for in the constantprogress of the ice it has changed the form of its extremity and formeda vast cavern, as blue as the sky above, and rippled like a frozenocean. A few steps cut in the WHOOPJAMBOREEHOO enabled us to walkcompletely under this, and feast our eyes upon one of the loveliestobjects in creation. The glacier was all around divided by numberlessfissures of the same exquisite color, and the finest wood-ERDBEEREN weregrowing in abundance but a few yards from the ice. The inn stands in aCHARMANT spot close to the CÔTÉ DE LA RIVIÈRE, which, lower down, formsthe Reichenbach fall, and embosomed in the richest of pine woods, while the fine form of the Wellhorn looking down upon it completes theenchanting BOPPLE. In the afternoon we walked over the Great Scheideckto Grindelwald, stopping to pay a visit to the Upper glacier by the way;but we were again overtaken by bad HOGGLEBUMGULLUP and arrived at thehotel in a SOLCHE a state that the landlord's wardrobe was in greatrequest. 

The clouds by this time seemed to have done their worst, for a lovelyday succeeded, which we determined to devote to an ascent of theFaulhorn. We left Grindelwald just as a thunder-storm was dying away, and we hoped to find GUTEN WETTER up above; but the rain, which hadnearly ceased, began again, and we were struck by the rapidly increasingFROID as we ascended. Two-thirds of the way up were completed whenthe rain was exchanged for GNILLIC, with which the BODEN was thicklycovered, and before we arrived at the top the GNILLIC and mist becameso thick that we could not see one another at more than twenty POOPOOdistance, and it became difficult to pick our way over the rough andthickly covered ground. Shivering with cold, we turned into bed with adouble allowance of clothes, and slept comfortably while the windhowled AUTOUR DE LA MAISON; when I awoke, the wall and the window lookedequally dark, but in another hour I found I could just see the formof the latter; so I jumped out of bed, and forced it open, though withgreat difficulty from the frost and the quantities of GNILLIC heaped upagainst it. 

A row of huge icicles hung down from the edge of the roof, and anythingmore wintry than the whole ANBLICK could not well be imagined; but thesudden appearance of the great mountains in front was so startlingthat I felt no inclination to move toward bed again. The snow whichhad collected upon LA FÊNTRE had increased the FINSTERNISS ODER DERDUNKELHEIT, so that when I looked out I was surprised to find that thedaylight was considerable, and that the BALRAGOOMAH would evidently risebefore long. Only the brightest of LES E'TOILES were still shining; thesky was cloudless overhead, though small curling mists lay thousands offeet below us in the valleys, wreathed around the feet of the mountains, and adding to the splendor of their lofty summits. We were soon dressedand out of the house, watching the gradual approach of dawn, thoroughlyabsorbed in the first near view of the Oberland giants, which brokeupon us unexpectedly after the intense obscurity of the evening before. "KABAUGWAKKO SONGWASHEE KUM WETTERHORN SNAWPO!" cried some one, as thatgrand summit gleamed with the first rose of dawn; and in a few momentsthe double crest of the Schreckhorn followed its example; peak afterpeak seemed warmed with life, the Jungfrau blushed even more beautifullythan her neighbors, and soon, from the Wetterhorn in the east to theWildstrubel in the west, a long row of fires glowed upon mighty altars, truly worthy of the gods. 

The WLGW was very severe; our sleeping-place could hardly be DISTINGUEÉfrom the snow around it, which had fallen to a depth of a FLIRK duringthe past evening, and we heartily enjoyed a rough scramble EN BAS tothe Giesbach falls, where we soon found a warm climate. At noon the daybefore Grindelwald the thermometer could not have stood at less than 100degrees Fahr. In the sun; and in the evening, judging from the iciclesformed, and the state of the windows, there must have been at leasttwelve DINGBLATTER of frost, thus giving a change of 80 degrees during afew hours. 

I said:

"You have done well, Harris; this report is concise, compact, wellexpressed; the language is crisp, the descriptions are vivid and notneedlessly elaborated; your report goes straight to the point, attendsstrictly to business, and doesn't fool around. It is in many ways anexcellent document. But it has a fault--it is too learned, it is muchtoo learned. What is 'DINGBLATTER'?

"'DINGBLATTER' is a Fiji word meaning 'degrees. '"

"You knew the English of it, then?"

"Oh, yes. "

"What is 'GNILLIC'?

"That is the Eskimo term for 'snow. '"

"So you knew the English for that, too?"

"Why, certainly. "

"What does 'MMBGLX' stand for?"

"That is Zulu for 'pedestrian. '"

"'While the form of the Wellhorn looking down upon it completes theenchanting BOPPLE. ' What is 'BOPPLE'?"

"'Picture. ' It's Choctaw. "

"What is 'SCHNAWP'?"

"'Valley. ' That is Choctaw, also. "

"What is 'BOLWOGGOLY'?"

"That is Chinese for 'hill. '"

"'KAHKAHPONEEKA'?"

"'Ascent. ' Choctaw. "

"'But we were again overtaken by bad HOGGLEBUMGULLUP. ' What does'HOGGLEBUMGULLUP' mean?"

"That is Chinese for 'weather. '"

"Is 'HOGGLEBUMGULLUP' better than the English word? Is it any moredescriptive?"

"No, it means just the same. "

"And 'DINGBLATTER' and 'GNILLIC, ' and 'BOPPLE, ' and 'SCHNAWP'--are theybetter than the English words?"

"No, they mean just what the English ones do. "

"Then why do you use them? Why have you used all this Chinese andChoctaw and Zulu rubbish?"

"Because I didn't know any French but two or three words, and I didn'tknow any Latin or Greek at all. "

"That is nothing. Why should you want to use foreign words, anyhow?"

"They adorn my page. They all do it. "

"Who is 'all'?"

"Everybody. Everybody that writes elegantly. Anybody has a right to thatwants to. "

"I think you are mistaken. " I then proceeded in the following scathingmanner. "When really learned men write books for other learned mento read, they are justified in using as many learned words as theyplease--their audience will understand them; but a man who writes a bookfor the general public to read is not justified in disfiguring his pageswith untranslated foreign expressions. It is an insolence toward themajority of the purchasers, for it is a very frank and impudent way ofsaying, 'Get the translations made yourself if you want them, thisbook is not written for the ignorant classes. ' There are men who knowa foreign language so well and have used it so long in their dailylife that they seem to discharge whole volleys of it into their Englishwritings unconsciously, and so they omit to translate, as much ashalf the time. That is a great cruelty to nine out of ten of the man'sreaders. What is the excuse for this? The writer would say he only usesthe foreign language where the delicacy of his point cannot be conveyedin English. Very well, then he writes his best things for the tenth man, and he ought to warn the nine other not to buy his book. However, theexcuse he offers is at least an excuse; but there is another set ofmen who are like YOU; they know a WORD here and there, of a foreignlanguage, or a few beggarly little three-word phrases, filched from theback of the Dictionary, and these are continually peppering into theirliterature, with a pretense of knowing that language--what excuse canthey offer? The foreign words and phrases which they use have theirexact equivalents in a nobler language--English; yet they think they'adorn their page' when they say STRASSE for street, and BAHNHOF forrailway-station, and so on--flaunting these fluttering rags of povertyin the reader's face and imagining he will be ass enough to takethem for the sign of untold riches held in reserve. I will let your'learning' remain in your report; you have as much right, I suppose, to'adorn your page' with Zulu and Chinese and Choctaw rubbish as others ofyour sort have to adorn theirs with insolent odds and ends smouched fromhalf a dozen learned tongues whose A-B ABS they don't even know. "

When the musing spider steps upon the red-hot shovel, he first exhibitsa wild surprise, then he shrivels up. Similar was the effect of theseblistering words upon the tranquil and unsuspecting Agent. I can bedreadfully rough on a person when the mood takes me. 

CHAPTER XXXI

[Alp-scaling by Carriage]

We now prepared for a considerable walk--from Lucerne to Interlaken, over the Bruenig Pass. But at the last moment the weather was so goodthat I changed my mind and hired a four-horse carriage. It was a hugevehicle, roomy, as easy in its motion as a palanquin, and exceedinglycomfortable. 

We got away pretty early in the morning, after a hot breakfast, andwent bowling over a hard, smooth road, through the summer loveliness ofSwitzerland, with near and distant lakes and mountains before and aboutus for the entertainment of the eye, and the music of multitudinousbirds to charm the ear. Sometimes there was only the width of the roadbetween the imposing precipices on the right and the clear cool water onthe left with its shoals of uncatchable fish skimming about through thebars of sun and shadow; and sometimes, in place of the precipices, thegrassy land stretched away, in an apparently endless upward slant, and was dotted everywhere with snug little chalets, the peculiarlycaptivating cottage of Switzerland. 

The ordinary chalet turns a broad, honest gable end to the road, andits ample roof hovers over the home in a protecting, caressing way, projecting its sheltering eaves far outward. The quaint windows arefilled with little panes, and garnished with white muslin curtains, and brightened with boxes of blooming flowers. Across the front of thehouse, and up the spreading eaves and along the fanciful railings ofthe shallow porch, are elaborate carvings--wreaths, fruits, arabesques, verses from Scripture, names, dates, etc. The building is wholly ofwood, reddish brown in tint, a very pleasing color. It generally hasvines climbing over it. Set such a house against the fresh green of thehillside, and it looks ever so cozy and inviting and picturesque, and isa decidedly graceful addition to the landscape. 

One does not find out what a hold the chalet has taken upon him, untilhe presently comes upon a new house--a house which is aping the townfashions of Germany and France, a prim, hideous, straight-up-and-downthing, plastered all over on the outside to look like stone, andaltogether so stiff, and formal, and ugly, and forbidding, and so out oftune with the gracious landscape, and so deaf and dumb and dead to thepoetry of its surroundings, that it suggests an undertaker at a picnic, a corpse at a wedding, a puritan in Paradise. 

In the course of the morning we passed the spot where Pontius Pilate issaid to have thrown himself into the lake. The legend goes that afterthe Crucifixion his conscience troubled him, and he fled from Jerusalemand wandered about the earth, weary of life and a prey to torturesof the mind. Eventually, he hid himself away, on the heights of MountPilatus, and dwelt alone among the clouds and crags for years; but restand peace were still denied him, so he finally put an end to his miseryby drowning himself. 

Presently we passed the place where a man of better odor was born. Thiswas the children's friend, Santa Claus, or St. Nicholas. There are someunaccountable reputations in the world. This saint's is an instance. Hehas ranked for ages as the peculiar friend of children, yet it appearshe was not much of a friend to his own. He had ten of them, and whenfifty years old he left them, and sought out as dismal a refuge from theworld as possible, and became a hermit in order that he might reflectupon pious themes without being disturbed by the joyous and other noisesfrom the nursery, doubtless. 

Judging by Pilate and St. Nicholas, there exists no rule for theconstruction of hermits; they seem made out of all kinds of material. But Pilate attended to the matter of expiating his sin while he wasalive, whereas St. Nicholas will probably have to go on climbing downsooty chimneys, Christmas eve, forever, and conferring kindness on otherpeople's children, to make up for deserting his own. His bones are keptin a church in a village (Sachseln) which we visited, and are naturallyheld in great reverence. His portrait is common in the farmhouses ofthe region, but is believed by many to be but an indifferent likeness. During his hermit life, according to legend, he partook of the breadand wine of the communion once a month, but all the rest of the month hefasted. 

A constant marvel with us, as we sped along the bases of the steepmountains on this journey, was, not that avalanches occur, but that theyare not occurring all the time. One does not understand why rocksand landslides do not plunge down these declivities daily. A landslipoccurred three quarters of a century ago, on the route from Arth toBrunnen, which was a formidable thing. A mass of conglomerate two mileslong, a thousand feet broad, and a hundred feet thick, broke away from acliff three thousand feet high and hurled itself into the valley below, burying four villages and five hundred people, as in a grave. 

We had such a beautiful day, and such endless pictures of limpid lakes, and green hills and valleys, and majestic mountains, and milky cataractsdancing down the steeps and gleaming in the sun, that we could not helpfeeling sweet toward all the world; so we tried to drink all themilk, and eat all the grapes and apricots and berries, and buy all thebouquets of wild flowers which the little peasant boys and girls offeredfor sale; but we had to retire from this contract, for it was too heavy. 

At short distances--and they were entirely too short--all along theroad, were groups of neat and comely children, with their wares nicelyand temptingly set forth in the grass under the shade trees, and as soonas we approached they swarmed into the road, holding out their basketsand milk bottles, and ran beside the carriage, barefoot and bareheaded, and importuned us to buy. They seldom desisted early, but continued torun and insist--beside the wagon while they could, and behind it untilthey lost breath. Then they turned and chased a returning carriage backto their trading-post again. After several hours of this, without anyintermission, it becomes almost annoying. I do not know what we shouldhave done without the returning carriages to draw off the pursuit. However, there were plenty of these, loaded with dusty tourists andpiled high with luggage. Indeed, from Lucerne to Interlaken we hadthe spectacle, among other scenery, of an unbroken procession offruit-peddlers and tourists carriages. 

Our talk was mostly anticipatory of what we should see on the down-gradeof the Bruenig, by and by, after we should pass the summit. All ourfriends in Lucerne had said that to look down upon Meiringen, and therushing blue-gray river Aar, and the broad level green valley; andacross at the mighty Alpine precipices that rise straight up to theclouds out of that valley; and up at the microscopic chalets perchedupon the dizzy eaves of those precipices and winking dimly and fitfullythrough the drifting veil of vapor; and still up and up, at the superbOltschiback and the other beautiful cascades that leap from those ruggedheights, robed in powdery spray, ruffled with foam, and girdled withrainbows--to look upon these things, they say, was to look upon the lastpossibility of the sublime and the enchanting. Therefore, as I say, we talked mainly of these coming wonders; if we were conscious of anyimpatience, it was to get there in favorable season; if we felt anyanxiety, it was that the day might remain perfect, and enable us to seethose marvels at their best. 

As we approached the Kaiserstuhl, a part of the harness gave way. 

We were in distress for a moment, but only a moment. It was thefore-and-aft gear that was broken--the thing that leads aft from theforward part of the horse and is made fast to the thing that pulls thewagon. In America this would have been a heavy leathern strap; but, allover the continent it is nothing but a piece of rope the size ofyour little finger--clothes-line is what it is. Cabs use it, privatecarriages, freight-carts and wagons, all sorts of vehicles have it. InMunich I afterward saw it used on a long wagon laden with fifty-fourhalf-barrels of beer; I had before noticed that the cabs in Heidelbergused it--not new rope, but rope that had been in use since Abraham'stime --and I had felt nervous, sometimes, behind it when the cab wastearing down a hill. But I had long been accustomed to it now, and hadeven become afraid of the leather strap which belonged in its place. Ourdriver got a fresh piece of clothes-line out of his locker and repairedthe break in two minutes. 

So much for one European fashion. Every country has its own ways. It mayinterest the reader to know how they "put horses to" on the continent. The man stands up the horses on each side of the thing that projectsfrom the front end of the wagon, and then throws the tangled mess ofgear forward through a ring, and hauls it aft, and passes the otherthing through the other ring and hauls it aft on the other side of theother horse, opposite to the first one, after crossing them and bringingthe loose end back, and then buckles the other thing underneath thehorse, and takes another thing and wraps it around the thing I spokeof before, and puts another thing over each horse's head, with broadflappers to it to keep the dust out of his eyes, and puts the iron thingin his mouth for him to grit his teeth on, uphill, and brings the endsof these things aft over his back, after buckling another one aroundunder his neck to hold his head up, and hitching another thing ona thing that goes over his shoulders to keep his head up when he isclimbing a hill, and then takes the slack of the thing which I mentioneda while ago, and fetches it aft and makes it fast to the thing thatpulls the wagon, and hands the other things up to the driver to steerwith. I never have buckled up a horse myself, but I do not think we doit that way. 

We had four very handsome horses, and the driver was very proud of histurnout. He would bowl along on a reasonable trot, on the highway, butwhen he entered a village he did it on a furious run, and accompanied itwith a frenzy of ceaseless whip-crackings that sounded like volleys ofmusketry. He tore through the narrow streets and around the sharp curveslike a moving earthquake, showering his volleys as he went, and beforehim swept a continuous tidal wave of scampering children, ducks, cats, and mothers clasping babies which they had snatched out of the way ofthe coming destruction; and as this living wave washed aside, along thewalls, its elements, being safe, forgot their fears and turned theiradmiring gaze upon that gallant driver till he thundered around the nextcurve and was lost to sight. 

He was a great man to those villagers, with his gaudy clothes and histerrific ways. Whenever he stopped to have his cattle watered and fedwith loaves of bread, the villagers stood around admiring him whilehe swaggered about, the little boys gazed up at his face with humblehomage, and the landlord brought out foaming mugs of beer and conversedproudly with him while he drank. Then he mounted his lofty box, swunghis explosive whip, and away he went again, like a storm. I had notseen anything like this before since I was a boy, and the stage used toflourish the village with the dust flying and the horn tooting. 

When we reached the base of the Kaiserstuhl, we took two more horses; wehad to toil along with difficulty for an hour and a half or two hours, for the ascent was not very gradual, but when we passed the backbone andapproached the station, the driver surpassed all his previous efforts inthe way of rush and clatter. He could not have six horses all the time, so he made the most of his chance while he had it. 

Up to this point we had been in the heart of the William Tell region. The hero is not forgotten, by any means, or held in doubtful veneration. His wooden image, with his bow drawn, above the doors of taverns, was afrequent feature of the scenery. 

About noon we arrived at the foot of the Bruenig Pass, and made atwo-hour stop at the village hotel, another of those clean, pretty, andthoroughly well-kept inns which are such an astonishment to peoplewho are accustomed to hotels of a dismally different pattern in remotecountry-towns. There was a lake here, in the lap of the great mountains, the green slopes that rose toward the lower crags were graced withscattered Swiss cottages nestling among miniature farms and gardens, and from out a leafy ambuscade in the upper heights tumbled a brawlingcataract. 

Carriage after carriage, laden with tourists and trunks, arrived, andthe quiet hotel was soon populous. We were early at the table d'hôte andsaw the people all come in. There were twenty-five, perhaps. They wereof various nationalities, but we were the only Americans. Next to me satan English bride, and next to her sat her new husband, whom she called"Neddy, " though he was big enough and stalwart enough to be entitled tohis full name. They had a pretty little lovers' quarrel over what winethey should have. Neddy was for obeying the guide-book and taking thewine of the country; but the bride said:

"What, that nahsty stuff!"

"It isn't nahsty, pet, it's quite good. "

"It IS nahsty. "

"No, it ISN'T nahsty. "

"It's Oful nahsty, Neddy, and I shahn't drink it. "

Then the question was, what she must have. She said he knew very wellthat she never drank anything but champagne. 

She added:

"You know very well papa always has champagne on his table, and I'vealways been used to it. "

Neddy made a playful pretense of being distressed about the expense, and this amused her so much that she nearly exhausted herself withlaughter--and this pleased HIM so much that he repeated his jest acouple of times, and added new and killing varieties to it. When thebride finally recovered, she gave Neddy a love-box on the arm with herfan, and said with arch severity:

"Well, you would HAVE me--nothing else would do--so you'll have to makethe best of a bad bargain. DO order the champagne, I'm Oful dry. "

So with a mock groan which made her laugh again, Neddy ordered thechampagne. 

The fact that this young woman had never moistened the selvedge edge ofher soul with a less plebeian tipple than champagne, had a marked andsubduing effect on Harris. He believed she belonged to the royal family. But I had my doubts. 

We heard two or three different languages spoken by people at thetable and guessed out the nationalities of most of the guests to oursatisfaction, but we failed with an elderly gentleman and his wife anda young girl who sat opposite us, and with a gentleman of aboutthirty-five who sat three seats beyond Harris. We did not hear any ofthese speak. But finally the last-named gentleman left while we were notnoticing, but we looked up as he reached the far end of the table. Hestopped there a moment, and made his toilet with a pocket comb. So hewas a German; or else he had lived in German hotels long enough to catchthe fashion. When the elderly couple and the young girl rose to leave, they bowed respectfully to us. So they were Germans, too. This nationalcustom is worth six of the other one, for export. 

After dinner we talked with several Englishmen, and they inflamed ourdesire to a hotter degree than ever, to see the sights of Meiringen fromthe heights of the Bruenig Pass. They said the view was marvelous, andthat one who had seen it once could never forget it. They also spoke ofthe romantic nature of the road over the pass, and how in one place ithad been cut through a flank of the solid rock, in such a way that themountain overhung the tourist as he passed by; and they furthermore saidthat the sharp turns in the road and the abruptness of the descent wouldafford us a thrilling experience, for we should go down in a flyinggallop and seem to be spinning around the rings of a whirlwind, like adrop of whiskey descending the spirals of a corkscrew. 

I got all the information out of these gentlemen that we could need; andthen, to make everything complete, I asked them if a body could get holdof a little fruit and milk here and there, in case of necessity. Theythrew up their hands in speechless intimation that the road was simplypaved with refreshment-peddlers. We were impatient to get away, now, andthe rest of our two-hour stop rather dragged. But finally the set timearrived and we began the ascent. Indeed it was a wonderful road. It wassmooth, and compact, and clean, and the side next the precipices wasguarded all along by dressed stone posts about three feet high, placedat short distances apart. The road could not have been better built ifNapoleon the First had built it. He seems to have been the introducer ofthe sort of roads which Europe now uses. All literature which describeslife as it existed in England, France, and Germany up to the closeof the last century, is filled with pictures of coaches and carriageswallowing through these three countries in mud and slush half-wheeldeep; but after Napoleon had floundered through a conquered kingdom hegenerally arranged things so that the rest of the world could followdry-shod. 

We went on climbing, higher and higher, and curving hither and thither, in the shade of noble woods, and with a rich variety and profusion ofwild flowers all about us; and glimpses of rounded grassy backbonesbelow us occupied by trim chalets and nibbling sheep, and other glimpsesof far lower altitudes, where distance diminished the chalets to toysand obliterated the sheep altogether; and every now and then someermined monarch of the Alps swung magnificently into view for a moment, then drifted past an intervening spur and disappeared again. 

It was an intoxicating trip altogether; the exceeding sense ofsatisfaction that follows a good dinner added largely to the enjoyment;the having something especial to look forward to and muse about, likethe approaching grandeurs of Meiringen, sharpened the zest. Smokingwas never so good before, solid comfort was never solider; we lay backagainst the thick cushions silent, meditative, steeped in felicity. ** * * * * * * I rubbed my eyes, opened them, and started. I had beendreaming I was at sea, and it was a thrilling surprise to wake up andfind land all around me. It took me a couple seconds to "come to, " asyou may say; then I took in the situation. The horses were drinking ata trough in the edge of a town, the driver was taking beer, Harris wassnoring at my side, the courier, with folded arms and bowed head, wassleeping on the box, two dozen barefooted and bareheaded children weregathered about the carriage, with their hands crossed behind, gazing upwith serious and innocent admiration at the dozing tourists baking therein the sun. Several small girls held night-capped babies nearly as bigas themselves in their arms, and even these fat babies seemed to take asort of sluggish interest in us. 

We had slept an hour and a half and missed all the scenery! I did notneed anybody to tell me that. If I had been a girl, I could have cursedfor vexation. As it was, I woke up the agent and gave him a piece ofmy mind. Instead of being humiliated, he only upbraided me for beingso wanting in vigilance. He said he had expected to improve his mind bycoming to Europe, but a man might travel to the ends of the earth withme and never see anything, for I was manifestly endowed with the verygenius of ill luck. He even tried to get up some emotion about thatpoor courier, who never got a chance to see anything, on account of myheedlessness. But when I thought I had borne about enough of this kindof talk, I threatened to make Harris tramp back to the summit and make areport on that scenery, and this suggestion spiked his battery. 

We drove sullenly through Brienz, dead to the seductions of itsbewildering array of Swiss carvings and the clamorous HOO-hooing ofits cuckoo clocks, and had not entirely recovered our spirits when werattled across a bridge over the rushing blue river and entered thepretty town of Interlaken. It was just about sunset, and we had made thetrip from Lucerne in ten hours. 

CHAPTER XXXII

[The Jungfrau, the Bride, and the Piano]

We located ourselves at the Jungfrau Hotel, one of those hugeestablishments which the needs of modern travel have created in everyattractive spot on the continent. There was a great gathering at dinner, and, as usual, one heard all sorts of languages. 

The table d'hôte was served by waitresses dressed in the quaint andcomely costume of the Swiss peasants. This consists of a simple gros delaine, trimmed with ashes of roses, with overskirt of scare bleu ventresaint gris, cut bias on the off-side, with facings of petit polonaiseand narrow insertions of pâte de foie gras backstitched to the miseen sce`ne in the form of a jeu d'esprit. It gives to the wearer asingularly piquant and alluring aspect. 

One of these waitresses, a woman of forty, had side-whiskers reachinghalf-way down her jaws. They were two fingers broad, dark in color, pretty thick, and the hairs were an inch long. One sees many women onthe continent with quite conspicuous mustaches, but this was the onlywoman I saw who had reached the dignity of whiskers. 

After dinner the guests of both sexes distributed themselves about thefront porches and the ornamental grounds belonging to the hotel, toenjoy the cool air; but, as the twilight deepened toward darkness, theygathered themselves together in that saddest and solemnest and mostconstrained of all places, the great blank drawing-room which is thechief feature of all continental summer hotels. There they groupedthemselves about, in couples and threes, and mumbled in bated voices, and looked timid and homeless and forlorn. 

There was a small piano in this room, a clattery, wheezy, asthmaticthing, certainly the very worst miscarriage in the way of a piano thatthe world has seen. In turn, five or six dejected and homesick ladiesapproached it doubtingly, gave it a single inquiring thump, andretired with the lockjaw. But the boss of that instrument was to come, nevertheless; and from my own country--from Arkansaw. 

She was a brand-new bride, innocent, girlish, happy in herself and hergrave and worshiping stripling of a husband; she was about eighteen, just out of school, free from affectations, unconscious of thatpassionless multitude around her; and the very first time she smotethat old wreck one recognized that it had met its destiny. Her striplingbrought an armful of aged sheet-music from their room--for this bridewent "heeled, " as you might say--and bent himself lovingly over and gotready to turn the pages. 

The bride fetched a swoop with her fingers from one end of the keyboardto the other, just to get her bearings, as it were, and you could seethe congregation set their teeth with the agony of it. Then, withoutany more preliminaries, she turned on all the horrors of the "Battle ofPrague, " that venerable shivaree, and waded chin-deep in the blood ofthe slain. She made a fair and honorable average of two false notes inevery five, but her soul was in arms and she never stopped to correct. The audience stood it with pretty fair grit for a while, but when thecannonade waxed hotter and fiercer, and the discord average rose tofour in five, the procession began to move. A few stragglers held theirground ten minutes longer, but when the girl began to wring the trueinwardness out of the "cries of the wounded, " they struck their colorsand retired in a kind of panic. 

There never was a completer victory; I was the only non-combatant lefton the field. I would not have deserted my countrywoman anyhow, butindeed I had no desires in that direction. None of us like mediocrity, but we all reverence perfection. This girl's music was perfection in itsway; it was the worst music that had ever been achieved on our planet bya mere human being. 

I moved up close, and never lost a strain. When she got through, Iasked her to play it again. She did it with a pleased alacrity and aheightened enthusiasm. She made it ALL discords, this time. She got anamount of anguish into the cries of the wounded that shed a new light onhuman suffering. She was on the war-path all the evening. All the time, crowds of people gathered on the porches and pressed their noses againstthe windows to look and marvel, but the bravest never ventured in. The bride went off satisfied and happy with her young fellow, when herappetite was finally gorged, and the tourists swarmed in again. 

What a change has come over Switzerland, and in fact all Europe, duringthis century! Seventy or eighty years ago Napoleon was the only man inEurope who could really be called a traveler; he was the only man whohad devoted his attention to it and taken a powerful interest in it; hewas the only man who had traveled extensively; but now everybody goeseverywhere; and Switzerland, and many other regions which were unvisitedand unknown remotenesses a hundred years ago, are in our days a buzzinghive of restless strangers every summer. But I digress. 

In the morning, when we looked out of our windows, we saw a wonderfulsight. Across the valley, and apparently quite neighborly and close athand, the giant form of the Jungfrau rose cold and white into the clearsky, beyond a gateway in the nearer highlands. It reminded me, somehow, of one of those colossal billows which swells suddenly up beside one'sship, at sea, sometimes, with its crest and shoulders snowy white, andthe rest of its noble proportions streaked downward with creamy foam. 

I took out my sketch-book and made a little picture of the Jungfrau, merely to get the shape. 

I do not regard this as one of my finished works, in fact I do not rankit among my Works at all; it is only a study; it is hardly more thanwhat one might call a sketch. Other artists have done me the grace toadmire it; but I am severe in my judgments of my own pictures, and thisone does not move me. 

It was hard to believe that that lofty wooded rampart on the left whichso overtops the Jungfrau was not actually the higher of the two, but itwas not, of course. It is only two or three thousand feet high, and ofcourse has no snow upon it in summer, whereas the Jungfrau is not muchshorter of fourteen thousand feet high and therefore that lowest vergeof snow on her side, which seems nearly down to the valley level, isreally about seven thousand feet higher up in the air than the summitof that wooded rampart. It is the distance that makes the deception. The wooded height is but four or five miles removed from us, but theJungfrau is four or five times that distance away. 

Walking down the street of shops, in the fore-noon, I was attracted bya large picture, carved, frame and all, from a single block ofchocolate-colored wood. There are people who know everything. Some ofthese had told us that continental shopkeepers always raise their priceson English and Americans. Many people had told us it was expensive tobuy things through a courier, whereas I had supposed it was just thereverse. When I saw this picture, I conjectured that it was worth morethan the friend I proposed to buy it for would like to pay, but still itwas worth while to inquire; so I told the courier to step in and askthe price, as if he wanted it for himself; I told him not to speak inEnglish, and above all not to reveal the fact that he was a courier. Then I moved on a few yards, and waited. 

The courier came presently and reported the price. I said to myself, "Itis a hundred francs too much, " and so dismissed the matter from mymind. But in the afternoon I was passing that place with Harris, and thepicture attracted me again. We stepped in, to see how much higherbroken German would raise the price. The shopwoman named a figure justa hundred francs lower than the courier had named. This was a pleasantsurprise. I said I would take it. After I had given directions as towhere it was to be shipped, the shopwoman said, appealingly:

"If you please, do not let your courier know you bought it. "

This was an unexpected remark. I said:

"What makes you think I have a courier?"

"Ah, that is very simple; he told me himself. "

"He was very thoughtful. But tell me--why did you charge him more thanyou are charging me?"

"That is very simple, also: I do not have to pay you a percentage. "

"Oh, I begin to see. You would have had to pay the courier apercentage. "

"Undoubtedly. The courier always has his percentage. In this case itwould have been a hundred francs. "

"Then the tradesman does not pay a part of it--the purchaser pays all ofit?"

"There are occasions when the tradesman and the courier agree upon aprice which is twice or thrice the value of the article, then the twodivide, and both get a percentage. "

"I see. But it seems to me that the purchaser does all the paying, eventhen. "

"Oh, to be sure! It goes without saying. "

"But I have bought this picture myself; therefore why shouldn't thecourier know it?"

The woman exclaimed, in distress:

"Ah, indeed it would take all my little profit! He would come and demandhis hundred francs, and I should have to pay. "

"He has not done the buying. You could refuse. "

"I could not dare to refuse. He would never bring travelers here again. More than that, he would denounce me to the other couriers, they woulddivert custom from me, and my business would be injured. "

I went away in a thoughtful frame of mind. I began to see why a couriercould afford to work for fifty-five dollars a month and his fares. Amonth or two later I was able to understand why a courier did not haveto pay any board and lodging, and why my hotel bills were always largerwhen I had him with me than when I left him behind, somewhere, for a fewdays. 

Another thing was also explained, now, apparently. In one town I hadtaken the courier to the bank to do the translating when I drew somemoney. I had sat in the reading-room till the transaction was finished. Then a clerk had brought the money to me in person, and had beenexceedingly polite, even going so far as to precede me to the door andholding it open for me and bow me out as if I had been a distinguishedpersonage. It was a new experience. Exchange had been in my favor eversince I had been in Europe, but just that one time. I got simply theface of my draft, and no extra francs, whereas I had expected to getquite a number of them. This was the first time I had ever used thecourier at the bank. I had suspected something then, and as long as heremained with me afterward I managed bank matters by myself. 

Still, if I felt that I could afford the tax, I would never travelwithout a courier, for a good courier is a convenience whose valuecannot be estimated in dollars and cents. Without him, travel is abitter harassment, a purgatory of little exasperating annoyances, aceaseless and pitiless punishment--I mean to an irascible man who has nobusiness capacity and is confused by details. 

Without a courier, travel hasn't a ray of pleasure in it, anywhere; butwith him it is a continuous and unruffled delight. He is always at hand, never has to be sent for; if your bell is not answered promptly--and itseldom is--you have only to open the door and speak, the courier willhear, and he will have the order attended to or raise an insurrection. You tell him what day you will start, and whither you are going--leaveall the rest to him. You need not inquire about trains, or fares, or carchanges, or hotels, or anything else. At the proper time he will put youin a cab or an omnibus, and drive you to the train or the boat; he haspacked your luggage and transferred it, he has paid all the bills. Otherpeople have preceded you half an hour to scramble for impossible placesand lose their tempers, but you can take your time; the courier hassecured your seats for you, and you can occupy them at your leisure. 

At the station, the crowd mash one another to pulp in the effort to getthe weigher's attention to their trunks; they dispute hotly with thesetyrants, who are cool and indifferent; they get their baggage billets, at last, and then have another squeeze and another rage over thedisheartening business of trying to get them recorded and paid for, andstill another over the equally disheartening business of trying to getnear enough to the ticket office to buy a ticket; and now, with theirtempers gone to the dogs, they must stand penned up and packed together, laden with wraps and satchels and shawl-straps, with the weary wife andbabies, in the waiting-room, till the doors are thrown open--and thenall hands make a grand final rush to the train, find it full, and haveto stand on the platform and fret until some more cars are put on. Theyare in a condition to kill somebody by this time. Meantime, you havebeen sitting in your car, smoking, and observing all this misery in theextremest comfort. 

On the journey the guard is polite and watchful--won't allow anybody toget into your compartment--tells them you are just recovering from thesmall-pox and do not like to be disturbed. For the courier has madeeverything right with the guard. At way-stations the courier comes toyour compartment to see if you want a glass of water, or a newspaper, or anything; at eating-stations he sends luncheon out to you, while theother people scramble and worry in the dining-rooms. If anything breaksabout the car you are in, and a station-master proposes to pack you andyour agent into a compartment with strangers, the courier reveals to himconfidentially that you are a French duke born deaf and dumb, and theofficial comes and makes affable signs that he has ordered a choice carto be added to the train for you. 

At custom-houses the multitude file tediously through, hot andirritated, and look on while the officers burrow into the trunks andmake a mess of everything; but you hand your keys to the courier and sitstill. Perhaps you arrive at your destination in a rain-storm at tenat night--you generally do. The multitude spend half an hour verifyingtheir baggage and getting it transferred to the omnibuses; but thecourier puts you into a vehicle without a moment's loss of time, andwhen you reach your hotel you find your rooms have been secured two orthree days in advance, everything is ready, you can go at once to bed. Some of those other people will have to drift around to two or threehotels, in the rain, before they find accommodations. 

I have not set down half of the virtues that are vested in a goodcourier, but I think I have set down a sufficiency of them to show thatan irritable man who can afford one and does not employ him is not awise economist. My courier was the worst one in Europe, yet he was agood deal better than none at all. It could not pay him to be a betterone than he was, because I could not afford to buy things through him. He was a good enough courier for the small amount he got out of hisservice. Yes, to travel with a courier is bliss, to travel without oneis the reverse. 

I have had dealings with some very bad couriers; but I have also haddealings with one who might fairly be called perfection. He was a youngPolander, named Joseph N. Verey. He spoke eight languages, and seemedto be equally at home in all of them; he was shrewd, prompt, posted, and punctual; he was fertile in resources, and singularly gifted in thematter of overcoming difficulties; he not only knew how to do everythingin his line, but he knew the best ways and the quickest; he was handywith children and invalids; all his employer needed to do was to takelife easy and leave everything to the courier. His address is, care ofMessrs. Gay & Son, Strand, London; he was formerly a conductor of Gay'stourist parties. Excellent couriers are somewhat rare; if the reader isabout to travel, he will find it to his advantage to make a note of thisone. 

CHAPTER XXXIII

[We Climb Far--by Buggy]

The beautiful Giesbach Fall is near Interlaken, on the other side ofthe lake of Brienz, and is illuminated every night with those gorgeoustheatrical fires whose name I cannot call just at this moment. This wassaid to be a spectacle which the tourist ought by no means to miss. Iwas strongly tempted, but I could not go there with propriety, becauseone goes in a boat. The task which I had set myself was to walk overEurope on foot, not skim over it in a boat. I had made a tacit contractwith myself; it was my duty to abide by it. I was willing to make boattrips for pleasure, but I could not conscientiously make them in the wayof business. 

It cost me something of a pang to lose that fine sight, but I lived downthe desire, and gained in my self-respect through the triumph. I hada finer and a grander sight, however, where I was. This was the mightydome of the Jungfrau softly outlined against the sky and faintlysilvered by the starlight. There was something subduing in the influenceof that silent and solemn and awful presence; one seemed to meet theimmutable, the indestructible, the eternal, face to face, and to feelthe trivial and fleeting nature of his own existence the more sharplyby the contrast. One had the sense of being under the broodingcontemplation of a spirit, not an inert mass of rocks and ice--a spiritwhich had looked down, through the slow drift of the ages, upon amillion vanished races of men, and judged them; and would judge amillion more--and still be there, watching, unchanged and unchangeable, after all life should be gone and the earth have become a vacantdesolation. 

While I was feeling these things, I was groping, without knowing it, toward an understanding of what the spell is which people find in theAlps, and in no other mountains--that strange, deep, nameless influence, which, once felt, cannot be forgotten--once felt, leaves alwaysbehind it a restless longing to feel it again--a longing which is likehomesickness; a grieving, haunting yearning which will plead, implore, and persecute till it has its will. I met dozens of people, imaginativeand unimaginative, cultivated and uncultivated, who had come from farcountries and roamed through the Swiss Alps year after year--they couldnot explain why. They had come first, they said, out of idle curiosity, because everybody talked about it; they had come since because theycould not help it, and they should keep on coming, while they lived, forthe same reason; they had tried to break their chains and stay away, butit was futile; now, they had no desire to break them. Others came nearerformulating what they felt; they said they could find perfect rest andpeace nowhere else when they were troubled: all frets and worries andchafings sank to sleep in the presence of the benignant serenity of theAlps; the Great Spirit of the Mountain breathed his own peace upon theirhurt minds and sore hearts, and healed them; they could not think basethoughts or do mean and sordid things here, before the visible throne ofGod. 

Down the road a piece was a Kursaal--whatever that may be--and we joinedthe human tide to see what sort of enjoyment it might afford. It was theusual open-air concert, in an ornamental garden, with wines, beer, milk, whey, grapes, etc. --the whey and the grapes being necessaries of life tocertain invalids whom physicians cannot repair, and who only continue toexist by the grace of whey or grapes. One of these departed spirits toldme, in a sad and lifeless way, that there is no way for him to live butby whey, and dearly, dearly loved whey, he didn't know whey he did, buthe did. After making this pun he died--that is the whey it served him. 

Some other remains, preserved from decomposition by the grape system, told me that the grapes were of a peculiar breed, highly medicinal intheir nature, and that they were counted out and administered by thegrape-doctors as methodically as if they were pills. The new patient, if very feeble, began with one grape before breakfast, took threeduring breakfast, a couple between meals, five at luncheon, three in theafternoon, seven at dinner, four for supper, and part of a grape justbefore going to bed, by way of a general regulator. The quantity wasgradually and regularly increased, according to the needs and capacitiesof the patient, until by and by you would find him disposing of his onegrape per second all the day long, and his regular barrel per day. 

He said that men cured in this way, and enabled to discard the grapesystem, never afterward got over the habit of talking as if they weredictating to a slow amanuensis, because they always made a pause betweeneach two words while they sucked the substance out of an imaginarygrape. He said these were tedious people to talk with. He said that menwho had been cured by the other process were easily distinguished fromthe rest of mankind because they always tilted their heads back, betweenevery two words, and swallowed a swig of imaginary whey. He said it wasan impressive thing to observe two men, who had been cured by the twoprocesses, engaged in conversation--said their pauses and accompanyingmovements were so continuous and regular that a stranger would thinkhimself in the presence of a couple of automatic machines. One findsout a great many wonderful things, by traveling, if he stumbles upon theright person. 

I did not remain long at the Kursaal; the music was good enough, but itseemed rather tame after the cyclone of that Arkansaw expert. Besides, my adventurous spirit had conceived a formidable enterprise--nothingless than a trip from Interlaken, by the Gemmi and Visp, clear toZermatt, on foot! So it was necessary to plan the details, and get readyfor an early start. The courier (this was not the one I have just beenspeaking of) thought that the portier of the hotel would be able to tellus how to find our way. And so it turned out. He showed us the wholething, on a relief-map, and we could see our route, with all itselevations and depressions, its villages and its rivers, as clearly asif we were sailing over it in a balloon. A relief-map is a great thing. The portier also wrote down each day's journey and the nightly hotel ona piece of paper, and made our course so plain that we should never beable to get lost without high-priced outside help. 

I put the courier in the care of a gentleman who was going to Lausanne, and then we went to bed, after laying out the walking-costumes andputting them into condition for instant occupation in the morning. 

However, when we came down to breakfast at 8 A. M. , it looked so muchlike rain that I hired a two-horse top-buggy for the first third of thejourney. For two or three hours we jogged along the level road whichskirts the beautiful lake of Thun, with a dim and dreamlike picture ofwatery expanses and spectral Alpine forms always before us, veiled ina mellowing mist. Then a steady downpour set in, and hid everything butthe nearest objects. We kept the rain out of our faces with umbrellas, and away from our bodies with the leather apron of the buggy; but thedriver sat unsheltered and placidly soaked the weather in and seemedto like it. We had the road to ourselves, and I never had a pleasanterexcursion. 

The weather began to clear while we were driving up a valley called theKienthal, and presently a vast black cloud-bank in front of us dissolvedaway and uncurtained the grand proportions and the soaring loftiness ofthe Blumis Alp. It was a sort of breath-taking surprise; for we had notsupposed there was anything behind that low-hung blanket of sable cloudbut level valley. What we had been mistaking for fleeting glimpses ofsky away aloft there, were really patches of the Blumis's snowy crestcaught through shredded rents in the drifting pall of vapor. 

We dined in the inn at Frutigen, and our driver ought to have dinedthere, too, but he would not have had time to dine and get drunkboth, so he gave his mind to making a masterpiece of the latter, andsucceeded. A German gentleman and his two young-lady daughters had beentaking their nooning at the inn, and when they left, just ahead of us, it was plain that their driver was as drunk as ours, and as happyand good-natured, too, which was saying a good deal. These rascalsoverflowed with attentions and information for their guests, and withbrotherly love for each other. They tied their reins, and took offtheir coats and hats, so that they might be able to give unencumberedattention to conversation and to the gestures necessary for itsillustration. 

The road was smooth; it led up and over and down a continual successionof hills; but it was narrow, the horses were used to it, and couldnot well get out of it anyhow; so why shouldn't the drivers entertainthemselves and us? The noses of our horses projected sociably into therear of the forward carriage, and as we toiled up the long hills ourdriver stood up and talked to his friend, and his friend stood up andtalked back to him, with his rear to the scenery. When the top wasreached and we went flying down the other side, there was no changein the program. I carry in my memory yet the picture of that forwarddriver, on his knees on his high seat, resting his elbows on its back, and beaming down on his passengers, with happy eye, and flying hair, andjolly red face, and offering his card to the old German gentleman whilehe praised his hack and horses, and both teams were whizzing down along hill with nobody in a position to tell whether we were bound todestruction or an undeserved safety. 

Toward sunset we entered a beautiful green valley dotted with chalets, acozy little domain hidden away from the busy world in a cloistered nookamong giant precipices topped with snowy peaks that seemed to float likeislands above the curling surf of the sea of vapor that severed themfrom the lower world. Down from vague and vaporous heights, littleruffled zigzag milky currents came crawling, and found their way to theverge of one of those tremendous overhanging walls, whence they plunged, a shaft of silver, shivered to atoms in mid-descent and turned to an airpuff of luminous dust. Here and there, in grooved depressions among thesnowy desolations of the upper altitudes, one glimpsed the extremity ofa glacier, with its sea-green and honeycombed battlements of ice. 

Up the valley, under a dizzy precipice, nestled the village ofKandersteg, our halting-place for the night. We were soon there, andhoused in the hotel. But the waning day had such an inviting influencethat we did not remain housed many moments, but struck out and followeda roaring torrent of ice-water up to its far source in a sort of littlegrass-carpeted parlor, walled in all around by vast precipices andoverlooked by clustering summits of ice. This was the snuggest littlecroquet-ground imaginable; it was perfectly level, and not more than amile long by half a mile wide. The walls around it were so gigantic, andeverything about it was on so mighty a scale that it was belittled, bycontrast, to what I have likened it to--a cozy and carpeted parlor. Itwas so high above the Kandersteg valley that there was nothing betweenit and the snowy-peaks. I had never been in such intimate relations withthe high altitudes before; the snow-peaks had always been remote andunapproachable grandeurs, hitherto, but now we were hob-a-nob--if onemay use such a seemingly irreverent expression about creations so augustas these. 

We could see the streams which fed the torrent we had followed issuingfrom under the greenish ramparts of glaciers; but two or three of these, instead of flowing over the precipices, sank down into the rock andsprang in big jets out of holes in the mid-face of the walls. 

The green nook which I have been describing is called the Gasternthal. The glacier streams gather and flow through it in a broad and rushingbrook to a narrow cleft between lofty precipices; here the rushingbrook becomes a mad torrent and goes booming and thundering downtoward Kandersteg, lashing and thrashing its way over and among monsterboulders, and hurling chance roots and logs about like straws. Therewas no lack of cascades along this route. The path by the side ofthe torrent was so narrow that one had to look sharp, when he heard acow-bell, and hunt for a place that was wide enough to accommodate a cowand a Christian side by side, and such places were not always to be hadat an instant's notice. The cows wear church-bells, and that is agood idea in the cows, for where that torrent is, you couldn't hearan ordinary cow-bell any further than you could hear the ticking of awatch. 

I needed exercise, so I employed my agent in setting stranded logs anddead trees adrift, and I sat on a boulder and watched them go whirlingand leaping head over heels down the boiling torrent. It was awonderfully exhilarating spectacle. When I had had enough exercise, Imade the agent take some, by running a race with one of those logs. Imade a trifle by betting on the log. 

After dinner we had a walk up and down the Kandersteg valley, in thesoft gloaming, with the spectacle of the dying lights of day playingabout the crests and pinnacles of the still and solemn upper realmfor contrast, and text for talk. There were no sounds but the dulledcomplaining of the torrent and the occasional tinkling of a distantbell. The spirit of the place was a sense of deep, pervading peace; onemight dream his life tranquilly away there, and not miss it or mind itwhen it was gone. 

The summer departed with the sun, and winter came with the stars. Itgrew to be a bitter night in that little hotel, backed up against aprecipice that had no visible top to it, but we kept warm, and woke intime in the morning to find that everybody else had left for Gemmithree hours before--so our little plan of helping that German family(principally the old man) over the pass, was a blocked generosity. 

CHAPTER XXXIV

[The World's Highest Pig Farm]

We hired the only guide left, to lead us on our way. He was overseventy, but he could have given me nine-tenths of his strength andstill had all his age entitled him to. He shouldered our satchels, overcoats, and alpenstocks, and we set out up the steep path. It was hotwork. The old man soon begged us to hand over our coats and waistcoatsto him to carry, too, and we did it; one could not refuse so little athing to a poor old man like that; he should have had them if he hadbeen a hundred and fifty. 

When we began that ascent, we could see a microscopic chalet perchedaway up against heaven on what seemed to be the highest mountain nearus. It was on our right, across the narrow head of the valley. But whenwe got up abreast it on its own level, mountains were towering highabove on every hand, and we saw that its altitude was just about that ofthe little Gasternthal which we had visited the evening before. Still itseemed a long way up in the air, in that waste and lonely wilderness ofrocks. It had an unfenced grass-plot in front of it which seemed aboutas big as a billiard-table, and this grass-plot slanted so sharplydownward, and was so brief, and ended so exceedingly soon at the vergeof the absolute precipice, that it was a shuddery thing to think of aperson's venturing to trust his foot on an incline so situated at all. Suppose a man stepped on an orange peel in that yard; there would benothing for him to seize; nothing could keep him from rolling; fiverevolutions would bring him to the edge, and over he would go. 

What a frightful distance he would fall!--for there are very few birdsthat fly as high as his starting-point. He would strike and bounce, twoor three times, on his way down, but this would be no advantage to him. I would as soon take an airing on the slant of a rainbow as in sucha front yard. I would rather, in fact, for the distance down would beabout the same, and it is pleasanter to slide than to bounce. I couldnot see how the peasants got up to that chalet--the region seemed toosteep for anything but a balloon. 

As we strolled on, climbing up higher and higher, we were continuallybringing neighboring peaks into view and lofty prominence which had beenhidden behind lower peaks before; so by and by, while standing before agroup of these giants, we looked around for the chalet again; there itwas, away down below us, apparently on an inconspicuous ridge in thevalley! It was as far below us, now, as it had been above us when wewere beginning the ascent. 

After a while the path led us along a railed precipice, and we lookedover--far beneath us was the snug parlor again, the little Gasternthal, with its water jets spouting from the face of its rock walls. We couldhave dropped a stone into it. We had been finding the top of the worldall along--and always finding a still higher top stealing into view ina disappointing way just ahead; when we looked down into the Gasternthalwe felt pretty sure that we had reached the genuine top at last, but itwas not so; there were much higher altitudes to be scaled yet. We werestill in the pleasant shade of forest trees, we were still in a regionwhich was cushioned with beautiful mosses and aglow with the many-tintedluster of innumerable wild flowers. 

We found, indeed, more interest in the wild flowers than in anythingelse. We gathered a specimen or two of every kind which we wereunacquainted with; so we had sumptuous bouquets. But one of the chiefinterests lay in chasing the seasons of the year up the mountain, anddetermining them by the presence of flowers and berries which we wereacquainted with. For instance, it was the end of August at the levelof the sea; in the Kandersteg valley at the base of the pass, we foundflowers which would not be due at the sea-level for two or three weeks;higher up, we entered October, and gathered fringed gentians. I madeno notes, and have forgotten the details, but the construction of thefloral calendar was very entertaining while it lasted. 

In the high regions we found rich store of the splendid red flowercalled the Alpine rose, but we did not find any examples of the uglySwiss favorite called Edelweiss. Its name seems to indicate that it is anoble flower and that it is white. It may be noble enough, but it is notattractive, and it is not white. The fuzzy blossom is the color of badcigar ashes, and appears to be made of a cheap quality of gray plush. Ithas a noble and distant way of confining itself to the high altitudes, but that is probably on account of its looks; it apparently has nomonopoly of those upper altitudes, however, for they are sometimesintruded upon by some of the loveliest of the valley families of wildflowers. Everybody in the Alps wears a sprig of Edelweiss in his hat. Itis the native's pet, and also the tourist's. 

All the morning, as we loafed along, having a good time, otherpedestrians went staving by us with vigorous strides, and with theintent and determined look of men who were walking for a wager. Thesewore loose knee-breeches, long yarn stockings, and hobnailed high-lacedwalking-shoes. They were gentlemen who would go home to England orGermany and tell how many miles they had beaten the guide-book everyday. But I doubted if they ever had much real fun, outside of the meremagnificent exhilaration of the tramp through the green valleys and thebreezy heights; for they were almost always alone, and even the finestscenery loses incalculably when there is no one to enjoy it with. 

All the morning an endless double procession of mule-mounted touristsfiled past us along the narrow path--the one procession going, theother coming. We had taken a good deal of trouble to teach ourselves thekindly German custom of saluting all strangers with doffed hat, and weresolutely clung to it, that morning, although it kept us bareheadedmost of the time and was not always responded to. Still we found aninterest in the thing, because we naturally liked to know who wereEnglish and Americans among the passers-by. All continental nativesresponded of course; so did some of the English and Americans, but, asa general thing, these two races gave no sign. Whenever a man or a womanshowed us cold neglect, we spoke up confidently in our own tongue andasked for such information as we happened to need, and we always got areply in the same language. The English and American folk are not lesskindly than other races, they are only more reserved, and that comes ofhabit and education. In one dreary, rocky waste, away above the line ofvegetation, we met a procession of twenty-five mounted young men, allfrom America. We got answering bows enough from these, of course, forthey were of an age to learn to do in Rome as Rome does, without mucheffort. 

At one extremity of this patch of desolation, overhung by bare andforbidding crags which husbanded drifts of everlasting snow in theirshaded cavities, was a small stretch of thin and discouraged grass, anda man and a family of pigs were actually living here in some shanties. Consequently this place could be really reckoned as "property"; it hada money value, and was doubtless taxed. I think it must have markedthe limit of real estate in this world. It would be hard to set a moneyvalue upon any piece of earth that lies between that spot and the emptyrealm of space. That man may claim the distinction of owning the endof the world, for if there is any definite end to the world he hascertainly found it. 

From here forward we moved through a storm-swept and smilelessdesolation. All about us rose gigantic masses, crags, and ramparts ofbare and dreary rock, with not a vestige or semblance of plant or treeor flower anywhere, or glimpse of any creature that had life. The frostand the tempests of unnumbered ages had battered and hacked at thesecliffs, with a deathless energy, destroying them piecemeal; so all theregion about their bases was a tumbled chaos of great fragments whichhad been split off and hurled to the ground. Soiled and aged banks ofsnow lay close about our path. The ghastly desolation of the place wasas tremendously complete as if Doré had furnished the working-plansfor it. But every now and then, through the stern gateways around uswe caught a view of some neighboring majestic dome, sheathed withglittering ice, and displaying its white purity at an elevation comparedto which ours was groveling and plebeian, and this spectacle alwayschained one's interest and admiration at once, and made him forget therewas anything ugly in the world. 

I have just said that there was nothing but death and desolation inthese hideous places, but I forgot. In the most forlorn and arid anddismal one of all, where the racked and splintered debris was thickest, where the ancient patches of snow lay against the very path, wherethe winds blew bitterest and the general aspect was mournfulest anddreariest, and furthest from any suggestion of cheer or hope, I founda solitary wee forget-me-not flourishing away, not a droop about itanywhere, but holding its bright blue star up with the prettiest andgallantest air in the world, the only happy spirit, the only smilingthing, in all that grisly desert. She seemed to say, "Cheer up!--as longas we are here, let us make the best of it. " I judged she had earned aright to a more hospitable place; so I plucked her up and sent her toAmerica to a friend who would respect her for the fight she had made, all by her small self, to make a whole vast despondent Alpine desolationstop breaking its heart over the unalterable, and hold up its head andlook at the bright side of things for once. 

We stopped for a nooning at a strongly built little inn called theSchwarenbach. It sits in a lonely spot among the peaks, where it isswept by the trailing fringes of the cloud-rack, and is rained on, andsnowed on, and pelted and persecuted by the storms, nearly every day ofits life. It was the only habitation in the whole Gemmi Pass. 

Close at hand, now, was a chance for a blood-curdling Alpine adventure. Close at hand was the snowy mass of the Great Altels cooling its topknotin the sky and daring us to an ascent. I was fired with the idea, andimmediately made up my mind to procure the necessary guides, ropes, etc. , and undertake it. I instructed Harris to go to the landlord of theinn and set him about our preparations. Meantime, I went diligently towork to read up and find out what this much-talked-of mountain-climbingwas like, and how one should go about it--for in these matters Iwas ignorant. I opened Mr. Hinchliff's SUMMER MONTHS AMONG THE ALPS(published 1857), and selected his account of his ascent of Monte Rosa. 

It began:

"It is very difficult to free the mind from excitement on the eveningbefore a grand expedition--"

I saw that I was too calm; so I walked the room a while and workedmyself into a high excitement; but the book's next remark --that theadventurer must get up at two in the morning--came as near as anythingto flatting it all out again. However, I reinforced it, and read on, about how Mr. Hinchliff dressed by candle-light and was "soon down amongthe guides, who were bustling about in the passage, packing provisions, and making every preparation for the start"; and how he glanced out intothe cold clear night and saw that--

"The whole sky was blazing with stars, larger and brighter than theyappear through the dense atmosphere breathed by inhabitants of the lowerparts of the earth. They seemed actually suspended from the dark vaultof heaven, and their gentle light shed a fairylike gleam over thesnow-fields around the foot of the Matterhorn, which raised itsstupendous pinnacle on high, penetrating to the heart of the Great Bear, and crowning itself with a diadem of his magnificent stars. Not a sounddisturbed the deep tranquillity of the night, except the distant roarof streams which rush from the high plateau of the St. Theodule glacier, and fall headlong over precipitous rocks till they lose themselves inthe mazes of the Gorner glacier. "

He took his hot toast and coffee, and then about half past three hiscaravan of ten men filed away from the Riffel Hotel, and began the steepclimb. At half past five he happened to turn around, and "beheld theglorious spectacle of the Matterhorn, just touched by the rosy-fingeredmorning, and looking like a huge pyramid of fire rising out of thebarren ocean of ice and rock around it. " Then the Breithorn and the DentBlanche caught the radiant glow; but "the intervening mass of Monte Rosamade it necessary for us to climb many long hours before we could hopeto see the sun himself, yet the whole air soon grew warmer after thesplendid birth of the day. "

He gazed at the lofty crown of Monte Rosa and the wastes of snow thatguarded its steep approaches, and the chief guide delivered the opinionthat no man could conquer their awful heights and put his foot upon thatsummit. But the adventurers moved steadily on, nevertheless. 

They toiled up, and up, and still up; they passed the Grand Plateau;then toiled up a steep shoulder of the mountain, clinging like flies toits rugged face; and now they were confronted by a tremendous wallfrom which great blocks of ice and snow were evidently in the habit offalling. They turned aside to skirt this wall, and gradually ascendeduntil their way was barred by a "maze of gigantic snow crevices, "--sothey turned aside again, and "began a long climb of sufficient steepnessto make a zigzag course necessary. "

Fatigue compelled them to halt frequently, for a moment or two. At oneof these halts somebody called out, "Look at Mont Blanc!" and "we wereat once made aware of the very great height we had attained by actuallyseeing the monarch of the Alps and his attendant satellites right overthe top of the Breithorn, itself at least 14, 000 feet high!"

These people moved in single file, and were all tied to a strong rope, at regular distances apart, so that if one of them slipped on thosegiddy heights, the others could brace themselves on their alpenstocksand save him from darting into the valley, thousands of feet below. Byand by they came to an ice-coated ridge which was tilted up at a sharpangle, and had a precipice on one side of it. They had to climb this, sothe guide in the lead cut steps in the ice with his hatchet, and as fastas he took his toes out of one of these slight holes, the toes of theman behind him occupied it. 

"Slowly and steadily we kept on our way over this dangerous part of theascent, and I dare say it was fortunate for some of us that attentionwas distracted from the head by the paramount necessity of looking afterthe feet; FOR, WHILE ON THE LEFT THE INCLINE OF ICE WAS SO STEEP THATIT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR ANY MAN TO SAVE HIMSELF IN CASE OF A SLIP, UNLESS THE OTHERS COULD HOLD HIM UP, ON THE RIGHT WE MIGHT DROP A PEBBLEFROM THE HAND OVER PRECIPICES OF UNKNOWN EXTENT DOWN UPON THE TREMENDOUSGLACIER BELOW. 

"Great caution, therefore, was absolutely necessary, and in this exposedsituation we were attacked by all the fury of that grand enemy ofaspirants to Monte Rosa--a severe and bitterly cold wind from the north. The fine powdery snow was driven past us in the clouds, penetrating theinterstices of our clothes, and the pieces of ice which flew from theblows of Peter's ax were whisked into the air, and then dashed over theprecipice. We had quite enough to do to prevent ourselves from beingserved in the same ruthless fashion, and now and then, in the moreviolent gusts of wind, were glad to stick our alpenstocks into the iceand hold on hard. "

Having surmounted this perilous steep, they sat down and took a briefrest with their backs against a sheltering rock and their heels danglingover a bottomless abyss; then they climbed to the base of anotherridge--a more difficult and dangerous one still:

"The whole of the ridge was exceedingly narrow, and the fall on eachside desperately steep, but the ice in some of these intervals betweenthe masses of rock assumed the form of a mere sharp edge, almost like aknife; these places, though not more than three or four short pacesin length, looked uncommonly awkward; but, like the sword leading truebelievers to the gates of Paradise, they must needs be passed beforewe could attain to the summit of our ambition. These were in one or twoplaces so narrow, that in stepping over them with toes well turnedout for greater security, ONE END OF THE FOOT PROJECTED OVER THE AWFULPRECIPICE ON THE RIGHT, WHILE THE OTHER WAS ON THE BEGINNING OF THEICE SLOPE ON THE LEFT, WHICH WAS SCARCELY LESS STEEP THAN THE ROCKS. Onthese occasions Peter would take my hand, and each of us stretching asfar as we could, he was thus enabled to get a firm footing two pacesor rather more from me, whence a spring would probably bring him to therock on the other side; then, turning around, he called to me to come, and, taking a couple of steps carefully, I was met at the third by hisoutstretched hand ready to clasp mine, and in a moment stood by hisside. The others followed in much the same fashion. Once my right footslipped on the side toward the precipice, but I threw out my left arm ina moment so that it caught the icy edge under my armpit as I fell, andsupported me considerably; at the same instant I cast my eyes down theside on which I had slipped, and contrived to plant my right foot ona piece of rock as large as a cricket-ball, which chanced to protrudethrough the ice, on the very edge of the precipice. Being thus anchoredfore and aft, as it were, I believe I could easily have recoveredmyself, even if I had been alone, though it must be confessed thesituation would have been an awful one; as it was, however, a jerk fromPeter settled the matter very soon, and I was on my legs all right in aninstant. The rope is an immense help in places of this kind. "

Now they arrived at the base of a great knob or dome veneered with iceand powdered with snow--the utmost, summit, the last bit of soliditybetween them and the hollow vault of heaven. They set to work with theirhatchets, and were soon creeping, insectlike, up its surface, with theirheels projecting over the thinnest kind of nothingness, thickened up alittle with a few wandering shreds and films of cloud moving in a lazyprocession far below. Presently, one man's toe-hold broke and he fell!There he dangled in mid-air at the end of the rope, like a spider, tillhis friends above hauled him into place again. 

A little bit later, the party stood upon the wee pedestal of the verysummit, in a driving wind, and looked out upon the vast green expansesof Italy and a shoreless ocean of billowy Alps. 

When I had read thus far, Harris broke into the room in a nobleexcitement and said the ropes and the guides were secured, and asked ifI was ready. I said I believed I wouldn't ascend the Altels this time. Isaid Alp-climbing was a different thing from what I had supposed it was, and so I judged we had better study its points a little more before wewent definitely into it. But I told him to retain the guides and orderthem to follow us to Zermatt, because I meant to use them there. I saidI could feel the spirit of adventure beginning to stir in me, and wassure that the fell fascination of Alp-climbing would soon be upon me. Isaid he could make up his mind to it that we would do a deed beforewe were a week older which would make the hair of the timid curl withfright. 

This made Harris happy, and filled him with ambitious anticipations. Hewent at once to tell the guides to follow us to Zermatt and bring alltheir paraphernalia with them. 

CHAPTER XXXV

[Swindling the Coroner]

A great and priceless thing is a new interest! How it takes possessionof a man! how it clings to him, how it rides him! I strode onward fromthe Schwarenbach hostelry a changed man, a reorganized personality. Iwalked into a new world, I saw with new eyes. I had been lookingaloft at the giant show-peaks only as things to be worshiped for theirgrandeur and magnitude, and their unspeakable grace of form; I lookedup at them now, as also things to be conquered and climbed. My sense oftheir grandeur and their noble beauty was neither lost nor impaired; Ihad gained a new interest in the mountains without losing the old ones. I followed the steep lines up, inch by inch, with my eye, and noted thepossibility or impossibility of following them with my feet. When I sawa shining helmet of ice projecting above the clouds, I tried to imagineI saw files of black specks toiling up it roped together with a gossamerthread. 

We skirted the lonely little lake called the Daubensee, and presentlypassed close by a glacier on the right--a thing like a great riverfrozen solid in its flow and broken square off like a wall at its mouth. I had never been so near a glacier before. 

Here we came upon a new board shanty, and found some men engaged inbuilding a stone house; so the Schwarenbach was soon to have a rival. Webought a bottle or so of beer here; at any rate they called it beer, butI knew by the price that it was dissolved jewelry, and I perceived bythe taste that dissolved jewelry is not good stuff to drink. 

We were surrounded by a hideous desolation. We stepped forward to a sortof jumping-off place, and were confronted by a startling contrast: weseemed to look down into fairyland. Two or three thousand feet below uswas a bright green level, with a pretty town in its midst, and a silverystream winding among the meadows; the charming spot was walled in on allsides by gigantic precipices clothed with pines; and over the pines, outof the softened distances, rose the snowy domes and peaks of the MonteRosa region. How exquisitely green and beautiful that little valley downthere was! The distance was not great enough to obliterate details, itonly made them little, and mellow, and dainty, like landscapes and townsseen through the wrong end of a spy-glass. 

Right under us a narrow ledge rose up out of the valley, with a green, slanting, bench-shaped top, and grouped about upon this green-baizebench were a lot of black and white sheep which looked merely likeoversized worms. The bench seemed lifted well up into our neighborhood, but that was a deception--it was a long way down to it. 

We began our descent, now, by the most remarkable road I have ever seen. It wound its corkscrew curves down the face of the colossal precipice--anarrow way, with always the solid rock wall at one elbow, andperpendicular nothingness at the other. We met an everlasting processionof guides, porters, mules, litters, and tourists climbing up this steepand muddy path, and there was no room to spare when you had to pass atolerably fat mule. I always took the inside, when I heard or saw themule coming, and flattened myself against the wall. I preferred theinside, of course, but I should have had to take it anyhow, becausethe mule prefers the outside. A mule's preference--on a precipice--is athing to be respected. Well, his choice is always the outside. His lifeis mostly devoted to carrying bulky panniers and packages which restagainst his body--therefore he is habituated to taking the outside edgeof mountain paths, to keep his bundles from rubbing against rocks orbanks on the other. When he goes into the passenger business he absurdlyclings to his old habit, and keeps one leg of his passenger alwaysdangling over the great deeps of the lower world while that passenger'sheart is in the highlands, so to speak. More than once I saw a mule'shind foot cave over the outer edge and send earth and rubbish into thebottom abyss; and I noticed that upon these occasions the rider, whethermale or female, looked tolerably unwell. 

There was one place where an eighteen-inch breadth of light masonry hadbeen added to the verge of the path, and as there was a very sharpturn here, a panel of fencing had been set up there at some time, asa protection. This panel was old and gray and feeble, and the lightmasonry had been loosened by recent rains. A young American girl camealong on a mule, and in making the turn the mule's hind foot caved allthe loose masonry and one of the fence-posts overboard; the mule gave aviolent lurch inboard to save himself, and succeeded in the effort, butthat girl turned as white as the snows of Mont Blanc for a moment. 

The path was simply a groove cut into the face of the precipice; therewas a four-foot breadth of solid rock under the traveler, and four-footbreadth of solid rock just above his head, like the roof of a narrowporch; he could look out from this gallery and see a sheer summitlessand bottomless wall of rock before him, across a gorge or crack abiscuit's toss in width--but he could not see the bottom of his ownprecipice unless he lay down and projected his nose over the edge. I didnot do this, because I did not wish to soil my clothes. 

Every few hundred yards, at particularly bad places, one came acrossa panel or so of plank fencing; but they were always old and weak, and they generally leaned out over the chasm and did not make any rashpromises to hold up people who might need support. There was one ofthese panels which had only its upper board left; a pedestrianizingEnglish youth came tearing down the path, was seized with an impulse tolook over the precipice, and without an instant's thought he threw hisweight upon that crazy board. It bent outward a foot! I never made agasp before that came so near suffocating me. The English youth's facesimply showed a lively surprise, but nothing more. He went swingingalong valleyward again, as if he did not know he had just swindled acoroner by the closest kind of a shave. 

The Alpine litter is sometimes like a cushioned box made fast betweenthe middles of two long poles, and sometimes it is a chair with a backto it and a support for the feet. It is carried by relays of strongporters. The motion is easier than that of any other conveyance. We meta few men and a great many ladies in litters; it seemed to me that mostof the ladies looked pale and nauseated; their general aspect gave methe idea that they were patiently enduring a horrible suffering. As arule, they looked at their laps, and left the scenery to take care ofitself. 

But the most frightened creature I saw, was a led horse that overtookus. Poor fellow, he had been born and reared in the grassy levels of theKandersteg valley and had never seen anything like this hideous placebefore. Every few steps he would stop short, glance wildly out fromthe dizzy height, and then spread his red nostrils wide and pant asviolently as if he had been running a race; and all the while he quakedfrom head to heel as with a palsy. He was a handsome fellow, and hemade a fine statuesque picture of terror, but it was pitiful to see himsuffer so. 

This dreadful path has had its tragedy. Baedeker, with his customaryover terseness, begins and ends the tale thus:

"The descent on horseback should be avoided. In 1861 a Comtessed'Herlincourt fell from her saddle over the precipice and was killed onthe spot. "

We looked over the precipice there, and saw the monument whichcommemorates the event. It stands in the bottom of the gorge, in a placewhich has been hollowed out of the rock to protect it from the torrentand the storms. Our old guide never spoke but when spoken to, and thenlimited himself to a syllable or two, but when we asked him about thistragedy he showed a strong interest in the matter. He said the Countesswas very pretty, and very young--hardly out of her girlhood, in fact. She was newly married, and was on her bridal tour. The young husband wasriding a little in advance; one guide was leading the husband's horse, another was leading the bride's. 

The old man continued:

"The guide that was leading the husband's horse happened to glance back, and there was that poor young thing sitting up staring out over theprecipice; and her face began to bend downward a little, and she putup her two hands slowly and met it--so, --and put them flat against hereyes--so--and then she sank out of the saddle, with a sharp shriek, andone caught only the flash of a dress, and it was all over. "

Then after a pause:

"Ah, yes, that guide saw these things--yes, he saw them all. He saw themall, just as I have told you. "

After another pause:

"Ah, yes, he saw them all. My God, that was ME. I was that guide!"

This had been the one event of the old man's life; so one may be sure hehad forgotten no detail connected with it. We listened to all he had tosay about what was done and what happened and what was said after thesorrowful occurrence, and a painful story it was. 

When we had wound down toward the valley until we were about on the lastspiral of the corkscrew, Harris's hat blew over the last remainingbit of precipice--a small cliff a hundred or hundred and fifty feethigh--and sailed down toward a steep slant composed of rough chips andfragments which the weather had flaked away from the precipices. We wentleisurely down there, expecting to find it without any trouble, but wehad made a mistake, as to that. We hunted during a couple of hours--notbecause the old straw hat was valuable, but out of curiosity to findout how such a thing could manage to conceal itself in open ground wherethere was nothing left for it to hide behind. When one is reading inbed, and lays his paper-knife down, he cannot find it again if it issmaller than a saber; that hat was as stubborn as any paper-knife couldhave been, and we finally had to give it up; but we found a fragmentthat had once belonged to an opera-glass, and by digging around andturning over the rocks we gradually collected all the lenses and thecylinders and the various odds and ends that go to making up a completeopera-glass. We afterward had the thing reconstructed, and the owner canhave his adventurous lost-property by submitting proofs and paying costsof rehabilitation. We had hopes of finding the owner there, distributedaround amongst the rocks, for it would have made an elegant paragraph;but we were disappointed. Still, we were far from being disheartened, for there was a considerable area which we had not thoroughly searched;we were satisfied he was there, somewhere, so we resolved to wait over aday at Leuk and come back and get him. 

Then we sat down to polish off the perspiration and arrange about whatwe would do with him when we got him. Harris was for contributing him tothe British Museum; but I was for mailing him to his widow. That is thedifference between Harris and me: Harris is all for display, I am allfor the simple right, even though I lose money by it. Harris argued infavor of his proposition against mine, I argued in favor of mine andagainst his. The discussion warmed into a dispute; the dispute warmedinto a quarrel. I finally said, very decidedly:

"My mind is made up. He goes to the widow. "

Harris answered sharply:

"And MY mind is made up. He goes to the Museum. "

I said, calmly:

"The museum may whistle when it gets him. "

Harris retorted:

"The widow may save herself the trouble of whistling, for I will seethat she never gets him. "

After some angry bandying of epithets, I said:

"It seems to me that you are taking on a good many airs about theseremains. I don't quite see what YOU'VE got to say about them?"

"I? I've got ALL to say about them. They'd never have been thought of ifI hadn't found their opera-glass. The corpse belongs to me, and I'll doas I please with him. "

I was leader of the Expedition, and all discoveries achieved by itnaturally belonged to me. I was entitled to these remains, and couldhave enforced my right; but rather than have bad blood about the matter, I said we would toss up for them. I threw heads and won, but it was abarren victory, for although we spent all the next day searching, wenever found a bone. I cannot imagine what could ever have become of thatfellow. 

The town in the valley is called Leuk or Leukerbad. We pointed ourcourse toward it, down a verdant slope which was adorned with fringedgentians and other flowers, and presently entered the narrow alleys ofthe outskirts and waded toward the middle of the town through liquid"fertilizer. " They ought to either pave that village or organize aferry. 

Harris's body was simply a chamois-pasture; his person was populous withthe little hungry pests; his skin, when he stripped, was splotched likea scarlet-fever patient's; so, when we were about to enter one of theLeukerbad inns, and he noticed its sign, "Chamois Hotel, " he refused tostop there. He said the chamois was plentiful enough, without huntingup hotels where they made a specialty of it. I was indifferent, for thechamois is a creature that will neither bite me nor abide with me; butto calm Harris, we went to the Hôtel des Alpes. 

At the table d'hôte, we had this, for an incident. A very grave man--infact his gravity amounted to solemnity, and almost to austerity--satopposite us and he was "tight, " but doing his best to appear sober. Hetook up a CORKED bottle of wine, tilted it over his glass awhile, thenset it out of the way, with a contented look, and went on with hisdinner. 

Presently he put his glass to his mouth, and of course found it empty. He looked puzzled, and glanced furtively and suspiciously out of thecorner of his eye at a benignant and unconscious old lady who sat at hisright. Shook his head, as much as to say, "No, she couldn't havedone it. " He tilted the corked bottle over his glass again, meantimesearching around with his watery eye to see if anybody was watching him. He ate a few mouthfuls, raised his glass to his lips, and of course itwas still empty. He bent an injured and accusing side-glance upon thatunconscious old lady, which was a study to see. She went on eating andgave no sign. He took up his glass and his bottle, with a wise privatenod of his head, and set them gravely on the left-hand side of hisplate--poured himself another imaginary drink--went to work withhis knife and fork once more--presently lifted his glass with goodconfidence, and found it empty, as usual. 

This was almost a petrifying surprise. He straightened himself up in hischair and deliberately and sorrowfully inspected the busy old ladies athis elbows, first one and then the other. At last he softly pushed hisplate away, set his glass directly in front of him, held on to itwith his left hand, and proceeded to pour with his right. This timehe observed that nothing came. He turned the bottle clear upside down;still nothing issued from it; a plaintive look came into his face, andhe said, as if to himself, "'IC! THEY'VE GOT IT ALL!" Then he set the bottle down, resignedly, andtook the rest of his dinner dry. 

It was at that table d'hôte, too, that I had under inspection thelargest lady I have ever seen in private life. She was over seven feethigh, and magnificently proportioned. What had first called my attentionto her, was my stepping on an outlying flange of her foot, and hearing, from up toward the ceiling, a deep "Pardon, m'sieu, but you encroach!"

That was when we were coming through the hall, and the place was dim, and I could see her only vaguely. The thing which called my attentionto her the second time was, that at a table beyond ours were two verypretty girls, and this great lady came in and sat down between them andme and blotted out my view. She had a handsome face, and she was veryfinely formed--perfectly formed, I should say. But she made everybodyaround her look trivial and commonplace. Ladies near her looked likechildren, and the men about her looked mean. They looked like failures;and they looked as if they felt so, too. She sat with her back to us. Inever saw such a back in my life. I would have so liked to see themoon rise over it. The whole congregation waited, under one pretext oranother, till she finished her dinner and went out; they wanted to seeher at full altitude, and they found it worth tarrying for. She filledone's idea of what an empress ought to be, when she rose up in herunapproachable grandeur and moved superbly out of that place. 

We were not at Leuk in time to see her at her heaviest weight. She hadsuffered from corpulence and had come there to get rid of her extraflesh in the baths. Five weeks of soaking--five uninterrupted hours ofit every day--had accomplished her purpose and reduced her to the rightproportions. 

Those baths remove fat, and also skin-diseases. The patients remain inthe great tanks for hours at a time. A dozen gentlemen and ladies occupya tank together, and amuse themselves with rompings and various games. They have floating desks and tables, and they read or lunch or playchess in water that is breast-deep. The tourist can step in and viewthis novel spectacle if he chooses. There's a poor-box, and he will haveto contribute. There are several of these big bathing-houses, and youcan always tell when you are near one of them by the romping noises andshouts of laughter that proceed from it. The water is running water, andchanges all the time, else a patient with a ringworm might take the bathwith only a partial success, since, while he was ridding himself of theringworm, he might catch the itch. 

The next morning we wandered back up the green valley, leisurely, withthe curving walls of those bare and stupendous precipices risinginto the clouds before us. I had never seen a clean, bare precipicestretching up five thousand feet above me before, and I never shallexpect to see another one. They exist, perhaps, but not in places whereone can easily get close to them. This pile of stone is peculiar. Fromits base to the soaring tops of its mighty towers, all its lines and allits details vaguely suggest human architecture. There are rudimentarybow-windows, cornices, chimneys, demarcations of stories, etc. One couldsit and stare up there and study the features and exquisite graces ofthis grand structure, bit by bit, and day after day, and never weary hisinterest. The termination, toward the town, observed in profile, is theperfection of shape. It comes down out of the clouds in a succession ofrounded, colossal, terracelike projections--a stairway for the gods; atits head spring several lofty storm-scarred towers, one after another, with faint films of vapor curling always about them like spectralbanners. If there were a king whose realms included the whole world, here would be the place meet and proper for such a monarch. He wouldonly need to hollow it out and put in the electric light. He could giveaudience to a nation at a time under its roof. 

Our search for those remains having failed, we inspected with a glassthe dim and distant track of an old-time avalanche that once swept downfrom some pine-grown summits behind the town and swept away the housesand buried the people; then we struck down the road that leads towardthe Rhone, to see the famous Ladders. These perilous things are builtagainst the perpendicular face of a cliff two or three hundred feethigh. The peasants, of both sexes, were climbing up and down them, withheavy loads on their backs. I ordered Harris to make the ascent, so Icould put the thrill and horror of it in my book, and he accomplishedthe feat successfully, through a subagent, for three francs, which Ipaid. It makes me shudder yet when I think of what I felt when I wasclinging there between heaven and earth in the person of that proxy. Attimes the world swam around me, and I could hardly keep from letting go, so dizzying was the appalling danger. Many a person would have given upand descended, but I stuck to my task, and would not yield until I hadaccomplished it. I felt a just pride in my exploit, but I would not haverepeated it for the wealth of the world. I shall break my neck yet withsome such foolhardy performance, for warnings never seem to have anylasting effect on me. When the people of the hotel found that I hadbeen climbing those crazy Ladders, it made me an object of considerableattention. 

Next morning, early, we drove to the Rhone valley and took the train forVisp. There we shouldered our knapsacks and things, and set out on foot, in a tremendous rain, up the winding gorge, toward Zermatt. Hour afterhour we slopped along, by the roaring torrent, and under noble LesserAlps which were clothed in rich velvety green all the way up andhad little atomy Swiss homes perched upon grassy benches along theirmist-dimmed heights. 

The rain continued to pour and the torrent to boom, and we continuedto enjoy both. At the one spot where this torrent tossed its white manehighest, and thundered loudest, and lashed the big boulders fiercest, the canton had done itself the honor to build the flimsiest woodenbridge that exists in the world. While we were walking over it, alongwith a party of horsemen, I noticed that even the larger raindrops madeit shake. I called Harris's attention to it, and he noticed it, too. It seemed to me that if I owned an elephant that was a keepsake, and Ithought a good deal of him, I would think twice before I would ride himover that bridge. 

We climbed up to the village of St. Nicholas, about half past fourin the afternoon, waded ankle-deep through the fertilizer-juice, andstopped at a new and nice hotel close by the little church. We strippedand went to bed, and sent our clothes down to be baked. And the hordeof soaked tourists did the same. That chaos of clothing got mixed in thekitchen, and there were consequences. 

I did not get back the same drawers I sent down, when our things came upat six-fifteen; I got a pair on a new plan. They were merely a pairof white ruffle-cuffed absurdities, hitched together at the top witha narrow band, and they did not come quite down to my knees. They werepretty enough, but they made me feel like two people, and disconnectedat that. The man must have been an idiot that got himself up likethat, to rough it in the Swiss mountains. The shirt they brought mewas shorter than the drawers, and hadn't any sleeves to it--at leastit hadn't anything more than what Mr. Darwin would call "rudimentary"sleeves; these had "edging" around them, but the bosom was ridiculouslyplain. The knit silk undershirt they brought me was on a new plan, andwas really a sensible thing; it opened behind, and had pockets in it toput your shoulder-blades in; but they did not seem to fit mine, and soI found it a sort of uncomfortable garment. They gave my bobtail coatto somebody else, and sent me an ulster suitable for a giraffe. I hadto tie my collar on, because there was no button behind on that foolishlittle shirt which I described a while ago. 

When I was dressed for dinner at six-thirty, I was too loose in someplaces and too tight in others, and altogether I felt slovenly andill-conditioned. However, the people at the table d'hôte were no betteroff than I was; they had everybody's clothes but their own on. Along stranger recognized his ulster as soon as he saw the tail of itfollowing me in, but nobody claimed my shirt or my drawers, though Idescribed them as well as I was able. I gave them to the chambermaidthat night when I went to bed, and she probably found the owner, for myown things were on a chair outside my door in the morning. 

There was a lovable English clergyman who did not get to the tabled'hôte at all. His breeches had turned up missing, and without anyequivalent. He said he was not more particular than other people, but hehad noticed that a clergyman at dinner without any breeches was almostsure to excite remark. 

A TRAMP ABROAD, Part 6. 

By Mark Twain

(Samuel L. Clemens)

First published in 1880

Illustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition

 * * * * * *

ILLUSTRATIONS:

 1.     PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR 2.     TITIAN'S MOSES 3.     THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES 236.   A SUNDAY MORNING'S DEMON 237.   JUST SAVED 238.   SCENE IN VALLEY OF ZERMATT 239.   ARRIVAL AT ZERMATT 240.   FITTED OUT 241.   A FEARFUL FALL 242.   TAIL PIECE 243.   ALL READY 244.   THE MARCH 245.   THE CARAVAN 246.   THE HOOK 247.   THE DISABLED CHAPLAIN 248.   TRYING EXPERIMENTS 249.   SAVED! SAVED! 250.   TWENTY MINUTES WORK 251.   THE BLACK RAM 252.   THE MIRACLE 253.   THE NEW GUIDE 251.   SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES 255.   MOUNTAIN CHALET 256.   THE GRANDSON 257.   OCCASIONLY MET WITH 258.   SUMMIT OF THE GORNER GRAT 259.   CHIEFS OF THE ADVANCE GUARD 260.   MY PICTURE OF THE MATTERHORN 261.   EVERYBODY HAD AN EXCUSE 262.   SPRUNG A LEAK 263.   A SCIENTIFIC QUESTION 264.   A TERMINAL MORAINE 265.   FRONT OF GLACIER 266.   AN OLD MORAINE 267.   GLACIER OF ZERMATT WITH LATERAL MORAINE 269.   UNEXPECTED MEETING OF FRIENDS 269.   VILLAGE OF CHAMONIX 270.   THE MATTERHORN 271.   ON THE SUMMIT 272.   ACCIDENT ON THE MATTERHORN (1865) 273.   ROPED TOGETHER 274.   STORAGE OF ANCESTORS 275.   FALLING OUT OF HIS FARM 276.   CHILD LIFE IN SWITZERLAND 277.   A SUNDAY PLAY 278.   THE COMBINATION 279.   CHILLON 280.   THE TETE NOIR 281.   MONT BLANC'S NEIGHBORS 282.   AN EXQUISITE THING 283.   A WILD RIDE 284.   SWISS PEASANT GIRL

CONTENTS:

CHAPTER XXXVI Sunday Church Bells--A Cause ofProfanity--A Magnificent Glacier--Fault Finding by Harris--Almostan Accident--Selfishness of Harris--Approaching Zermatt--TheMatterhorn--Zermatt--Home of Mountain Climbers--Fitted out forClimbing--A Fearful Adventure --Never Satisfied

CHAPTER XXXVII A Calm Decision--"I Will Ascend theRiffelberg"--Preparations for the Trip--All Zermatt on theAlert--Schedule of Persons and Things--An Unprecedented Display--AGeneral Turn--out--Ready for a Start--The Post of Danger--The AdvanceDirected--Grand Display of Umbrellas--The First Camp--Almost aPanic--Supposed to be Lost--The First Accident--A Chaplain Disabled--AnExperimenting Mule--Good Effects of a Blunder--Badly Lost--AReconnoiter--Mystery and Doubt--Stern Measures Taken--A Black Ram--Savedby a Miracle--The Guide's Guide

CHAPTER XXXVIII Our Expedition Continued--Experiments with theBarometer--Boiling Thermometer--Barometer Soup--An InterestingScientific Discovery--Crippling a Latinist--A Chaplain Injured--Shortof Barkeepers--Digging a Mountain Cellar--A Young AmericanSpecimen--Somebody's Grandson--Arrival at Riffelberg Botel--Ascent ofGorner Grat--Faith in Thermometers--The Matterhorn

CHAPTER XXXIX Guide Books--Plans for the Return of the Expedition--AGlacier Train--Parachute Descent from Gorner Grat--Proposed Honorsto Harris Declined--All had an Excuse--A Magnificent IdeaAbandoned--Descent to the Glacier--A Supposed Leak--A Slow Train--TheGlacier Abandoned--Journey to Zermatt--A Scientific Question

CHAPTER XL Glaciers--Glacier Perils--Moraines--TerminalMoraines--Lateral Moraines--Immense Size of Glacier--TravelingGlacier----General Movements of Glaciers--Ascent of Mont Blacc--Lossof Guides--Finding of Remains--Meeting of Old Friends--The Dead andLiving--Proposed Museum--The Relics at Chamonix

CHAPTER XLI The Matterhorn Catastrophe of 1563--Mr Whymper'sNarrative--Ascent of the Matterhorn--The Summit--The MatterhornConquered--The Descent Commenced--A Fearful Disaster--Death of LordDouglas and Two Others--The Graves of the Two

CHAPTER XLII Switzerland--Graveyard at Zermatt--Balloting forMarriage--Farmers as Heroes--Falling off a Farm--From St Nicholas toVisp--Dangerous Traveling--Children's Play--The Parson's Children--ALandlord's Daughter--A Rare Combination--Ch iIIon--Lost Sympathy--MontBlanc and its Neighbors--Beauty of Soap Bubbles--A Wild Drive--The Kingof Drivers--Benefit of getting Drunk

CHAPTER XXXVI

[The Fiendish Fun of Alp-climbing]

We did not oversleep at St. Nicholas. The church-bell began to ring atfour-thirty in the morning, and from the length of time it continuedto ring I judged that it takes the Swiss sinner a good while to get theinvitation through his head. Most church-bells in the world are of poorquality, and have a harsh and rasping sound which upsets the temper andproduces much sin, but the St. Nicholas bell is a good deal the worstone that has been contrived yet, and is peculiarly maddening in itsoperation. Still, it may have its right and its excuse to exist, for thecommunity is poor and not every citizen can afford a clock, perhaps; butthere cannot be any excuse for our church-bells at home, for there isno family in America without a clock, and consequently there is no fairpretext for the usual Sunday medley of dreadful sounds that issues fromour steeples. There is much more profanity in America on Sunday than inall in the other six days of the week put together, and it is of a morebitter and malignant character than the week-day profanity, too. It isproduced by the cracked-pot clangor of the cheap church-bells. 

We build our churches almost without regard to cost; we rear an edificewhich is an adornment to the town, and we gild it, and fresco it, andmortgage it, and do everything we can think of to perfect it, and thenspoil it all by putting a bell on it which afflicts everybody who hearsit, giving some the headache, others St. Vitus's dance, and the rest theblind staggers. 

An American village at ten o'clock on a summer Sunday is the quietestand peacefulest and holiest thing in nature; but it is a prettydifferent thing half an hour later. Mr. Poe's poem of the "Bells" standsincomplete to this day; but it is well enough that it is so, for thepublic reciter or "reader" who goes around trying to imitate the soundsof the various sorts of bells with his voice would find himself "up astump" when he got to the church-bell--as Joseph Addison would say. Thechurch is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not bea bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example. It is stillclinging to one or two things which were useful once, but which arenot useful now, neither are they ornamental. One is the bell-ringingto remind a clock-caked town that it is church-time, and another is thereading from the pulpit of a tedious list of "notices" which everybodywho is interested has already read in the newspaper. The clergyman evenreads the hymn through--a relic of an ancient time when hymn-books arescarce and costly; but everybody has a hymn-book, now, and so the publicreading is no longer necessary. It is not merely unnecessary, it isgenerally painful; for the average clergyman could not fire into hiscongregation with a shotgun and hit a worse reader than himself, unlessthe weapon scattered shamefully. I am not meaning to be flippant andirreverent, I am only meaning to be truthful. The average clergyman, inall countries and of all denominations, is a very bad reader. One wouldthink he would at least learn how to read the Lord's Prayer, by and by, but it is not so. He races through it as if he thought the quickerhe got it in, the sooner it would be answered. A person who does notappreciate the exceeding value of pauses, and does not know how tomeasure their duration judiciously, cannot render the grand simplicityand dignity of a composition like that effectively. 

We took a tolerably early breakfast, and tramped off toward Zermattthrough the reeking lanes of the village, glad to get away from thatbell. By and by we had a fine spectacle on our right. It was thewall-like butt end of a huge glacier, which looked down on us from anAlpine height which was well up in the blue sky. It was an astonishingamount of ice to be compacted together in one mass. We ciphered upon itand decided that it was not less than several hundred feet from the baseof the wall of solid ice to the top of it--Harris believed it wasreally twice that. We judged that if St. Paul's, St. Peter's, the GreatPyramid, the Strasburg Cathedral and the Capitol in Washington wereclustered against that wall, a man sitting on its upper edge could nothang his hat on the top of any one of them without reaching down threeor four hundred feet--a thing which, of course, no man could do. 

To me, that mighty glacier was very beautiful. I did not imagine thatanybody could find fault with it; but I was mistaken. Harris had beensnarling for several days. He was a rabid Protestant, and he was alwayssaying:

"In the Protestant cantons you never see such poverty and dirt andsqualor as you do in this Catholic one; you never see the lanes andalleys flowing with foulness; you never see such wretched little stiesof houses; you never see an inverted tin turnip on top of a church fora dome; and as for a church-bell, why, you never hear a church-bell atall. "

All this morning he had been finding fault, straight along. First it waswith the mud. He said, "It ain't muddy in a Protestant canton when itrains. " Then it was with the dogs: "They don't have those lop-eared dogsin a Protestant canton. " Then it was with the roads: "They don't leavethe roads to make themselves in a Protestant canton, the people makethem--and they make a road that IS a road, too. " Next it was the goats:"You never see a goat shedding tears in a Protestant canton--a goat, there, is one of the cheerfulest objects in nature. " Next it was thechamois: "You never see a Protestant chamois act like one of these--theytake a bite or two and go; but these fellows camp with you and stay. "Then it was the guide-boards: "In a Protestant canton you couldn't getlost if you wanted to, but you never see a guide-board in a Catholiccanton. " Next, "You never see any flower-boxes in the windows, here--never anything but now and then a cat--a torpid one; but you takea Protestant canton: windows perfectly lovely with flowers--and as forcats, there's just acres of them. These folks in this canton leave aroad to make itself, and then fine you three francs if you 'trot' overit--as if a horse could trot over such a sarcasm of a road. " Next aboutthe goiter: "THEY talk about goiter!--I haven't seen a goiter in thiswhole canton that I couldn't put in a hat. "

He had growled at everything, but I judged it would puzzle him to findanything the matter with this majestic glacier. I intimated as much; buthe was ready, and said with surly discontent: "You ought to see them inthe Protestant cantons. "

This irritated me. But I concealed the feeling, and asked:

"What is the matter with this one?"

"Matter? Why, it ain't in any kind of condition. They never take anycare of a glacier here. The moraine has been spilling gravel around it, and got it all dirty. "

"Why, man, THEY can't help that. "

"THEY? You're right. That is, they WON'T. They could if they wanted to. You never see a speck of dirt on a Protestant glacier. Look at the Rhoneglacier. It is fifteen miles long, and seven hundred feet thick. If thiswas a Protestant glacier you wouldn't see it looking like this, I cantell you. "

"That is nonsense. What would they do with it?"

"They would whitewash it. They always do. "

I did not believe a word of this, but rather than have trouble I let itgo; for it is a waste of breath to argue with a bigot. I even doubted ifthe Rhone glacier WAS in a Protestant canton; but I did not know, so Icould not make anything by contradicting a man who would probably put medown at once with manufactured evidence. 

About nine miles from St. Nicholas we crossed a bridge over the ragingtorrent of the Visp, and came to a log strip of flimsy fencing whichwas pretending to secure people from tumbling over a perpendicular wallforty feet high and into the river. Three children were approaching; oneof them, a little girl, about eight years old, was running; when prettyclose to us she stumbled and fell, and her feet shot under the rail ofthe fence and for a moment projected over the stream. It gave us asharp shock, for we thought she was gone, sure, for the ground slantedsteeply, and to save herself seemed a sheer impossibility; but shemanaged to scramble up, and ran by us laughing. 

We went forward and examined the place and saw the long tracks which herfeet had made in the dirt when they darted over the verge. If she hadfinished her trip she would have struck some big rocks in the edge ofthe water, and then the torrent would have snatched her downstream amongthe half-covered boulders and she would have been pounded to pulp in twominutes. We had come exceedingly near witnessing her death. 

And now Harris's contrary nature and inborn selfishness were strikinglymanifested. He has no spirit of self-denial. He began straight off, andcontinued for an hour, to express his gratitude that the child was notdestroyed. I never saw such a man. That was the kind of person he was;just so HE was gratified, he never cared anything about anybody else. Ihad noticed that trait in him, over and over again. Often, of course, itwas mere heedlessness, mere want of reflection. Doubtless this may havebeen the case in most instances, but it was not the less hard to baron that account--and after all, its bottom, its groundwork, wasselfishness. There is no avoiding that conclusion. In the instance underconsideration, I did think the indecency of running on in that way mightoccur to him; but no, the child was saved and he was glad, that wassufficient--he cared not a straw for MY feelings, or my loss of such aliterary plum, snatched from my very mouth at the instant it wasready to drop into it. His selfishness was sufficient to place his owngratification in being spared suffering clear before all concern forme, his friend. Apparently, he did not once reflect upon the valuabledetails which would have fallen like a windfall to me: fishing the childout--witnessing the surprise of the family and the stir the thing wouldhave made among the peasants--then a Swiss funeral--then the roadsidemonument, to be paid for by us and have our names mentioned in it. Andwe should have gone into Baedeker and been immortal. I was silent. I wastoo much hurt to complain. If he could act so, and be so heedless and sofrivolous at such a time, and actually seem to glory in it, after allI had done for him, I would have cut my hand off before I would let himsee that I was wounded. 

We were approaching Zermatt; consequently, we were approaching therenowned Matterhorn. A month before, this mountain had been only a nameto us, but latterly we had been moving through a steadily thickeningdouble row of pictures of it, done in oil, water, chromo, wood, steel, copper, crayon, and photography, and so it had at length become a shapeto us--and a very distinct, decided, and familiar one, too. We wereexpecting to recognize that mountain whenever or wherever we should runacross it. We were not deceived. The monarch was far away when we firstsaw him, but there was no such thing as mistaking him. He has the rarepeculiarity of standing by himself; he is peculiarly steep, too, and isalso most oddly shaped. He towers into the sky like a colossal wedge, with the upper third of its blade bent a little to the left. The broadbase of this monster wedge is planted upon a grand glacier-paved Alpineplatform whose elevation is ten thousand feet above sea-level; as thewedge itself is some five thousand feet high, it follows that its apexis about fifteen thousand feet above sea-level. So the whole bulk ofthis stately piece of rock, this sky-cleaving monolith, is above theline of eternal snow. Yet while all its giant neighbors have the look ofbeing built of solid snow, from their waists up, the Matterhorn standsblack and naked and forbidding, the year round, or merely powdered orstreaked with white in places, for its sides are so steep that thesnow cannot stay there. Its strange form, its august isolation, and itsmajestic unkinship with its own kind, make it--so to speak--the Napoleonof the mountain world. "Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, " is a phrase whichfits it as aptly as it fitted the great captain. 

Think of a monument a mile high, standing on a pedestal two miles high!This is what the Matterhorn is--a monument. Its office, henceforth, forall time, will be to keep watch and ward over the secret resting-placeof the young Lord Douglas, who, in 1865, was precipitated from thesummit over a precipice four thousand feet high, and never seen again. No man ever had such a monument as this before; the most imposing ofthe world's other monuments are but atoms compared to it; and they willperish, and their places will pass from memory, but this will remain. 

[The accident which cost Lord Douglas his life (see Chapter xii) alsocost the lives of three other men. These three fell four-fifths of amile, and their bodies were afterward found, lying side by side, upon aglacier, whence they were borne to Zermatt and buried in the churchyard. 

The remains of Lord Douglas have never been found. The secret of hissepulture, like that of Moses, must remain a mystery always. ]

A walk from St. Nicholas to Zermatt is a wonderful experience. Natureis built on a stupendous plan in that region. One marches continuallybetween walls that are piled into the skies, with their upper heightsbroken into a confusion of sublime shapes that gleam white and coldagainst the background of blue; and here and there one sees a bigglacier displaying its grandeurs on the top of a precipice, or agraceful cascade leaping and flashing down the green declivities. Thereis nothing tame, or cheap, or trivial--it is all magnificent. Thatshort valley is a picture-gallery of a notable kind, for it containsno mediocrities; from end to end the Creator has hung it with Hismasterpieces. 

We made Zermatt at three in the afternoon, nine hours out fromSt. Nicholas. Distance, by guide-book, twelve miles; by pedometerseventy-two. We were in the heart and home of the mountain-climbers, now, as all visible things testified. The snow-peaks did not holdthemselves aloof, in aristocratic reserve; they nestled close around, in a friendly, sociable way; guides, with the ropes and axes and otherimplements of their fearful calling slung about their persons, roostedin a long line upon a stone wall in front of the hotel, and waited forcustomers; sun-burnt climbers, in mountaineering costume, and followedby their guides and porters, arrived from time to time, from breakneckexpeditions among the peaks and glaciers of the High Alps; male andfemale tourists, on mules, filed by, in a continuous procession, hotelward-bound from wild adventures which would grow in grandeur everytime they were described at the English or American fireside, and atlast outgrow the possible itself. 

We were not dreaming; this was not a make-believe home of theAlp-climber, created by our heated imaginations; no, for here was Mr. Girdlestone himself, the famous Englishman who hunts his way to the mostformidable Alpine summits without a guide. I was not equal to imagininga Girdlestone; it was all I could do to even realize him, while lookingstraight at him at short range. I would rather face whole Hyde Parks ofartillery than the ghastly forms of death which he has faced among thepeaks and precipices of the mountains. There is probably no pleasureequal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasurewhich is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it. I havenot jumped to this conclusion; I have traveled to it per gravel-train, so to speak. I have thought the thing all out, and am quite sure I amright. A born climber's appetite for climbing is hard to satisfy; whenit comes upon him he is like a starving man with a feast before him; hemay have other business on hand, but it must wait. Mr. Girdlestone hadhad his usual summer holiday in the Alps, and had spent it in his usualway, hunting for unique chances to break his neck; his vacation wasover, and his luggage packed for England, but all of a sudden a hungerhad come upon him to climb the tremendous Weisshorn once more, for hehad heard of a new and utterly impossible route up it. His baggagewas unpacked at once, and now he and a friend, laden with knapsacks, ice-axes, coils of rope, and canteens of milk, were just setting out. They would spend the night high up among the snows, somewhere, andget up at two in the morning and finish the enterprise. I had astrong desire to go with them, but forced it down--a feat which Mr. Girdlestone, with all his fortitude, could not do. 

Even ladies catch the climbing mania, and are unable to throw it off. A famous climber, of that sex, had attempted the Weisshorn a few daysbefore our arrival, and she and her guides had lost their way in asnow-storm high up among the peaks and glaciers and been forced towander around a good while before they could find a way down. When thislady reached the bottom, she had been on her feet twenty-three hours!

Our guides, hired on the Gemmi, were already at Zermatt when wereached there. So there was nothing to interfere with our getting up anadventure whenever we should choose the time and the object. I resolvedto devote my first evening in Zermatt to studying up the subject ofAlpine climbing, by way of preparation. 

I read several books, and here are some of the things I found out. One'sshoes must be strong and heavy, and have pointed hobnails in them. Thealpenstock must be of the best wood, for if it should break, loss oflife might be the result. One should carry an ax, to cut steps in theice with, on the great heights. There must be a ladder, for there aresteep bits of rock which can be surmounted with this instrument--or thisutensil--but could not be surmounted without it; such an obstructionhas compelled the tourist to waste hours hunting another route, when aladder would have saved him all trouble. One must have from one hundredand fifty to five hundred feet of strong rope, to be used in loweringthe party down steep declivities which are too steep and smooth tobe traversed in any other way. One must have a steel hook, on anotherrope--a very useful thing; for when one is ascending and comes to a lowbluff which is yet too high for the ladder, he swings this rope aloftlike a lasso, the hook catches at the top of the bluff, and then thetourist climbs the rope, hand over hand--being always particular to tryand forget that if the hook gives way he will never stop falling tillhe arrives in some part of Switzerland where they are not expecting him. Another important thing--there must be a rope to tie the whole partytogether with, so that if one falls from a mountain or down a bottomlesschasm in a glacier, the others may brace back on the rope and save him. One must have a silk veil, to protect his face from snow, sleet, hailand gale, and colored goggles to protect his eyes from that dangerousenemy, snow-blindness. Finally, there must be some porters, to carryprovisions, wine and scientific instruments, and also blanket bags forthe party to sleep in. 

I closed my readings with a fearful adventure which Mr. Whymper once hadon the Matterhorn when he was prowling around alone, five thousandfeet above the town of Breil. He was edging his way gingerly aroundthe corner of a precipice where the upper edge of a sharp declivity ofice-glazed snow joined it. This declivity swept down a couple of hundredfeet, into a gully which curved around and ended at a precipice eighthundred feet high, overlooking a glacier. His foot slipped, and he fell. 

He says:

"My knapsack brought my head down first, and I pitched into some rocksabout a dozen feet below; they caught something, and tumbled me offthe edge, head over heels, into the gully; the baton was dashed from myhands, and I whirled downward in a series of bounds, each longer thanthe last; now over ice, now into rocks, striking my head four or fivetimes, each time with increased force. The last bound sent me spinningthrough the air in a leap of fifty or sixty feet, from one side of thegully to the other, and I struck the rocks, luckily, with the whole ofmy left side. They caught my clothes for a moment, and I fell back on tothe snow with motion arrested. My head fortunately came the right sideup, and a few frantic catches brought me to a halt, in the neck of thegully and on the verge of the precipice. Baton, hat, and veil skimmedby and disappeared, and the crash of the rocks--which I had started--asthey fell on to the glacier, told how narrow had been the escape fromutter destruction. As it was, I fell nearly two hundred feet in seven oreight bounds. Ten feet more would have taken me in one gigantic leap ofeight hundred feet on to the glacier below. 

"The situation was sufficiently serious. The rocks could not be let gofor a moment, and the blood was spurting out of more than twenty cuts. The most serious ones were in the head, and I vainly tried to closethem with one hand, while holding on with the other. It was useless;the blood gushed out in blinding jets at each pulsation. At last, in amoment of inspiration, I kicked out a big lump of snow and struck itas plaster on my head. The idea was a happy one, and the flow of blooddiminished. Then, scrambling up, I got, not a moment too soon, toa place of safety, and fainted away. The sun was setting whenconsciousness returned, and it was pitch-dark before the Great Staircasewas descended; but by a combination of luck and care, the whole fourthousand seven hundred feet of descent to Breil was accomplished withouta slip, or once missing the way. "

His wounds kept him abed some days. Then he got up and climbed thatmountain again. That is the way with a true Alp-climber; the more fun hehas, the more he wants. 

CHAPTER XXXVII

[Our Imposing Column Starts Upward]

After I had finished my readings, I was no longer myself; I was tranced, uplifted, intoxicated, by the almost incredible perils and adventuresI had been following my authors through, and the triumphs I had beensharing with them. I sat silent some time, then turned to Harris andsaid:

"My mind is made up. "

Something in my tone struck him: and when he glanced at my eye andread what was written there, his face paled perceptibly. He hesitated amoment, then said:

"Speak. "

I answered, with perfect calmness:

"I will ascend the Riffelberg. "

If I had shot my poor friend he could not have fallen from his chairmore suddenly. If I had been his father he could not have pleaded harderto get me to give up my purpose. But I turned a deaf ear to all he said. When he perceived at last that nothing could alter my determination, heceased to urge, and for a while the deep silence was broken only by hissobs. I sat in marble resolution, with my eyes fixed upon vacancy, forin spirit I was already wrestling with the perils of the mountains, andmy friend sat gazing at me in adoring admiration through his tears. At last he threw himself upon me in a loving embrace and exclaimed inbroken tones:

"Your Harris will never desert you. We will die together. "

I cheered the noble fellow with praises, and soon his fears wereforgotten and he was eager for the adventure. He wanted to summon theguides at once and leave at two in the morning, as he supposed thecustom was; but I explained that nobody was looking at that hour; andthat the start in the dark was not usually made from the village butfrom the first night's resting-place on the mountain side. I said wewould leave the village at 3 or 4 P. M. On the morrow; meantime he couldnotify the guides, and also let the public know of the attempt which weproposed to make. 

I went to bed, but not to sleep. No man can sleep when he is about toundertake one of these Alpine exploits. I tossed feverishly all nightlong, and was glad enough when I heard the clock strike half past elevenand knew it was time to get up for dinner. I rose, jaded and rusty, andwent to the noon meal, where I found myself the center of interest andcuriosity; for the news was already abroad. It is not easy to eat calmlywhen you are a lion; but it is very pleasant, nevertheless. 

As usual, at Zermatt, when a great ascent is about to be undertaken, everybody, native and foreign, laid aside his own projects and took upa good position to observe the start. The expedition consisted of 198persons, including the mules; or 205, including the cows. As follows:

   CHIEFS OF SERVICE   SUBORDINATES

   Myself 1 Veterinary Surgeon   Mr. Harris 1 Butler 17 Guides 12 Waiters 4 Surgeons 1 Footman 1 Geologist    1 Barber 1 Botanist 1 Head Cook 3 Chaplains 9 Assistants 2 Draftsman 4 Pastry Cooks 15 Barkeepers 1 Confectionery Artist 1 Latinist

   TRANSPORTATION, ETC. 

 27 Porters 3 Coarse Washers and Ironers 44 Mules 1 Fine ditto 44 Muleteers 7 Cows     2 Milkers

Total, 154 men, 51 animals. Grand Total, 205. 

     RATIONS, ETC.        APPARATUS

 16 Cases Hams 25 Spring Mattresses 2 Barrels Flour 2 Hair ditto 22 Barrels Whiskey Bedding for same 1 Barrel Sugar 2 Mosquito-nets 1 Keg Lemons 29 Tents 2, 000 Cigars   Scientific Instruments 1 Barrel Pies 97 Ice-axes 1 Ton of Pemmican 5 Cases Dynamite 143 Pair Crutches 7 Cans Nitroglycerin 2 Barrels Arnica 22 40-foot Ladders 1 Bale of Lint 2 Miles of Rope 27 Kegs Paregoric 154 Umbrellas

It was full four o'clock in the afternoon before my cavalcade wasentirely ready. At that hour it began to move. In point of numbers andspectacular effect, it was the most imposing expedition that had evermarched from Zermatt. 

I commanded the chief guide to arrange the men and animals in singlefile, twelve feet apart, and lash them all together on a strong rope. Heobjected that the first two miles was a dead level, with plenty of room, and that the rope was never used except in very dangerous places. ButI would not listen to that. My reading had taught me that many seriousaccidents had happened in the Alps simply from not having the peopletied up soon enough; I was not going to add one to the list. The guidethen obeyed my order. 

When the procession stood at ease, roped together, and ready to move, Inever saw a finer sight. It was 3, 122 feet long--over half a mile; everyman and me was on foot, and had on his green veil and his blue goggles, and his white rag around his hat, and his coil of rope over one shoulderand under the other, and his ice-ax in his belt, and carried hisalpenstock in his left hand, his umbrella (closed) in his right, and hiscrutches slung at his back. The burdens of the pack-mules and the hornsof the cows were decked with the Edelweiss and the Alpine rose. 

I and my agent were the only persons mounted. We were in the post ofdanger in the extreme rear, and tied securely to five guides apiece. Ourarmor-bearers carried our ice-axes, alpenstocks, and other implementsfor us. We were mounted upon very small donkeys, as a measure of safety;in time of peril we could straighten our legs and stand up, and letthe donkey walk from under. Still, I cannot recommend this sort ofanimal--at least for excursions of mere pleasure--because hisears interrupt the view. I and my agent possessed the regulationmountaineering costumes, but concluded to leave them behind. Out ofrespect for the great numbers of tourists of both sexes who would beassembled in front of the hotels to see us pass, and also out of respectfor the many tourists whom we expected to encounter on our expedition, we decided to make the ascent in evening dress. 

We watered the caravan at the cold stream which rushes down a troughnear the end of the village, and soon afterward left the haunts ofcivilization behind us. About half past five o'clock we arrived at abridge which spans the Visp, and after throwing over a detachment to seeif it was safe, the caravan crossed without accident. The way now led, by a gentle ascent, carpeted with fresh green grass, to the church atWinkelmatten. Without stopping to examine this edifice, I executeda flank movement to the right and crossed the bridge over theFindelenbach, after first testing its strength. Here I deployed to theright again, and presently entered an inviting stretch of meadowlandwhich was unoccupied save by a couple of deserted huts toward thefurthest extremity. These meadows offered an excellent camping-place. We pitched our tents, supped, established a proper grade, recorded theevents of the day, and then went to bed. 

We rose at two in the morning and dressed by candle-light. It was adismal and chilly business. A few stars were shining, but the generalheavens were overcast, and the great shaft of the Matterhorn was drapedin a cable pall of clouds. The chief guide advised a delay; he said hefeared it was going to rain. We waited until nine o'clock, and then gotaway in tolerably clear weather. 

Our course led up some terrific steeps, densely wooded with larches andcedars, and traversed by paths which the rains had guttered and whichwere obstructed by loose stones. To add to the danger and inconvenience, we were constantly meeting returning tourists on foot and horseback, andas constantly being crowded and battered by ascending tourists who werein a hurry and wanted to get by. 

Our troubles thickened. About the middle of the afternoon the seventeenguides called a halt and held a consultation. After consulting an hourthey said their first suspicion remained intact--that is to say, theybelieved they were lost. I asked if they did not KNOW it? No, they said, they COULDN'T absolutely know whether they were lost or not, becausenone of them had ever been in that part of the country before. They hada strong instinct that they were lost, but they had no proofs--exceptthat they did not know where they were. They had met no tourists forsome time, and they considered that a suspicious sign. 

Plainly we were in an ugly fix. The guides were naturally unwilling togo alone and seek a way out of the difficulty; so we all went together. For better security we moved slow and cautiously, for the forest wasvery dense. We did not move up the mountain, but around it, hoping tostrike across the old trail. Toward nightfall, when we were about tiredout, we came up against a rock as big as a cottage. This barrier tookall the remaining spirit out of the men, and a panic of fear and despairensued. They moaned and wept, and said they should never see their homesand their dear ones again. Then they began to upbraid me for bringingthem upon this fatal expedition. Some even muttered threats against me. 

Clearly it was no time to show weakness. So I made a speech in which Isaid that other Alp-climbers had been in as perilous a position as this, and yet by courage and perseverance had escaped. I promised to standby them, I promised to rescue them. I closed by saying we had plentyof provisions to maintain us for quite a siege--and did they supposeZermatt would allow half a mile of men and mules to mysteriouslydisappear during any considerable time, right above their noses, andmake no inquiries? No, Zermatt would send out searching-expeditions andwe should be saved. 

This speech had a great effect. The men pitched the tents with somelittle show of cheerfulness, and we were snugly under cover when thenight shut down. I now reaped the reward of my wisdom in providing onearticle which is not mentioned in any book of Alpine adventure but this. I refer to the paregoric. But for that beneficent drug, would have notone of those men slept a moment during that fearful night. But for thatgentle persuader they must have tossed, unsoothed, the night through;for the whiskey was for me. Yes, they would have risen in the morningunfitted for their heavy task. As it was, everybody slept but my agentand me--only we and the barkeepers. I would not permit myself to sleepat such a time. I considered myself responsible for all those lives. Imeant to be on hand and ready, in case of avalanches up there, but I didnot know it then. 

We watched the weather all through that awful night, and kept an eye onthe barometer, to be prepared for the least change. There was not theslightest change recorded by the instrument, during the whole time. Words cannot describe the comfort that that friendly, hopeful, steadfastthing was to me in that season of trouble. It was a defective barometer, and had no hand but the stationary brass pointer, but I did not knowthat until afterward. If I should be in such a situation again, I shouldnot wish for any barometer but that one. 

All hands rose at two in the morning and took breakfast, and as soon asit was light we roped ourselves together and went at that rock. For sometime we tried the hook-rope and other means of scaling it, but withoutsuccess--that is, without perfect success. The hook caught once, andHarris started up it hand over hand, but the hold broke and if therehad not happened to be a chaplain sitting underneath at the time, Harriswould certainly have been crippled. As it was, it was the chaplain. Hetook to his crutches, and I ordered the hook-rope to be laid aside. Itwas too dangerous an implement where so many people are standing around. 

We were puzzled for a while; then somebody thought of the ladders. One of these was leaned against the rock, and the men went up it tiedtogether in couples. Another ladder was sent up for use in descending. At the end of half an hour everybody was over, and that rock wasconquered. We gave our first grand shout of triumph. But the joy wasshort-lived, for somebody asked how we were going to get the animalsover. 

This was a serious difficulty; in fact, it was an impossibility. The courage of the men began to waver immediately; once more we werethreatened with a panic. But when the danger was most imminent, we weresaved in a mysterious way. A mule which had attracted attention from thebeginning by its disposition to experiment, tried to eat a five-poundcan of nitroglycerin. This happened right alongside the rock. Theexplosion threw us all to the ground, and covered us with dirt anddebris; it frightened us extremely, too, for the crash it made wasdeafening, and the violence of the shock made the ground tremble. However, we were grateful, for the rock was gone. Its place was occupiedby a new cellar, about thirty feet across, by fifteen feet deep. Theexplosion was heard as far as Zermatt; and an hour and a half afterward, many citizens of that town were knocked down and quite seriously injuredby descending portions of mule meat, frozen solid. This shows, betterthan any estimate in figures, how high the experimenter went. 

We had nothing to do, now, but bridge the cellar and proceed on our way. With a cheer the men went at their work. I attended to the engineering, myself. I appointed a strong detail to cut down trees with ice-axes andtrim them for piers to support the bridge. This was a slow business, forice-axes are not good to cut wood with. I caused my piers to be firmlyset up in ranks in the cellar, and upon them I laid six of my forty-footladders, side by side, and laid six more on top of them. Upon thisbridge I caused a bed of boughs to be spread, and on top of the boughsa bed of earth six inches deep. I stretched ropes upon either side toserve as railings, and then my bridge was complete. A train of elephantscould have crossed it in safety and comfort. By nightfall the caravanwas on the other side and the ladders were taken up. 

Next morning we went on in good spirits for a while, though our waywas slow and difficult, by reason of the steep and rocky nature of theground and the thickness of the forest; but at last a dull despondencycrept into the men's faces and it was apparent that not only they, buteven the guides, were now convinced that we were lost. The fact that westill met no tourists was a circumstance that was but too significant. Another thing seemed to suggest that we were not only lost, but verybadly lost; for there must surely be searching-parties on the roadbefore this time, yet we had seen no sign of them. 

Demoralization was spreading; something must be done, and done quickly, too. Fortunately, I am not unfertile in expedients. I contrived onenow which commended itself to all, for it promised well. I tookthree-quarters of a mile of rope and fastened one end of it around thewaist of a guide, and told him to go find the road, while the caravanwaited. I instructed him to guide himself back by the rope, in case offailure; in case of success, he was to give the rope a series of violentjerks, whereupon the Expedition would go to him at once. He departed, and in two minutes had disappeared among the trees. I payed out the ropemyself, while everybody watched the crawling thing with eager eyes. The rope crept away quite slowly, at times, at other times with somebriskness. Twice or thrice we seemed to get the signal, and a shout wasjust ready to break from the men's lips when they perceived it was afalse alarm. But at last, when over half a mile of rope had sliddenaway, it stopped gliding and stood absolutely still--one minute--twominutes--three--while we held our breath and watched. 

Was the guide resting? Was he scanning the country from some high point?Was he inquiring of a chance mountaineer? Stop, --had he fainted fromexcess of fatigue and anxiety?

This thought gave us a shock. I was in the very first act of detailingan Expedition to succor him, when the cord was assailed with a series ofsuch frantic jerks that I could hardly keep hold of it. The huzza thatwent up, then, was good to hear. "Saved! saved!" was the word that rangout, all down the long rank of the caravan. 

We rose up and started at once. We found the route to be good enoughfor a while, but it began to grow difficult, by and by, and this featuresteadily increased. When we judged we had gone half a mile, we momentlyexpected to see the guide; but no, he was not visible anywhere; neitherwas he waiting, for the rope was still moving, consequently he wasdoing the same. This argued that he had not found the road, yet, butwas marching to it with some peasant. There was nothing for us to dobut plod along--and this we did. At the end of three hours we werestill plodding. This was not only mysterious, but exasperating. And veryfatiguing, too; for we had tried hard, along at first, to catch up withthe guide, but had only fagged ourselves, in vain; for although he wastraveling slowly he was yet able to go faster than the hampered caravanover such ground. 

At three in the afternoon we were nearly dead with exhaustion--and stillthe rope was slowly gliding out. The murmurs against the guide had beengrowing steadily, and at last they were become loud and savage. A mutinyensued. The men refused to proceed. They declared that we had beentraveling over and over the same ground all day, in a kind of circle. They demanded that our end of the rope be made fast to a tree, so as tohalt the guide until we could overtake him and kill him. This was not anunreasonable requirement, so I gave the order. 

As soon as the rope was tied, the Expedition moved forward with thatalacrity which the thirst for vengeance usually inspires. But after atiresome march of almost half a mile, we came to a hill covered thickwith a crumbly rubbish of stones, and so steep that no man of us allwas now in a condition to climb it. Every attempt failed, and ended incrippling somebody. Within twenty minutes I had five men on crutches. 

Whenever a climber tried to assist himself by the rope, it yielded andlet him tumble backward. The frequency of this result suggested an ideato me. I ordered the caravan to 'bout face and form in marching order; Ithen made the tow-rope fast to the rear mule, and gave the command:

"Mark time--by the right flank--forward--march!"

The procession began to move, to the impressive strains of abattle-chant, and I said to myself, "Now, if the rope don't break Ijudge THIS will fetch that guide into the camp. " I watched the ropegliding down the hill, and presently when I was all fixed for triumphI was confronted by a bitter disappointment; there was no guide tied tothe rope, it was only a very indignant old black ram. The fury of thebaffled Expedition exceeded all bounds. They even wanted to wreak theirunreasoning vengeance on this innocent dumb brute. But I stood betweenthem and their prey, menaced by a bristling wall of ice-axes andalpenstocks, and proclaimed that there was but one road to this murder, and it was directly over my corpse. Even as I spoke I saw that my doomwas sealed, except a miracle supervened to divert these madmen fromtheir fell purpose. I see the sickening wall of weapons now; I see thatadvancing host as I saw it then, I see the hate in those cruel eyes; Iremember how I drooped my head upon my breast, I feel again thesudden earthquake shock in my rear, administered by the very ram I wassacrificing myself to save; I hear once more the typhoon of laughterthat burst from the assaulting column as I clove it from van to rearlike a Sepoy shot from a Rodman gun. 

I was saved. Yes, I was saved, and by the merciful instinct ofingratitude which nature had planted in the breast of that treacherousbeast. The grace which eloquence had failed to work in those men'shearts, had been wrought by a laugh. The ram was set free and my lifewas spared. 

We lived to find out that that guide had deserted us as soon as he hadplaced a half-mile between himself and us. To avert suspicion, he hadjudged it best that the line should continue to move; so he caught thatram, and at the time that he was sitting on it making the rope fast toit, we were imagining that he was lying in a swoon, overcome by fatigueand distress. When he allowed the ram to get up it fell to plungingaround, trying to rid itself of the rope, and this was the signal whichwe had risen up with glad shouts to obey. We had followed this ram roundand round in a circle all day--a thing which was proven by the discoverythat we had watered the Expedition seven times at one and same spring inseven hours. As expert a woodman as I am, I had somehow failed to noticethis until my attention was called to it by a hog. This hog was alwayswallowing there, and as he was the only hog we saw, his frequentrepetition, together with his unvarying similarity to himself, finallycaused me to reflect that he must be the same hog, and this led me tothe deduction that this must be the same spring, also--which indeed itwas. 

I made a note of this curious thing, as showing in a striking manner therelative difference between glacial action and the action of the hog. It is now a well-established fact that glaciers move; I consider thatmy observations go to show, with equal conclusiveness, that a hog in aspring does not move. I shall be glad to receive the opinions of otherobservers upon this point. 

To return, for an explanatory moment, to that guide, and then I shall bedone with him. After leaving the ram tied to the rope, he had wanderedat large a while, and then happened to run across a cow. Judging that acow would naturally know more than a guide, he took her by the tail, and the result justified his judgment. She nibbled her leisurely waydownhill till it was near milking-time, then she struck for home andtowed him into Zermatt. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII

[I Conquer the Gorner Grat]

We went into camp on that wild spot to which that ram had brought us. The men were greatly fatigued. Their conviction that we were lost wasforgotten in the cheer of a good supper, and before the reaction had achance to set in, I loaded them up with paregoric and put them to bed. 

Next morning I was considering in my mind our desperate situation andtrying to think of a remedy, when Harris came to me with a Baedekermap which showed conclusively that the mountain we were on was still inSwitzerland--yes, every part of it was in Switzerland. So we were notlost, after all. This was an immense relief; it lifted the weight of twosuch mountains from my breast. I immediately had the news disseminatedand the map was exhibited. The effect was wonderful. As soon as the mensaw with their own eyes that they knew where they were, and that itwas only the summit that was lost and not themselves, they cheered upinstantly and said with one accord, let the summit take care of itself. 

Our distresses being at an end, I now determined to rest the men in campand give the scientific department of the Expedition a chance. First, I made a barometric observation, to get our altitude, but I could notperceive that there was any result. I knew, by my scientific reading, that either thermometers or barometers ought to be boiled, to make themaccurate; I did not know which it was, so I boiled them both. There wasstill no result; so I examined these instruments and discovered thatthey possessed radical blemishes: the barometer had no hand but thebrass pointer and the ball of the thermometer was stuffed with tin-foil. I might have boiled those things to rags, and never found out anything. 

I hunted up another barometer; it was new and perfect. I boiled it halfan hour in a pot of bean soup which the cooks were making. The resultwas unexpected: the instrument was not affecting at all, but there wassuch a strong barometer taste to the soup that the head cook, who wasa most conscientious person, changed its name in the bill of fare. The dish was so greatly liked by all, that I ordered the cook to havebarometer soup every day. 

It was believed that the barometer might eventually be injured, but Idid not care for that. I had demonstrated to my satisfaction that itcould not tell how high a mountain was, therefore I had no real use forit. Changes in the weather I could take care of without it; I did notwish to know when the weather was going to be good, what I wanted toknow was when it was going to be bad, and this I could find out fromHarris's corns. Harris had had his corns tested and regulated at thegovernment observatory in Heidelberg, and one could depend upon themwith confidence. So I transferred the new barometer to the cookingdepartment, to be used for the official mess. It was found that even apretty fair article of soup could be made from the defective barometer;so I allowed that one to be transferred to the subordinate mess. 

I next boiled the thermometer, and got a most excellent result; themercury went up to about 200 degrees Fahrenheit. In the opinion of theother scientists of the Expedition, this seemed to indicate that we hadattained the extraordinary altitude of two hundred thousand feet abovesea-level. Science places the line of eternal snow at about ten thousandfeet above sea-level. There was no snow where we were, consequentlyit was proven that the eternal snow-line ceases somewhere above theten-thousand-foot level and does not begin any more. This was aninteresting fact, and one which had not been observed by any observerbefore. It was as valuable as interesting, too, since it would open upthe deserted summits of the highest Alps to population and agriculture. It was a proud thing to be where we were, yet it caused us a pangto reflect that but for that ram we might just as well have been twohundred thousand feet higher. 

The success of my last experiment induced me to try an experiment withmy photographic apparatus. I got it out, and boiled one of my cameras, but the thing was a failure; it made the wood swell up and burst, and Icould not see that the lenses were any better than they were before. 

I now concluded to boil a guide. It might improve him, it could notimpair his usefulness. But I was not allowed to proceed. Guides haveno feeling for science, and this one would not consent to be madeuncomfortable in its interest. 

In the midst of my scientific work, one of those needless accidentshappened which are always occurring among the ignorant and thoughtless. A porter shot at a chamois and missed it and crippled the Latinist. This was not a serious matter to me, for a Latinist's duties are as wellperformed on crutches as otherwise--but the fact remained that if theLatinist had not happened to be in the way a mule would have got thatload. That would have been quite another matter, for when it comes downto a question of value there is a palpable difference between a Latinistand a mule. I could not depend on having a Latinist in the right placeevery time; so, to make things safe, I ordered that in the future thechamois must not be hunted within limits of the camp with any otherweapon than the forefinger. 

My nerves had hardly grown quiet after this affair when they got anothershake-up--one which utterly unmanned me for a moment: a rumor sweptsuddenly through the camp that one of the barkeepers had fallen over aprecipice!

However, it turned out that it was only a chaplain. I had laid in anextra force of chaplains, purposely to be prepared for emergencieslike this, but by some unaccountable oversight had come away rathershort-handed in the matter of barkeepers. 

On the following morning we moved on, well refreshed and in goodspirits. I remember this day with peculiar pleasure, because it sawour road restored to us. Yes, we found our road again, and in quite anextraordinary way. We had plodded along some two hours and a half, whenwe came up against a solid mass of rock about twenty feet high. I didnot need to be instructed by a mule this time. I was already beginningto know more than any mule in the Expedition. I at once put in a blastof dynamite, and lifted that rock out of the way. But to my surprise andmortification, I found that there had been a chalet on top of it. 

I picked up such members of the family as fell in my vicinity, andsubordinates of my corps collected the rest. None of these poor peoplewere injured, happily, but they were much annoyed. I explained tothe head chaleteer just how the thing happened, and that I was onlysearching for the road, and would certainly have given him timely noticeif I had known he was up there. I said I had meant no harm, and hopedI had not lowered myself in his estimation by raising him a few rods inthe air. I said many other judicious things, and finally when I offeredto rebuild his chalet, and pay for the breakages, and throw in thecellar, he was mollified and satisfied. He hadn't any cellar at all, before; he would not have as good a view, now, as formerly, but what hehad lost in view he had gained in cellar, by exact measurement. He saidthere wasn't another hole like that in the mountains--and he would havebeen right if the late mule had not tried to eat up the nitroglycerin. 

I put a hundred and sixteen men at work, and they rebuilt the chaletfrom its own debris in fifteen minutes. It was a good deal morepicturesque than it was before, too. The man said we were now on theFeil-Stutz, above the Schwegmatt--information which I was glad to get, since it gave us our position to a degree of particularity which we hadnot been accustomed to for a day or so. We also learned that we werestanding at the foot of the Riffelberg proper, and that the initialchapter of our work was completed. 

We had a fine view, from here, of the energetic Visp, as it makes itsfirst plunge into the world from under a huge arch of solid ice, wornthrough the foot-wall of the great Gorner Glacier; and we could also seethe Furggenbach, which is the outlet of the Furggen Glacier. 

The mule-road to the summit of the Riffelberg passed right in front ofthe chalet, a circumstance which we almost immediately noticed, becausea procession of tourists was filing along it pretty much all the time. 

"Pretty much" may not be elegant English, but it is high time it was. There is no elegant word or phrase which means just what it means. --M. T. 

The chaleteer's business consisted in furnishing refreshments totourists. My blast had interrupted this trade for a few minutes, bybreaking all the bottles on the place; but I gave the man a lot ofwhiskey to sell for Alpine champagne, and a lot of vinegar which wouldanswer for Rhine wine, consequently trade was soon as brisk as ever. 

Leaving the Expedition outside to rest, I quartered myself in thechalet, with Harris, proposing to correct my journals and scientificobservations before continuing the ascent. I had hardly begun my workwhen a tall, slender, vigorous American youth of about twenty-three, whowas on his way down the mountain, entered and came toward me with thatbreezy self-complacency which is the adolescent's idea of the well-bredease of the man of the world. His hair was short and parted accuratelyin the middle, and he had all the look of an American person who wouldbe likely to begin his signature with an initial, and spell his middlename out. He introduced himself, smiling a smirky smile borrowed fromthe courtiers of the stage, extended a fair-skinned talon, and while hegripped my hand in it he bent his body forward three times at thehips, as the stage courtier does, and said in the airiest and mostcondescending and patronizing way--I quite remember his exact language:

"Very glad to make your acquaintance, 'm sure; very glad indeed, assureyou. I've read all your little efforts and greatly admired them, andwhen I heard you were here, I ... "

I indicated a chair, and he sat down. This grandee was the grandson ofan American of considerable note in his day, and not wholly forgottenyet--a man who came so near being a great man that he was quitegenerally accounted one while he lived. 

I slowly paced the floor, pondering scientific problems, and heard thisconversation:

GRANDSON. First visit to Europe?

HARRIS. Mine? Yes. 

G. S. (With a soft reminiscent sigh suggestive of bygone joys that maybe tasted in their freshness but once. ) Ah, I know what it is to you. Afirst visit!--ah, the romance of it! I wish I could feel it again. 

H. Yes, I find it exceeds all my dreams. It is enchantment. I go... 

G. S. (With a dainty gesture of the hand signifying "Spare me your callowenthusiasms, good friend. ") Yes, _I_ know, I know; you go to cathedrals, and exclaim; and you drag through league-long picture-galleries andexclaim; and you stand here, and there, and yonder, upon historicground, and continue to exclaim; and you are permeated with your firstcrude conceptions of Art, and are proud and happy. Ah, yes, proud andhappy--that expresses it. Yes-yes, enjoy it--it is right--it is aninnocent revel. 

H. And you? Don't you do these things now?

G. S. I! Oh, that is VERY good! My dear sir, when you are as old atraveler as I am, you will not ask such a question as that. _I_ visitthe regulation gallery, moon around the regulation cathedral, do theworn round of the regulation sights, YET?--Excuse me!

H. Well, what DO you do, then?

G. S. Do? I flit--and flit--for I am ever on the wing--but I avoid theherd. Today I am in Paris, tomorrow in Berlin, anon in Rome; but youwould look for me in vain in the galleries of the Louvre or the commonresorts of the gazers in those other capitals. If you would find me, youmust look in the unvisited nooks and corners where others never thinkof going. One day you will find me making myself at home in some obscurepeasant's cabin, another day you will find me in some forgotten castleworshiping some little gem or art which the careless eye has overlookedand which the unexperienced would despise; again you will find me asguest in the inner sanctuaries of palaces while the herd is content toget a hurried glimpse of the unused chambers by feeing a servant. 

H. You are a GUEST in such places?

G. S. And a welcoming one. 

H. It is surprising. How does it come?

G. S. My grandfather's name is a passport to all the courts in Europe. Ihave only to utter that name and every door is open to me. I flit fromcourt to court at my own free will and pleasure, and am always welcome. I am as much at home in the palaces of Europe as you are among yourrelatives. I know every titled person in Europe, I think. I have mypockets full of invitations all the time. I am under promise to go toItaly, where I am to be the guest of a succession of the noblest housesin the land. In Berlin my life is a continued round of gaiety in theimperial palace. It is the same, wherever I go. 

H. It must be very pleasant. But it must make Boston seem a little slowwhen you are at home. 

G. S. Yes, of course it does. But I don't go home much. There's no lifethere--little to feed a man's higher nature. Boston's very narrow, youknow. She doesn't know it, and you couldn't convince her of it--so I saynothing when I'm there: where's the use? Yes, Boston is very narrow, butshe has such a good opinion of herself that she can't see it. A man whohas traveled as much as I have, and seen as much of the world, sees itplain enough, but he can't cure it, you know, so the best is to leave itand seek a sphere which is more in harmony with his tastes and culture. I run across there, once a year, perhaps, when I have nothing importanton hand, but I'm very soon back again. I spend my time in Europe. 

H. I see. You map out your plans and ... 

G. S. No, excuse me. I don't map out any plans. I simply follow theinclination of the day. I am limited by no ties, no requirements, Iam not bound in any way. I am too old a traveler to hamper myself withdeliberate purposes. I am simply a traveler--an inveterate traveler--aman of the world, in a word--I can call myself by no other name. I donot say, "I am going here, or I am going there"--I say nothing at all, Ionly act. For instance, next week you may find me the guest of a grandeeof Spain, or you may find me off for Venice, or flitting toward Dresden. I shall probably go to Egypt presently; friends will say to friends, "He is at the Nile cataracts"--and at that very moment they will besurprised to learn that I'm away off yonder in India somewhere. I ama constant surprise to people. They are always saying, "Yes, he wasin Jerusalem when we heard of him last, but goodness knows where he isnow. "

Presently the Grandson rose to leave--discovered he had an appointmentwith some Emperor, perhaps. He did his graces over again: gripped mewith one talon, at arm's-length, pressed his hat against his stomachwith the other, bent his body in the middle three times, murmuring:

"Pleasure, 'm sure; great pleasure, 'm sure. Wish you much success. "

Then he removed his gracious presence. It is a great and solemn thing tohave a grandfather. 

I have not purposed to misrepresent this boy in any way, for what littleindignation he excited in me soon passed and left nothing behind it butcompassion. One cannot keep up a grudge against a vacuum. I have triedto repeat this lad's very words; if I have failed anywhere I have atleast not failed to reproduce the marrow and meaning of what he said. He and the innocent chatterbox whom I met on the Swiss lake are the mostunique and interesting specimens of Young America I came acrossduring my foreign tramping. I have made honest portraits of them, notcaricatures. 

The Grandson of twenty-three referred to himself five or six times asan "old traveler, " and as many as three times (with a serene complacencywhich was maddening) as a "man of the world. " There was something verydelicious about his leaving Boston to her "narrowness, " unreproved anduninstructed. 

I formed the caravan in marching order, presently, and after riding downthe line to see that it was properly roped together, gave the command toproceed. In a little while the road carried us to open, grassy land. Wewere above the troublesome forest, now, and had an uninterrupted view, straight before us, of our summit--the summit of the Riffelberg. 

We followed the mule-road, a zigzag course, now to the right, now tothe left, but always up, and always crowded and incommoded by going andcoming files of reckless tourists who were never, in a single instance, tied together. I was obliged to exert the utmost care and caution, forin many places the road was not two yards wide, and often the lower sideof it sloped away in slanting precipices eight and even nine feet deep. I had to encourage the men constantly, to keep them from giving way totheir unmanly fears. 

We might have made the summit before night, but for a delay caused bythe loss of an umbrella. I was allowing the umbrella to remain lost, butthe men murmured, and with reason, for in this exposed region we stoodin peculiar need of protection against avalanches; so I went into campand detached a strong party to go after the missing article. 

The difficulties of the next morning were severe, but our couragewas high, for our goal was near. At noon we conquered the lastimpediment--we stood at last upon the summit, and without the loss of asingle man except the mule that ate the glycerin. Our great achievementwas achieved--the possibility of the impossible was demonstrated, andHarris and I walked proudly into the great dining-room of the RiffelbergHotel and stood our alpenstocks up in the corner. 

Yes, I had made the grand ascent; but it was a mistake to do it inevening dress. The plug hats were battered, the swallow-tails werefluttering rags, mud added no grace, the general effect was unpleasantand even disreputable. 

There were about seventy-five tourists at the hotel--mainly ladies andlittle children--and they gave us an admiring welcome which paid us forall our privations and sufferings. The ascent had been made, and thenames and dates now stand recorded on a stone monument there to prove itto all future tourists. 

I boiled a thermometer and took an altitude, with a most curious result:THE SUMMIT WAS NOT AS HIGH AS THE POINT ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE WHERE IHAD TAKEN THE FIRST ALTITUDE. Suspecting that I had made an importantdiscovery, I prepared to verify it. There happened to be a still highersummit (called the Gorner Grat), above the hotel, and notwithstandingthe fact that it overlooks a glacier from a dizzy height, and that theascent is difficult and dangerous, I resolved to venture up there andboil a thermometer. So I sent a strong party, with some borrowed hoes, in charge of two chiefs of service, to dig a stairway in the soil allthe way up, and this I ascended, roped to the guides. This breezy heightwas the summit proper--so I accomplished even more than I had originallypurposed to do. This foolhardy exploit is recorded on another stonemonument. 

I boiled my thermometer, and sure enough, this spot, which purported tobe two thousand feet higher than the locality of the hotel, turned outto be nine thousand feet LOWER. Thus the fact was clearly demonstratedthat, ABOVE A CERTAIN POINT, THE HIGHER A POINT SEEMS TO BE, THE LOWERIT ACTUALLY IS. Our ascent itself was a great achievement, but thiscontribution to science was an inconceivably greater matter. 

Cavilers object that water boils at a lower and lower temperature thehigher and higher you go, and hence the apparent anomaly. I answer thatI do not base my theory upon what the boiling water does, but upon whata boiled thermometer says. You can't go behind the thermometer. 

I had a magnificent view of Monte Rosa, and apparently all the rest ofthe Alpine world, from that high place. All the circling horizon waspiled high with a mighty tumult of snowy crests. One might haveimagined he saw before him the tented camps of a beleaguering host ofBrobdingnagians. 

NOTE. --I had the very unusual luck to catch one little momentary glimpseof the Matterhorn wholly unencumbered by clouds. I leveled myphotographic apparatus at it without the loss of an instant, and shouldhave got an elegant picture if my donkey had not interfered. It was mypurpose to draw this photograph all by myself for my book, but wasobliged to put the mountain part of it into the hands of theprofessional artist because I found I could not do landscape well. 

But lonely, conspicuous, and superb, rose that wonderful upright wedge, the Matterhorn. Its precipitous sides were powdered over with snow, andthe upper half hidden in thick clouds which now and then dissolved tocobweb films and gave brief glimpses of the imposing tower as through aveil. A little later the Matterhorn took to himself the semblance ofa volcano; he was stripped naked to his apex--around this circledvast wreaths of white cloud which strung slowly out and streamed awayslantwise toward the sun, a twenty-mile stretch of rolling and tumblingvapor, and looking just as if it were pouring out of a crater. Lateragain, one of the mountain's sides was clean and clear, and anotherside densely clothed from base to summit in thick smokelike cloud whichfeathered off and flew around the shaft's sharp edge like the smokearound the corners of a burning building. The Matterhorn is alwaysexperimenting, and always gets up fine effects, too. In the sunset, whenall the lower world is palled in gloom, it points toward heaven out ofthe pervading blackness like a finger of fire. In the sunrise--well, they say it is very fine in the sunrise. 

Authorities agree that there is no such tremendous "layout" of snowyAlpine magnitude, grandeur, and sublimity to be seen from any otheraccessible point as the tourist may see from the summit of theRiffelberg. Therefore, let the tourist rope himself up and go there; forI have shown that with nerve, caution, and judgment, the thing can bedone. 

I wish to add one remark, here--in parentheses, so to speak--suggestedby the word "snowy, " which I have just used. We have all seen hills andmountains and levels with snow on them, and so we think we know all theaspects and effects produced by snow. But indeed we do not until we haveseen the Alps. Possibly mass and distance add something--at any rate, something IS added. Among other noticeable things, there is a dazzling, intense whiteness about the distant Alpine snow, when the sun is on it, which one recognizes as peculiar, and not familiar to the eye. The snowwhich one is accustomed to has a tint to it--painters usually give it abluish cast--but there is no perceptible tint to the distant Alpine snowwhen it is trying to look its whitest. As to the unimaginablesplendor of it when the sun is blazing down on it--well, it simply ISunimaginable. 

CHAPTER XXXIX

[We Travel by Glacier]

A guide-book is a queer thing. The reader has just seen what a man whoundertakes the great ascent from Zermatt to the Riffelberg Hotel mustexperience. Yet Baedeker makes these strange statements concerning thismatter:

 1. Distance--3 hours. 2. The road cannot be mistaken. 3. Guide unnecessary. 4. Distance from Riffelberg Hotel to the Gorner Grat, one hour and a half. 5. Ascent simple and easy. Guide unnecessary. 6. Elevation of Zermatt above sea-level, 5, 315 feet. 7. Elevation of Riffelberg Hotel above sea-level, 8, 429 feet. 8. Elevation of the Gorner Grat above sea-level, 10, 289 feet. 

I have pretty effectually throttled these errors by sending him thefollowing demonstrated facts:

 1. Distance from Zermatt to Riffelberg Hotel, 7 days. 2. The road CAN be mistaken. If I am the first that did it, I want the credit of it, too. 3. Guides ARE necessary, for none but a native can read those finger-boards. 4. The estimate of the elevation of the several localities above sea-level is pretty correct--for Baedeker. He only misses it about a hundred and eighty or ninety thousand feet. 

I found my arnica invaluable. My men were suffering excruciatingly, fromthe friction of sitting down so much. During two or three days, notone of them was able to do more than lie down or walk about; yet soeffective was the arnica, that on the fourth all were able to sit up. I consider that, more than to anything else, I owe the success of ourgreat undertaking to arnica and paregoric. 

My men are being restored to health and strength, my main perplexity, now, was how to get them down the mountain again. I was not willing toexpose the brave fellows to the perils, fatigues, and hardships of thatfearful route again if it could be helped. First I thought of balloons;but, of course, I had to give that idea up, for balloons werenot procurable. I thought of several other expedients, but uponconsideration discarded them, for cause. But at last I hit it. I wasaware that the movement of glaciers is an established fact, for I hadread it in Baedeker; so I resolved to take passage for Zermatt on thegreat Gorner Glacier. 

Very good. The next thing was, how to get down the glaciercomfortably--for the mule-road to it was long, and winding, andwearisome. I set my mind at work, and soon thought out a plan. One looksstraight down upon the vast frozen river called the Gorner Glacier, fromthe Gorner Grat, a sheer precipice twelve hundred feet high. We hadone hundred and fifty-four umbrellas--and what is an umbrella but aparachute?

I mentioned this noble idea to Harris, with enthusiasm, and was about toorder the Expedition to form on the Gorner Grat, with their umbrellas, and prepare for flight by platoons, each platoon in command of a guide, when Harris stopped me and urged me not to be too hasty. He asked me ifthis method of descending the Alps had ever been tried before. I saidno, I had not heard of an instance. Then, in his opinion, it was amatter of considerable gravity; in his opinion it would not be well tosend the whole command over the cliff at once; a better way would be tosend down a single individual, first, and see how he fared. 

I saw the wisdom in this idea instantly. I said as much, and thankedmy agent cordially, and told him to take his umbrella and try the thingright away, and wave his hat when he got down, if he struck in a softplace, and then I would ship the rest right along. 

Harris was greatly touched with this mark of confidence, and said so, in a voice that had a perceptible tremble in it; but at the same time hesaid he did not feel himself worthy of so conspicuous a favor; that itmight cause jealousy in the command, for there were plenty who would nothesitate to say he had used underhanded means to get the appointment, whereas his conscience would bear him witness that he had not sought itat all, nor even, in his secret heart, desired it. 

I said these words did him extreme credit, but that he must not throwaway the imperishable distinction of being the first man to descendan Alp per parachute, simply to save the feelings of some enviousunderlings. No, I said, he MUST accept the appointment--it was no longeran invitation, it was a command. 

He thanked me with effusion, and said that putting the thing in thisform removed every objection. He retired, and soon returned with hisumbrella, his eye flaming with gratitude and his cheeks pallid with joy. Just then the head guide passed along. Harris's expression changed toone of infinite tenderness, and he said:

"That man did me a cruel injury four days ago, and I said in my hearthe should live to perceive and confess that the only noble revenge aman can take upon his enemy is to return good for evil. I resign in hisfavor. Appoint him. "

I threw my arms around the generous fellow and said:

"Harris, you are the noblest soul that lives. You shall not regret thissublime act, neither shall the world fail to know of it. You shall haveopportunity far transcending this one, too, if I live--remember that. "

I called the head guide to me and appointed him on the spot. But thething aroused no enthusiasm in him. He did not take to the idea at all. 

He said:

"Tie myself to an umbrella and jump over the Gorner Grat! Excuse me, there are a great many pleasanter roads to the devil than that. "

Upon a discussion of the subject with him, it appeared that heconsidered the project distinctly and decidedly dangerous. I was notconvinced, yet I was not willing to try the experiment in any riskyway--that is, in a way that might cripple the strength and efficiencyof the Expedition. I was about at my wits' end when it occurred to me totry it on the Latinist. 

He was called in. But he declined, on the plea of inexperience, diffidence in public, lack of curiosity, and I didn't know what all. Another man declined on account of a cold in the head; thought heought to avoid exposure. Another could not jump well--never COULD jumpwell--did not believe he could jump so far without long and patientpractice. Another was afraid it was going to rain, and his umbrella hada hole in it. Everybody had an excuse. The result was what the readerhas by this time guessed: the most magnificent idea that was everconceived had to be abandoned, from sheer lack of a person withenterprise enough to carry it out. Yes, I actually had to give thatthing up--while doubtless I should live to see somebody use it and takeall the credit from me. 

Well, I had to go overland--there was no other way. I marched theExpedition down the steep and tedious mule-path and took up as good aposition as I could upon the middle of the glacier--because Baedekersaid the middle part travels the fastest. As a measure of economy, however, I put some of the heavier baggage on the shoreward parts, to goas slow freight. 

I waited and waited, but the glacier did not move. Night was coming on, the darkness began to gather--still we did not budge. It occurred to methen, that there might be a time-table in Baedeker; it would be well tofind out the hours of starting. I called for the book--it could not befound. Bradshaw would certainly contain a time-table; but no Bradshawcould be found. 

Very well, I must make the best of the situation. So I pitched thetents, picketed the animals, milked the cows, had supper, paregorickedthe men, established the watch, and went to bed--with orders to call meas soon as we came in sight of Zermatt. 

I awoke about half past ten next morning, and looked around. We hadn'tbudged a peg! At first I could not understand it; then it occurred to methat the old thing must be aground. So I cut down some trees and riggeda spar on the starboard and another on the port side, and fooled awayupward of three hours trying to spar her off. But it was no use. Shewas half a mile wide and fifteen or twenty miles long, and there wasno telling just whereabouts she WAS aground. The men began to showuneasiness, too, and presently they came flying to me with ashy faces, saying she had sprung a leak. 

Nothing but my cool behavior at this critical time saved us from anotherpanic. I ordered them to show me the place. They led me to a spot wherea huge boulder lay in a deep pool of clear and brilliant water. It didlook like a pretty bad leak, but I kept that to myself. I made a pumpand set the men to work to pump out the glacier. We made a success ofit. I perceived, then, that it was not a leak at all. This boulder haddescended from a precipice and stopped on the ice in the middle of theglacier, and the sun had warmed it up, every day, and consequently ithad melted its way deeper and deeper into the ice, until at last itreposed, as we had found it, in a deep pool of the clearest and coldestwater. 

Presently Baedeker was found again, and I hunted eagerly for thetime-table. There was none. The book simply said the glacier was movingall the time. This was satisfactory, so I shut up the book and chose agood position to view the scenery as we passed along. I stood there sometime enjoying the trip, but at last it occurred to me that we didnot seem to be gaining any on the scenery. I said to myself, "Thisconfounded old thing's aground again, sure, "--and opened Baedeker tosee if I could run across any remedy for these annoying interruptions. I soon found a sentence which threw a dazzling light upon the matter. It said, "The Gorner Glacier travels at an average rate of a little lessthan an inch a day. " I have seldom felt so outraged. I have seldom hadmy confidence so wantonly betrayed. I made a small calculation: One incha day, say thirty feet a year; estimated distance to Zermatt, three andone-eighteenth miles. Time required to go by glacier, A LITTLE OVER FIVEHUNDRED YEARS! I said to myself, "I can WALK it quicker--and before Iwill patronize such a fraud as this, I will do it. "

When I revealed to Harris the fact that the passenger part of thisglacier--the central part--the lightning-express part, so to speak--wasnot due in Zermatt till the summer of 2378, and that the baggage, comingalong the slow edge, would not arrive until some generations later, heburst out with:

"That is European management, all over! An inch a day--think of that!Five hundred years to go a trifle over three miles! But I am not a bitsurprised. It's a Catholic glacier. You can tell by the look of it. Andthe management. "

I said, no, I believed nothing but the extreme end of it was in aCatholic canton. 

"Well, then, it's a government glacier, " said Harris. "It's all thesame. Over here the government runs everything--so everything's slow;slow, and ill-managed. But with us, everything's done by privateenterprise--and then there ain't much lolling around, you can dependon it. I wish Tom Scott could get his hands on this torpid old slabonce--you'd see it take a different gait from this. "

I said I was sure he would increase the speed, if there was trade enoughto justify it. 

"He'd MAKE trade, " said Harris. "That's the difference betweengovernments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do. TomScott would take all the trade; in two years Gorner stock would go totwo hundred, and inside of two more you would see all the other glaciersunder the hammer for taxes. " After a reflective pause, Harris added, "Alittle less than an inch a day; a little less than an INCH, mind you. Well, I'm losing my reverence for glaciers. "

I was feeling much the same way myself. I have traveled by canal-boat, ox-wagon, raft, and by the Ephesus and Smyrna railway; but when it comesdown to good solid honest slow motion, I bet my money on the glacier. Asa means of passenger transportation, I consider the glacier a failure;but as a vehicle of slow freight, I think she fills the bill. In thematter of putting the fine shades on that line of business, I judge shecould teach the Germans something. 

I ordered the men to break camp and prepare for the land journey toZermatt. At this moment a most interesting find was made; a dark object, bedded in the glacial ice, was cut out with the ice-axes, and it provedto be a piece of the undressed skin of some animal--a hair trunk, perhaps; but a close inspection disabled the hair-trunk theory, andfurther discussion and examination exploded it entirely--that is, in theopinion of all the scientists except the one who had advanced it. Thisone clung to his theory with affectionate fidelity characteristic oforiginators of scientific theories, and afterward won many of the firstscientists of the age to his view, by a very able pamphlet which hewrote, entitled, "Evidences going to show that the hair trunk, in a wildstate, belonged to the early glacial period, and roamed the wastes ofchaos in the company with the cave-bear, primeval man, and the otherOoelitics of the Old Silurian family. "

Each of our scientists had a theory of his own, and put forwardan animal of his own as a candidate for the skin. I sided with thegeologist of the Expedition in the belief that this patch of skin hadonce helped to cover a Siberian elephant, in some old forgotten age--butwe divided there, the geologist believing that this discovery provedthat Siberia had formerly been located where Switzerland is now, whereasI held the opinion that it merely proved that the primeval Swiss was notthe dull savage he is represented to have been, but was a being of highintellectual development, who liked to go to the menagerie. 

We arrived that evening, after many hardships and adventures, in somefields close to the great ice-arch where the mad Visp boils and surgesout from under the foot of the great Gorner Glacier, and here we camped, our perils over and our magnificent undertaking successfully completed. We marched into Zermatt the next day, and were received with themost lavish honors and applause. A document, signed and sealed by theauthorities, was given to me which established and endorsed the factthat I had made the ascent of the Riffelberg. This I wear around myneck, and it will be buried with me when I am no more. 

CHAPTER XL

[Piteous Relics at Chamonix]

I am not so ignorant about glacial movement, now, as I was when I tookpassage on the Gorner Glacier. I have "read up" since. I am aware thatthese vast bodies of ice do not travel at the same rate of speed; whilethe Gorner Glacier makes less than an inch a day, the Unter-Aar Glaciermakes as much as eight; and still other glaciers are said to go twelve, sixteen, and even twenty inches a day. One writer says that the slowestglacier travels twenty-five feet a year, and the fastest four hundred. 

What is a glacier? It is easy to say it looks like a frozen river whichoccupies the bed of a winding gorge or gully between mountains. But thatgives no notion of its vastness. For it is sometimes six hundred feetthick, and we are not accustomed to rivers six hundred feet deep; no, our rivers are six feet, twenty feet, and sometimes fifty feet deep; weare not quite able to grasp so large a fact as an ice-river six hundredfeet deep. 

The glacier's surface is not smooth and level, but has deep swales andswelling elevations, and sometimes has the look of a tossing sea whoseturbulent billows were frozen hard in the instant of their most violentmotion; the glacier's surface is not a flawless mass, but is a riverwith cracks or crevices, some narrow, some gaping wide. Many a man, thevictim of a slip or a misstep, has plunged down one of these and met hisdeath. Men have been fished out of them alive; but it was when theydid not go to a great depth; the cold of the great depths would quicklystupefy a man, whether he was hurt or unhurt. These cracks do not gostraight down; one can seldom see more than twenty to forty feet downthem; consequently men who have disappeared in them have been soughtfor, in the hope that they had stopped within helping distance, whereastheir case, in most instances, had really been hopeless from thebeginning. 

In 1864 a party of tourists was descending Mont Blanc, and while pickingtheir way over one of the mighty glaciers of that lofty region, ropedtogether, as was proper, a young porter disengaged himself from the lineand started across an ice-bridge which spanned a crevice. It broke underhim with a crash, and he disappeared. The others could not see how deephe had gone, so it might be worthwhile to try and rescue him. A braveyoung guide named Michel Payot volunteered. 

Two ropes were made fast to his leather belt and he bore the end of athird one in his hand to tie to the victim in case he found him. He waslowered into the crevice, he descended deeper and deeper between theclear blue walls of solid ice, he approached a bend in the crack anddisappeared under it. Down, and still down, he went, into this profoundgrave; when he had reached a depth of eighty feet he passed underanother bend in the crack, and thence descended eighty feet lower, asbetween perpendicular precipices. Arrived at this stage of one hundredand sixty feet below the surface of the glacier, he peered through thetwilight dimness and perceived that the chasm took another turn andstretched away at a steep slant to unknown deeps, for its course waslost in darkness. What a place that was to be in--especially if thatleather belt should break! The compression of the belt threatened tosuffocate the intrepid fellow; he called to his friends to draw him up, but could not make them hear. They still lowered him, deeper and deeper. Then he jerked his third cord as vigorously as he could; his friendsunderstood, and dragged him out of those icy jaws of death. 

Then they attached a bottle to a cord and sent it down two hundred feet, but it found no bottom. It came up covered with congelations--evidenceenough that even if the poor porter reached the bottom with unbrokenbones, a swift death from cold was sure, anyway. 

A glacier is a stupendous, ever-progressing, resistless plow. It pushesahead of it masses of boulders which are packed together, and theystretch across the gorge, right in front of it, like a long grave or along, sharp roof. This is called a moraine. It also shoves out a morainealong each side of its course. 

Imposing as the modern glaciers are, they are not so huge as were somethat once existed. For instance, Mr. Whymper says:

"At some very remote period the Valley of Aosta was occupied by a vastglacier, which flowed down its entire length from Mont Blanc to theplain of Piedmont, remained stationary, or nearly so, at its mouthfor many centuries, and deposited there enormous masses of debris. Thelength of this glacier exceeded EIGHTY MILES, and it drained a basintwenty-five to thirty-five miles across, bounded by the highestmountains in the Alps. 

"The great peaks rose several thousand feet above the glaciers, andthen, as now, shattered by sun and frost, poured down their showers ofrocks and stones, in witness of which there are the immense piles ofangular fragments that constitute the moraines of Ivrea. 

"The moraines around Ivrea are of extraordinary dimensions. That whichwas on the left bank of the glacier is about THIRTEEN MILES long, andin some places rises to a height of TWO THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTYFEET above the floor of the valley! The terminal moraines (those whichare pushed in front of the glaciers) cover something like twenty squaremiles of country. At the mouth of the Valley of Aosta, the thickness ofthe glacier must have been at least TWO THOUSAND feet, and its width, atthat part, FIVE MILES AND A QUARTER. "

It is not easy to get at a comprehension of a mass of ice like that. Ifone could cleave off the butt end of such a glacier--an oblong blocktwo or three miles wide by five and a quarter long and two thousandfeet thick--he could completely hide the city of New York under it, and Trinity steeple would only stick up into it relatively as far as ashingle-nail would stick up into the bottom of a Saratoga trunk. 

"The boulders from Mont Blanc, upon the plain below Ivrea, assure usthat the glacier which transported them existed for a prodigious lengthof time. Their present distance from the cliffs from which they werederived is about 420, 000 feet, and if we assume that they traveled atthe rate of 400 feet per annum, their journey must have occupied them noless than 1, 055 years! In all probability they did not travel so fast. "

Glaciers are sometimes hurried out of their characteristic snail-pace. A marvelous spectacle is presented then. Mr. Whymper refers to a casewhich occurred in Iceland in 1721:

"It seems that in the neighborhood of the mountain Kotlugja, largebodies of water formed underneath, or within the glaciers (either onaccount of the interior heat of the earth, or from other causes), and atlength acquired irresistible power, tore the glaciers from their mooringon the land, and swept them over every obstacle into the sea. Prodigiousmasses of ice were thus borne for a distance of about ten miles overland in the space of a few hours; and their bulk was so enormous thatthey covered the sea for seven miles from the shore, and remainedaground in six hundred feet of water! The denudation of the land wasupon a grand scale. All superficial accumulations were swept away, andthe bedrock was exposed. It was described, in graphic language, how allirregularities and depressions were obliterated, and a smooth surface ofseveral miles' area laid bare, and that this area had the appearance ofhaving been PLANED BY A PLANE. "

The account translated from the Icelandic says that the mountainlikeruins of this majestic glacier so covered the sea that as far as the eyecould reach no open water was discoverable, even from the highest peaks. A monster wall or barrier of ice was built across a considerable stretchof land, too, by this strange irruption:

"One can form some idea of the altitude of this barrier of ice when itis mentioned that from Hofdabrekka farm, which lies high up on a fjeld, one could not see Hjorleifshofdi opposite, which is a fell six hundredand forty feet in height; but in order to do so had to clamber up amountain slope east of Hofdabrekka twelve hundred feet high. "

These things will help the reader to understand why it is that a man whokeeps company with glaciers comes to feel tolerably insignificant byand by. The Alps and the glaciers together are able to take every bit ofconceit out of a man and reduce his self-importance to zero if he willonly remain within the influence of their sublime presence long enoughto give it a fair and reasonable chance to do its work. 

The Alpine glaciers move--that is granted, now, by everybody. But therewas a time when people scoffed at the idea; they said you might as wellexpect leagues of solid rock to crawl along the ground as expect leaguesof ice to do it. But proof after proof was furnished, and the finallythe world had to believe. 

The wise men not only said the glacier moved, but they timed itsmovement. They ciphered out a glacier's gait, and then said confidentlythat it would travel just so far in so many years. There is record ofa striking and curious example of the accuracy which may be attained inthese reckonings. 

In 1820 the ascent of Mont Blanc was attempted by a Russian and twoEnglishmen, with seven guides. They had reached a prodigious altitude, and were approaching the summit, when an avalanche swept several of theparty down a sharp slope of two hundred feet and hurled five of them(all guides) into one of the crevices of a glacier. The life of oneof the five was saved by a long barometer which was strapped to hisback--it bridged the crevice and suspended him until help came. Thealpenstock or baton of another saved its owner in a similar way. Threemen were lost--Pierre Balmat, Pierre Carrier, and Auguste Tairraz. Theyhad been hurled down into the fathomless great deeps of the crevice. 

Dr. Forbes, the English geologist, had made frequent visits to the MontBlanc region, and had given much attention to the disputed question ofthe movement of glaciers. During one of these visits he completed hisestimates of the rate of movement of the glacier which had swallowedup the three guides, and uttered the prediction that the glacier woulddeliver up its dead at the foot of the mountain thirty-five years fromthe time of the accident, or possibly forty. 

A dull, slow journey--a movement imperceptible to any eye--but it wasproceeding, nevertheless, and without cessation. It was a journeywhich a rolling stone would make in a few seconds--the lofty point ofdeparture was visible from the village below in the valley. 

The prediction cut curiously close to the truth; forty-one years afterthe catastrophe, the remains were cast forth at the foot of the glacier. 

I find an interesting account of the matter in the HISTOIRE DU MONTBLANC, by Stephen d'Arve. I will condense this account, as follows:

On the 12th of August, 1861, at the hour of the close of mass, a guidearrived out of breath at the mairie of Chamonix, and bearing on hisshoulders a very lugubrious burden. It was a sack filled with humanremains which he had gathered from the orifice of a crevice in theGlacier des Bossons. He conjectured that these were remains of thevictims of the catastrophe of 1820, and a minute inquest, immediatelyinstituted by the local authorities, soon demonstrated the correctnessof his supposition. The contents of the sack were spread upon a longtable, and officially inventoried, as follows:

Portions of three human skulls. Several tufts of black and blonde hair. A human jaw, furnished with fine white teeth. A forearm and hand, allthe fingers of the latter intact. The flesh was white and fresh, and both the arm and hand preserved a degree of flexibility in thearticulations. 

The ring-finger had suffered a slight abrasion, and the stain of theblood was still visible and unchanged after forty-one years. A leftfoot, the flesh white and fresh. 

Along with these fragments were portions of waistcoats, hats, hobnailedshoes, and other clothing; a wing of a pigeon, with black feathers; afragment of an alpenstock; a tin lantern; and lastly, a boiled leg ofmutton, the only flesh among all the remains that exhaled an unpleasantodor. The guide said that the mutton had no odor when he took it fromthe glacier; an hour's exposure to the sun had already begun the work ofdecomposition upon it. 

Persons were called for, to identify these poor pathetic relics, and atouching scene ensued. Two men were still living who had witnessed thegrim catastrophe of nearly half a century before--Marie Couttet (savedby his baton) and Julien Davouassoux (saved by the barometer). Theseaged men entered and approached the table. Davouassoux, more than eightyyears old, contemplated the mournful remains mutely and with a vacanteye, for his intelligence and his memory were torpid with age; butCouttet's faculties were still perfect at seventy-two, and he exhibitedstrong emotion. He said:

"Pierre Balmat was fair; he wore a straw hat. This bit of skull, withthe tuft of blond hair, was his; this is his hat. Pierre Carrier wasvery dark; this skull was his, and this felt hat. This is Balmat'shand, I remember it so well!" and the old man bent down and kissed itreverently, then closed his fingers upon it in an affectionate grasp, crying out, "I could never have dared to believe that before quittingthis world it would be granted me to press once more the hand of one ofthose brave comrades, the hand of my good friend Balmat. "

There is something weirdly pathetic about the picture of thatwhite-haired veteran greeting with his loving handshake this friendwho had been dead forty years. When these hands had met last, they werealike in the softness and freshness of youth; now, one was brown andwrinkled and horny with age, while the other was still as young and fairand blemishless as if those forty years had come and gone in a singlemoment, leaving no mark of their passage. Time had gone on, in the onecase; it had stood still in the other. A man who has not seen a friendfor a generation, keeps him in mind always as he saw him last, and issomehow surprised, and is also shocked, to see the aging change theyears have wrought when he sees him again. Marie Couttet's experience, in finding his friend's hand unaltered from the image of it which hehad carried in his memory for forty years, is an experience which standsalone in the history of man, perhaps. 

Couttet identified other relics:

"This hat belonged to Auguste Tairraz. He carried the cage of pigeonswhich we proposed to set free upon the summit. Here is the wing of oneof those pigeons. And here is the fragment of my broken baton; it was bygrace of that baton that my life was saved. Who could have told me thatI should one day have the satisfaction to look again upon this bit ofwood that supported me above the grave that swallowed up my unfortunatecompanions!"

No portions of the body of Tairraz, other than a piece of the skull, had been found. A diligent search was made, but without result. However, another search was instituted a year later, and this had better success. Many fragments of clothing which had belonged to the lost guides werediscovered; also, part of a lantern, and a green veil with blood-stainson it. But the interesting feature was this:

One of the searchers came suddenly upon a sleeved arm projecting froma crevice in the ice-wall, with the hand outstretched as if offeringgreeting! "The nails of this white hand were still rosy, and the poseof the extended fingers seemed to express an eloquent welcome to thelong-lost light of day. "

The hand and arm were alone; there was no trunk. After being removedfrom the ice the flesh-tints quickly faded out and the rosy nails tookon the alabaster hue of death. This was the third RIGHT hand found;therefore, all three of the lost men were accounted for, beyond cavil orquestion. 

Dr. Hamel was the Russian gentleman of the party which made the ascentat the time of the famous disaster. He left Chamonix as soon as heconveniently could after the descent; and as he had shown a chillyindifference about the calamity, and offered neither sympathy norassistance to the widows and orphans, he carried with him the cordialexecrations of the whole community. Four months before the first remainswere found, a Chamonix guide named Balmat--a relative of one of the lostmen--was in London, and one day encountered a hale old gentleman in theBritish Museum, who said:

"I overheard your name. Are you from Chamonix, Monsieur Balmat?"

"Yes, sir. "

"Haven't they found the bodies of my three guides, yet? I am Dr. Hamel. "

"Alas, no, monsieur. "

"Well, you'll find them, sooner or later. "

"Yes, it is the opinion of Dr. Forbes and Mr. Tyndall, that the glacierwill sooner or later restore to us the remains of the unfortunatevictims. "

"Without a doubt, without a doubt. And it will be a great thing forChamonix, in the matter of attracting tourists. You can get up a museumwith those remains that will draw!"

This savage idea has not improved the odor of Dr. Hamel's name inChamonix by any means. But after all, the man was sound on human nature. His idea was conveyed to the public officials of Chamonix, and theygravely discussed it around the official council-table. They were onlyprevented from carrying it into execution by the determined oppositionof the friends and descendants of the lost guides, who insisted ongiving the remains Christian burial, and succeeded in their purpose. 

A close watch had to be kept upon all the poor remnants and fragments, to prevent embezzlement. A few accessory odds and ends were sold. Ragsand scraps of the coarse clothing were parted with at the rate equal toabout twenty dollars a yard; a piece of a lantern and one or two othertrifles brought nearly their weight in gold; and an Englishman offered apound sterling for a single breeches-button. 

CHAPTER XLI

[The Fearful Disaster of 1865]

One of the most memorable of all the Alpine catastrophes was that ofJuly, 1865, on the Matterhorn--already slightly referred to, a fewpages back. The details of it are scarcely known in America. To the vastmajority of readers they are not known at all. Mr. Whymper's account isthe only authentic one. I will import the chief portion of it into thisbook, partly because of its intrinsic interest, and partly because itgives such a vivid idea of what the perilous pastime of Alp-climbingis. This was Mr. Whymper's NINTH attempt during a series of years, tovanquish that steep and stubborn pillar or rock; it succeeded, the othereight were failures. No man had ever accomplished the ascent before, though the attempts had been numerous. 

MR. WHYMPER'S NARRATIVE We started from Zermatt on the 13th of July, athalf past five, on a brilliant and perfectly cloudless morning. We wereeight in number--Croz (guide), old Peter Taugwalder (guide) and histwo sons; Lord F. Douglas, Mr. Hadow, Rev. Mr. Hudson, and I. To insuresteady motion, one tourist and one native walked together. The youngestTaugwalder fell to my share. The wine-bags also fell to my lot to carry, and throughout the day, after each drink, I replenished them secretlywith water, so that at the next halt they were found fuller than before!This was considered a good omen, and little short of miraculous. 

On the first day we did not intend to ascend to any great height, and wemounted, accordingly, very leisurely. Before twelve o'clock we had founda good position for the tent, at a height of eleven thousand feet. Wepassed the remaining hours of daylight--some basking in the sunshine, some sketching, some collecting; Hudson made tea, I coffee, and atlength we retired, each one to his blanket bag. 

We assembled together before dawn on the 14th and started directlyit was light enough to move. One of the young Taugwalders returned toZermatt. In a few minutes we turned the rib which had intercepted theview of the eastern face from our tent platform. The whole of thisgreat slope was now revealed, rising for three thousand feet like a hugenatural staircase. Some parts were more, and others were less easy, butwe were not once brought to a halt by any serious impediment, for whenan obstruction was met in front it could always be turned to the rightor to the left. For the greater part of the way there was no occasion, indeed, for the rope, and sometimes Hudson led, sometimes myself. Atsix-twenty we had attained a height of twelve thousand eight hundredfeet, and halted for half an hour; we then continued the ascent withouta break until nine-fifty-five, when we stopped for fifty minutes, at aheight of fourteen thousand feet. 

We had now arrived at the foot of that part which, seen from theRiffelberg, seems perpendicular or overhanging. We could no longercontinue on the eastern side. For a little distance we ascended by snowupon the ARÊTE--that is, the ridge--then turned over to the right, ornorthern side. The work became difficult, and required caution. In someplaces there was little to hold; the general slope of the mountain wasLESS than forty degrees, and snow had accumulated in, and had filledup, the interstices of the rock-face, leaving only occasional fragmentsprojecting here and there. These were at times covered with a thin filmof ice. It was a place which any fair mountaineer might pass in safety. We bore away nearly horizontally for about four hundred feet, thenascended directly toward the summit for about sixty feet, then doubledback to the ridge which descends toward Zermatt. A long stride rounda rather awkward corner brought us to snow once more. That last doubtvanished! The Matterhorn was ours! Nothing but two hundred feet of easysnow remained to be surmounted. 

The higher we rose, the more intense became the excitement. The slopeeased off, at length we could be detached, and Croz and I, dashed away, ran a neck-and-neck race, which ended in a dead heat. At 1:40 P. M. , theworld was at our feet, and the Matterhorn was conquered!

The others arrived. Croz now took the tent-pole, and planted it in thehighest snow. "Yes, " we said, "there is the flag-staff, but where is theflag?" "Here it is, " he answered, pulling off his blouse and fixing itto the stick. It made a poor flag, and there was no wind to floatit out, yet it was seen all around. They saw it at Zermatt--at theRiffel--in the Val Tournanche... . 

We remained on the summit for one hour--

One crowded hour of glorious life. 

It passed away too quickly, and we began to prepare for the descent. 

Hudson and I consulted as to the best and safest arrangement of theparty. We agreed that it was best for Croz to go first, and Hadowsecond; Hudson, who was almost equal to a guide in sureness of foot, wished to be third; Lord Douglas was placed next, and old Peter, thestrongest of the remainder, after him. I suggested to Hudson that weshould attach a rope to the rocks on our arrival at the difficult bit, and hold it as we descended, as an additional protection. He approvedthe idea, but it was not definitely decided that it should be done. Theparty was being arranged in the above order while I was sketching thesummit, and they had finished, and were waiting for me to be tied inline, when some one remembered that our names had not been left in abottle. They requested me to write them down, and moved off while it wasbeing done. 

A few minutes afterward I tied myself to young Peter, ran down after theothers, and caught them just as they were commencing the descent of thedifficult part. Great care was being taken. Only one man was moving at atime; when he was firmly planted the next advanced, and so on. They hadnot, however, attached the additional rope to rocks, and nothing wassaid about it. The suggestion was not made for my own sake, and I am notsure that it ever occurred to me again. For some little distance we twofollowed the others, detached from them, and should have continued sohad not Lord Douglas asked me, about 3 P. M. , to tie on to old Peter, ashe feared, he said, that Taugwalder would not be able to hold his groundif a slip occurred. 

A few minutes later, a sharp-eyed lad ran into the Monte Rosa Hotel, atZermatt, saying that he had seen an avalanche fall from the summit ofthe Matterhorn onto the Matterhorn glacier. The boy was reproved fortelling idle stories; he was right, nevertheless, and this was what hesaw. 

Michel Croz had laid aside his ax, and in order to give Mr. Hadowgreater security, was absolutely taking hold of his legs, and puttinghis feet, one by one, into their proper positions. As far as I know, noone was actually descending. I cannot speak with certainty, because thetwo leading men were partially hidden from my sight by an interveningmass of rock, but it is my belief, from the movements of theirshoulders, that Croz, having done as I said, was in the act of turninground to go down a step or two himself; at this moment Mr. Hadowslipped, fell against him, and knocked him over. I heard one startledexclamation from Croz, then saw him and Mr. Hadow flying downward;in another moment Hudson was dragged from his steps, and Lord Douglasimmediately after him. All this was the work of a moment. Immediately weheard Croz's exclamation, old Peter and I planted ourselves as firmly asthe rocks would permit; the rope was taut between us, and the jerk cameon us both as on one man. We held; but the rope broke midway betweenTaugwalder and Lord Francis Douglas. For a few seconds we saw ourunfortunate companions sliding downward on their backs, and spreadingout their hands, endeavoring to save themselves. They passed from oursight uninjured, disappeared one by one, and fell from the precipice toprecipice onto the Matterhorn glacier below, a distance of nearlyfour thousand feet in height. From the moment the rope broke it wasimpossible to help them. So perished our comrades!

For more than two hours afterward I thought almost every moment that thenext would be my last; for the Taugwalders, utterly unnerved, were notonly incapable of giving assistance, but were in such a state that aslip might have been expected from them at any moment. After a time wewere able to do that which should have been done at first, and fixedrope to firm rocks, in addition to being tied together. These ropes werecut from time to time, and were left behind. Even with their assurancethe men were afraid to proceed, and several times old Peter turned, with ashy face and faltering limbs, and said, with terrible emphasis, "ICANNOT!"

About 6 P. M. , we arrived at the snow upon the ridge descending towardZermatt, and all peril was over. We frequently looked, but in vain, fortraces of our unfortunate companions; we bent over the ridge and criedto them, but no sound returned. Convinced at last that they were neitherwithin sight nor hearing, we ceased from our useless efforts; and, toocast down for speech, silently gathered up our things, and the littleeffects of those who were lost, and then completed the descent. Suchis Mr. Whymper's graphic and thrilling narrative. Zermatt gossipdarkly hints that the elder Taugwalder cut the rope, when the accidentoccurred, in order to preserve himself from being dragged into theabyss; but Mr. Whymper says that the ends of the rope showed no evidenceof cutting, but only of breaking. He adds that if Taugwalder had had thedisposition to cut the rope, he would not have had time to do it, theaccident was so sudden and unexpected. 

Lord Douglas' body has never been found. It probably lodged upon someinaccessible shelf in the face of the mighty precipice. Lord Douglas wasa youth of nineteen. The three other victims fell nearly four thousandfeet, and their bodies lay together upon the glacier when found byMr. Whymper and the other searchers the next morning. Their graves arebeside the little church in Zermatt. 

CHAPTER XLII

[Chillon has a Nice, Roomy Dungeon]

Switzerland is simply a large, humpy, solid rock, with a thin skin ofgrass stretched over it. Consequently, they do not dig graves, theyblast them out with powder and fuse. They cannot afford to have largegraveyards, the grass skin is too circumscribed and too valuable. It isall required for the support of the living. 

The graveyard in Zermatt occupies only about one-eighth of an acre. The graves are sunk in the living rock, and are very permanent; butoccupation of them is only temporary; the occupant can only stay tillhis grave is needed by a later subject, he is removed, then, for they donot bury one body on top of another. As I understand it, a family ownsa grave, just as it owns a house. A man dies and leaves his house to hisson--and at the same time, this dead father succeeds to his own father'sgrave. He moves out of the house and into the grave, and his predecessormoves out of the grave and into the cellar of the chapel. I saw a blackbox lying in the churchyard, with skull and cross-bones painted on it, and was told that this was used in transferring remains to the cellar. 

In that cellar the bones and skulls of several hundred of formercitizens were compactly corded up. They made a pile eighteen feet long, seven feet high, and eight feet wide. I was told that in some of thereceptacles of this kind in the Swiss villages, the skulls were allmarked, and if a man wished to find the skulls of his ancestors forseveral generations back, he could do it by these marks, preserved inthe family records. 

An English gentleman who had lived some years in this region, said itwas the cradle of compulsory education. But he said that the Englishidea that compulsory education would reduce bastardy and intemperancewas an error--it has not that effect. He said there was more seductionin the Protestant than in the Catholic cantons, because the confessionalprotected the girls. I wonder why it doesn't protect married women inFrance and Spain?

This gentleman said that among the poorer peasants in the Valais, it wascommon for the brothers in a family to cast lots to determine whichof them should have the coveted privilege of marrying, and hisbrethren--doomed bachelors--heroically banded themselves together tohelp support the new family. 

We left Zermatt in a wagon--and in a rain-storm, too--for St. Nicholasabout ten o'clock one morning. Again we passed between those grass-cladprodigious cliffs, specked with wee dwellings peeping over at us fromvelvety green walls ten and twelve hundred feet high. It did not seempossible that the imaginary chamois even could climb those precipices. Lovers on opposite cliffs probably kiss through a spy-glass, andcorrespond with a rifle. 

In Switzerland the farmer's plow is a wide shovel, which scrapes up andturns over the thin earthy skin of his native rock--and there the man ofthe plow is a hero. Now here, by our St. Nicholas road, was a grave, andit had a tragic story. A plowman was skinning his farm one morning--notthe steepest part of it, but still a steep part--that is, he was notskinning the front of his farm, but the roof of it, near the eaves--whenhe absent-mindedly let go of the plow-handles to moisten his hands, inthe usual way; he lost his balance and fell out of his farm backward;poor fellow, he never touched anything till he struck bottom, fifteenhundred feet below. [This was on a Sunday. --M. T. ] We throw a halo ofheroism around the life of the soldier and the sailor, because of thedeadly dangers they are facing all the time. But we are not used tolooking upon farming as a heroic occupation. This is because we have notlived in Switzerland. 

From St. Nicholas we struck out for Visp--or Vispach--on foot. Therain-storms had been at work during several days, and had done a deal ofdamage in Switzerland and Savoy. We came to one place where a stream hadchanged its course and plunged down a mountain in a new place, sweepingeverything before it. Two poor but precious farms by the roadside wereruined. One was washed clear away, and the bed-rock exposed; the otherwas buried out of sight under a tumbled chaos of rocks, gravel, mud, and rubbish. The resistless might of water was well exemplified. Somesaplings which had stood in the way were bent to the ground, strippedclean of their bark, and buried under rocky debris. The road had beenswept away, too. 

In another place, where the road was high up on the mountain's face, andits outside edge protected by flimsy masonry, we frequently came acrossspots where this masonry had carved off and left dangerous gaps formules to get over; and with still more frequency we found the masonryslightly crumbled, and marked by mule-hoofs, thus showing that there hadbeen danger of an accident to somebody. When at last we came to abadly ruptured bit of masonry, with hoof-prints evidencing a desperatestruggle to regain the lost foothold, I looked quite hopefully over thedizzy precipice. But there was nobody down there. 

They take exceedingly good care of their rivers in Switzerland and otherportions of Europe. They wall up both banks with slanting solid stonemasonry--so that from end to end of these rivers the banks look like thewharves at St. Louis and other towns on the Mississippi River. 

It was during this walk from St. Nicholas, in the shadow of the majesticAlps, that we came across some little children amusing themselves inwhat seemed, at first, a most odd and original way--but it wasn't; itwas in simply a natural and characteristic way. They were roped togetherwith a string, they had mimic alpenstocks and ice-axes, and wereclimbing a meek and lowly manure-pile with a most blood-curdling amountof care and caution. The "guide" at the head of the line cut imaginarysteps, in a laborious and painstaking way, and not a monkey budged tillthe step above was vacated. If we had waited we should have witnessed animaginary accident, no doubt; and we should have heard the intrepid bandhurrah when they made the summit and looked around upon the "magnificentview, " and seen them throw themselves down in exhausted attitudes for arest in that commanding situation. 

In Nevada I used to see the children play at silver-mining. Of course, the great thing was an accident in a mine, and there were two "star"parts; that of the man who fell down the mimic shaft, and that of thedaring hero who was lowered into the depths to bring him up. I knew onesmall chap who always insisted on playing BOTH of these parts--and hecarried his point. He would tumble into the shaft and die, and then cometo the surface and go back after his own remains. 

It is the smartest boy that gets the hero part everywhere; he is headguide in Switzerland, head miner in Nevada, head bull-fighter in Spain, etc. ; but I knew a preacher's son, seven years old, who once selecteda part for himself compared to which those just mentioned are tameand unimpressive. Jimmy's father stopped him from driving imaginaryhorse-cars one Sunday--stopped him from playing captain of an imaginarysteamboat next Sunday--stopped him from leading an imaginary army tobattle the following Sunday--and so on. Finally the little fellow said:

"I've tried everything, and they won't any of them do. What CAN I play?"

"I hardly know, Jimmy; but you MUST play only things that are suitableto the Sabbath-day. "

Next Sunday the preacher stepped softly to a back-room door to see ifthe children were rightly employed. He peeped in. A chair occupied themiddle of the room, and on the back of it hung Jimmy's cap; one ofhis little sisters took the cap down, nibbled at it, then passed it toanother small sister and said, "Eat of this fruit, for it is good. " TheReverend took in the situation--alas, they were playing the Expulsionfrom Eden! Yet he found one little crumb of comfort. He said to himself, "For once Jimmy has yielded the chief role--I have been wronging him, Idid not believe there was so much modesty in him; I should have expectedhim to be either Adam or Eve. " This crumb of comfort lasted but a verylittle while; he glanced around and discovered Jimmy standing in animposing attitude in a corner, with a dark and deadly frown on his face. What that meant was very plain--HE WAS IMPERSONATING THE DEITY! Think ofthe guileless sublimity of that idea. 

We reached Vispach at 8 P. M. , only about seven hours out from St. Nicholas. So we must have made fully a mile and a half an hour, and itwas all downhill, too, and very muddy at that. We stayed all night atthe Hotel de Soleil; I remember it because the landlady, the portier, the waitress, and the chambermaid were not separate persons, but wereall contained in one neat and chipper suit of spotless muslin, and shewas the prettiest young creature I saw in all that region. She was thelandlord's daughter. And I remember that the only native match to herI saw in all Europe was the young daughter of the landlord of a villageinn in the Black Forest. Why don't more people in Europe marry and keephotel?

Next morning we left with a family of English friends and went by trainto Brevet, and thence by boat across the lake to Ouchy (Lausanne). 

Ouchy is memorable to me, not on account of its beautiful situation andlovely surroundings--although these would make it stick long in one'smemory--but as the place where _I_ caught the London TIMES dropping intohumor. It was NOT aware of it, though. It did not do it on purpose. An English friend called my attention to this lapse, and cut out thereprehensible paragraph for me. Think of encountering a grin like thison the face of that grim journal:

ERRATUM. --We are requested by Reuter's Telegram Company to correct anerroneous announcement made in their Brisbane telegram of the 2d inst. , published in our impression of the 5th inst. , stating that "Lady Kennedyhad given birth to twins, the eldest being a son. " The Company explainthat the message they received contained the words "Governor ofQueensland, TWINS FIRST SON. " Being, however, subsequently informed thatSir Arthur Kennedy was unmarried and that there must be some mistake, atelegraphic repetition was at once demanded. It has been received today(11th inst. ) and shows that the words really telegraphed by Reuter'sagent were "Governor Queensland TURNS FIRST SOD, " alluding to theMaryborough-Gympic Railway in course of construction. The words initalics were mutilated by the telegraph in transmission from Australia, and reaching the company in the form mentioned above gave rise to themistake. 

I had always had a deep and reverent compassion for the sufferings ofthe "prisoner of Chillon, " whose story Byron had told in such movingverse; so I took the steamer and made pilgrimage to the dungeons of theCastle of Chillon, to see the place where poor Bonnivard endured hisdreary captivity three hundred years ago. I am glad I did that, for ittook away some of the pain I was feeling on the prisoner's account. Hisdungeon was a nice, cool, roomy place, and I cannot see why he shouldhave been dissatisfied with it. If he had been imprisoned in a St. Nicholas private dwelling, where the fertilizer prevails, and the goatsleeps with the guest, and the chickens roost on him and the cow comesin and bothers him when he wants to muse, it would have been anothermatter altogether; but he surely could not have had a very cheerlesstime of it in that pretty dungeon. It has romantic window-slits thatlet in generous bars of light, and it has tall, noble columns, carvedapparently from the living rock; and what is more, they are writtenall over with thousands of names; some of them--like Byron's and VictorHugo's--of the first celebrity. Why didn't he amuse himself readingthese names? Then there are the couriers and tourists--swarms of themevery day--what was to hinder him from having a good time with them? Ithink Bonnivard's sufferings have been overrated. 

Next, we took the train and went to Martigny, on the way to Mont Blanc. Next morning we started, about eight o'clock, on foot. We had plenty ofcompany, in the way of wagon-loads and mule-loads of tourists--and dust. This scattering procession of travelers was perhaps a mile long. Theroad was uphill--interminable uphill--and tolerably steep. The weatherwas blisteringly hot, and the man or woman who had to sit on a creepingmule, or in a crawling wagon, and broil in the beating sun, was anobject to be pitied. We could dodge among the bushes, and have therelief of shade, but those people could not. They paid for a conveyance, and to get their money's worth they rode. 

We went by the way of the Tête Noir, and after we reached high groundthere was no lack of fine scenery. In one place the road was tunneledthrough a shoulder of the mountain; from there one looked down into agorge with a rushing torrent in it, and on every hand was a charmingview of rocky buttresses and wooded heights. There was a liberalallowance of pretty waterfalls, too, on the Tête Noir route. 

About half an hour before we reached the village of Argentière a vastdome of snow with the sun blazing on it drifted into view and frameditself in a strong V-shaped gateway of the mountains, and we recognizedMont Blanc, the "monarch of the Alps. " With every step, after that, this stately dome rose higher and higher into the blue sky, and at lastseemed to occupy the zenith. 

Some of Mont Blanc's neighbors--bare, light-brown, steeplelikerocks--were very peculiarly shaped. Some were whittled to a sharp point, and slightly bent at the upper end, like a lady's finger; one monstersugar-loaf resembled a bishop's hat; it was too steep to hold snow onits sides, but had some in the division. 

While we were still on very high ground, and before the descent towardArgentière began, we looked up toward a neighboring mountain-top, andsaw exquisite prismatic colors playing about some white clouds whichwere so delicate as to almost resemble gossamer webs. The faint pinksand greens were peculiarly beautiful; none of the colors were deep, theywere the lightest shades. They were bewitching commingled. We sat downto study and enjoy this singular spectacle. The tints remained duringseveral minutes--flitting, changing, melting into each other; palingalmost away for a moment, then reflushing--a shifting, restless, unstable succession of soft opaline gleams, shimmering over that airfilm of white cloud, and turning it into a fabric dainty enough toclothe an angel with. 

By and by we perceived what those super-delicate colors, and theircontinuous play and movement, reminded us of; it is what one sees in asoap-bubble that is drifting along, catching changes of tint from theobjects it passes. A soap-bubble is the most beautiful thing, and themost exquisite, in nature; that lovely phantom fabric in the sky wassuggestive of a soap-bubble split open, and spread out in the sun. Iwonder how much it would take to buy a soap-bubble, if there was onlyone in the world? One could buy a hatful of Koh-i-Noors with the samemoney, no doubt. 

We made the tramp from Martigny to Argentière in eight hours. We beatall the mules and wagons; we didn't usually do that. We hired a sort ofopen baggage-wagon for the trip down the valley to Chamonix, and thendevoted an hour to dining. This gave the driver time to get drunk. Hehad a friend with him, and this friend also had had time to get drunk. 

When we drove off, the driver said all the tourists had arrived andgone by while we were at dinner; "but, " said he, impressively, "be notdisturbed by that--remain tranquil--give yourselves no uneasiness--theirdust rises far before us--rest you tranquil, leave all to me--I am theking of drivers. Behold!"

Down came his whip, and away we clattered. I never had such a shaking upin my life. The recent flooding rains had washed the road clear away inplaces, but we never stopped, we never slowed down for anything. We toreright along, over rocks, rubbish, gullies, open fields--sometimes withone or two wheels on the ground, but generally with none. Every now andthen that calm, good-natured madman would bend a majestic look over hisshoulder at us and say, "Ah, you perceive? It is as I have said--I amthe king of drivers. " Every time we just missed going to destruction, he would say, with tranquil happiness, "Enjoy it, gentlemen, it is veryrare, it is very unusual--it is given to few to ride with the king ofdrivers--and observe, it is as I have said, I am he. "

He spoke in French, and punctuated with hiccoughs. His friend wasFrench, too, but spoke in German--using the same system of punctuation, however. The friend called himself the "Captain of Mont Blanc, " andwanted us to make the ascent with him. He said he had made more ascentsthan any other man--forty seven--and his brother had made thirty-seven. His brother was the best guide in the world, except himself--but he, yes, observe him well--he was the "Captain of Mont Blanc"--that titlebelonged to none other. 

The "king" was as good as his word--he overtook that long processionof tourists and went by it like a hurricane. The result was that we gotchoicer rooms at the hotel in Chamonix than we should have done ifhis majesty had been a slower artist--or rather, if he hadn't mostprovidentially got drunk before he left Argentière. 

A TRAMP ABROAD, Part 7. 

By Mark Twain

(Samuel L. Clemens)

First published in 1880

Illustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition

 * * * * * *

ILLUSTRATIONS:

 1.     PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR 2.     TITIAN'S MOSES 285.   STREET IN CHAMONIX 286.   THE PROUD GERMAN 287.   THE INDIGNANT TOURIST 288.   MUSIC OF SWITZERLAND 289.   ONLY A MISTAKE 290.   A BROAD VIEW 291.   PREPARING TO START 292.   ASCENT OF MONT BLANC 293.   "WE ALL RAISED A TREMENDOUS SHOUT" 294.   THE GRANDE MULETS 295.   CABIN ON THE GRANDE MULETS 296.   KEEPING WARM 297.   TAIL PIECE 298.   TAKE IT EASY 299.   THE MER DE GLACE (MONT BLANC) 300.   TAKING TOLL 301.   A DESCENDING TOURIST 302.   LEAVING BY DILIGENCE 303.   THE SATISFIED ENGLISHMAN 301.   HIGH PRESSURE 305.   NO APOLOGY 307.   A LIVELY STREET 308.   HAVING HER FULL RIGHTS 309.   HOW SHE FOOLED US 310.   "YOU'LL TAKE THAT OR NONE" 311.   ROBBING A BEGGAR 312.   DISHONEST ITALY 313.   STOCK IN TRADE 314.   STYLE 315.   SPECIMENS FROM OLD MASTERS 316.   AN OLD MASTER 317.   THE LION OF ST MARK 318.   OH TO BE AT RRST! 319.   THE WORLD'S MASTERPIECE 320.   TAIL PIECE 321.   AESTHETIC TASTES 322.   A PRIVATE FAMILY BREAKFAST 323.   EUROPEAN CARVING 323.   A TWENTY-FOUR HOUR FIGHT 325.   GREAT HEIDELBERG TUN 326.   BISMARCK IN PRISON 327.   TAIL PIECE 600 328.   A COMPLETE WORD

CONTENTS:

CHAPTER XLIII Chamonix--Contrasts--Magnificent Spectacle--The Guildof Guides--The Guide--in--Chief--The Returned Tourist--GettingDiploma--Rigid Rules--Unsuccessful Efforts to Procure a Diploma--TheRecord-Book--The Conqueror of Mont Blanc--Professional Jealousy--Triumph of Truth--Mountain Music--Its Effect--A Hunt for a Nuisance

CHAPTER XLIV Looking at Mont Blanc--Telescopic Effect--A ProposedTrip--Determination and Courage--The Cost all counted----Ascent ofMont Blanc by Telescope--Safe and Rapid Return--Diplomas Asked for andRefused--Disaster of 1866--The Brave Brothers--Wonderful Endurance andPluck--Love Making on Mont Blanc--First Ascent of a Woman--SensibleAttire

CHAPTER XLV A Catastrophe which Cost Eleven Lives--Accident of 1870--AParty of Eleven--A Fearful Storm--Note-books of the Victims--Within FiveMinutes of Safety--Facing Death Resignedly

CHAPTER XLVI The Hotel des Pyramids--The Glacier des Bossons--One ofthe Shows--Premeditated Crime--Saved Again--Tourists Warned--Adviceto Tourists--The Two Empresses--The Glacier Toll Collector--PureIce Water--Death Rate of the World--Of Various Cities--A PleasureExcursionist--A Diligence Ride--A Satisfied Englishman

CHAPTER XLVII Geneva--Shops of Geneva--Elasticity of Prices--Persistencyof Shop-Women--The High Pressure System--How a Dandy was brought toGrief--American Manners--Gallantry--Col Baker of London--ArkansawJustice--Safety of Women in America--Town of Chambery--A LivelyPlace--At Turin--A Railroad Companion--An Insulted Woman--City ofTurin--Italian Honesty--A Small Mistake --Robbing a Beggar Woman

CHAPTER XLVIII In Milan--The Arcade--Incidents we Met With--ThePedlar--Children--The Honest Conductor--Heavy Stocks of Clothing--TheQuarrelsome Italians--Great Smoke and Little Fire--The Cathedral--Stylein Church--The Old Masters--Tintoretto's great Picture--EmotionalTourists--Basson's Famed Picture--The Hair Trunk

CHAPTER XLIX In Venice--St Mark's Cathedral--Discovery of anAntique--The Riches of St Mark's--A Church Robber--Trusting Secrets to aFriend --The Robber Hanged--A Private Dinner--European Food

CHAPTER L Why Some things Are--Art in Rome and Florence--The Fig LeafMania--Titian's Venus--Difference between Seeing and Describing A Realwork of Art--Titian's Moses--Home

APPENDIX

 A--The Portier analyzed B--Hiedelberg Castle Described C--The College Prison and Inmates D--The Awful German Language E--Legends of the Castle F--The Journals of Germany

CHAPTER XLIII

[My Poor Sick Friend Disappointed]

Everybody was out-of-doors; everybody was in the principal street of thevillage--not on the sidewalks, but all over the street; everybody waslounging, loafing, chatting, waiting, alert, expectant, interested--forit was train-time. That is to say, it was diligence-time--the half-dozenbig diligences would soon be arriving from Geneva, and the village wasinterested, in many ways, in knowing how many people were coming andwhat sort of folk they might be. It was altogether the livest-lookingstreet we had seen in any village on the continent. 

The hotel was by the side of a booming torrent, whose music was loudand strong; we could not see this torrent, for it was dark, now, butone could locate it without a light. There was a large enclosed yard infront of the hotel, and this was filled with groups of villagers waitingto see the diligences arrive, or to hire themselves to excursionists forthe morrow. A telescope stood in the yard, with its huge barrel cantedup toward the lustrous evening star. The long porch of the hotel waspopulous with tourists, who sat in shawls and wraps under the vastovershadowing bulk of Mont Blanc, and gossiped or meditated. 

Never did a mountain seem so close; its big sides seemed at one's veryelbow, and its majestic dome, and the lofty cluster of slender minaretsthat were its neighbors, seemed to be almost over one's head. It wasnight in the streets, and the lamps were sparkling everywhere; the broadbases and shoulders of the mountains were in a deep gloom, but theirsummits swam in a strange rich glow which was really daylight, and yethad a mellow something about it which was very different from the hardwhite glare of the kind of daylight I was used to. Its radiance wasstrong and clear, but at the same time it was singularly soft, andspiritual, and benignant. No, it was not our harsh, aggressive, realistic daylight; it seemed properer to an enchanted land--or toheaven. 

I had seen moonlight and daylight together before, but I had not seendaylight and black night elbow to elbow before. At least I had not seenthe daylight resting upon an object sufficiently close at hand, before, to make the contrast startling and at war with nature. 

The daylight passed away. Presently the moon rose up behind some ofthose sky-piercing fingers or pinnacles of bare rock of which I havespoken--they were a little to the left of the crest of Mont Blanc, and right over our heads--but she couldn't manage to climb high enoughtoward heaven to get entirely above them. She would show the glitteringarch of her upper third, occasionally, and scrape it along behind thecomblike row; sometimes a pinnacle stood straight up, like a statuetteof ebony, against that glittering white shield, then seemed to glide outof it by its own volition and power, and become a dim specter, while thenext pinnacle glided into its place and blotted the spotless disk withthe black exclamation-point of its presence. The top of one pinnacletook the shapely, clean-cut form of a rabbit's head, in the inkiestsilhouette, while it rested against the moon. The unillumined peaks andminarets, hovering vague and phantom-like above us while the otherswere painfully white and strong with snow and moonlight, made a peculiareffect. 

But when the moon, having passed the line of pinnacles, was hiddenbehind the stupendous white swell of Mont Blanc, the masterpiece of theevening was flung on the canvas. A rich greenish radiance sprang intothe sky from behind the mountain, and in this some airy shreds andribbons of vapor floated about, and being flushed with that strangetint, went waving to and fro like pale green flames. After a while, radiating bars--vast broadening fan-shaped shadows--grew up andstretched away to the zenith from behind the mountain. It was aspectacle to take one's breath, for the wonder of it, and the sublimity. 

Indeed, those mighty bars of alternate light and shadow streaming upfrom behind that dark and prodigious form and occupying the half of thedull and opaque heavens, was the most imposing and impressive marvel Ihad ever looked upon. There is no simile for it, for nothing is likeit. If a child had asked me what it was, I should have said, "Humbleyourself, in this presence, it is the glory flowing from the hidden headof the Creator. " One falls shorter of the truth than that, sometimes, intrying to explain mysteries to the little people. I could have foundout the cause of this awe-compelling miracle by inquiring, for it is notinfrequent at Mont Blanc, --but I did not wish to know. We have not thereverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, because we know howit is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into the matter. 

We took a walk down street, a block or two, and a place where fourstreets met and the principal shops were clustered, found the groupsof men in the roadway thicker than ever--for this was the Exchange ofChamonix. These men were in the costumes of guides and porters, and werethere to be hired. 

The office of that great personage, the Guide-in-Chief of the ChamonixGuild of Guides, was near by. This guild is a close corporation, and isgoverned by strict laws. There are many excursion routes, some dangerousand some not, some that can be made safely without a guide, and somethat cannot. The bureau determines these things. Where it decides that aguide is necessary, you are forbidden to go without one. Neither are youallowed to be a victim of extortion: the law states what you are to pay. The guides serve in rotation; you cannot select the man who is to takeyour life into his hands, you must take the worst in the lot, if it ishis turn. A guide's fee ranges all the way up from a half-dollar (forsome trifling excursion of a few rods) to twenty dollars, according tothe distance traversed and the nature of the ground. A guide's feefor taking a person to the summit of Mont Blanc and back, is twentydollars--and he earns it. The time employed is usually three days, andthere is enough early rising in it to make a man far more "healthy andwealthy and wise" than any one man has any right to be. The porter'sfee for the same trip is ten dollars. Several fools--no, I mean severaltourists--usually go together, and divide up the expense, and thus makeit light; for if only one f--tourist, I mean--went, he would have tohave several guides and porters, and that would make the matter costly. 

We went into the Chief's office. There were maps of mountains on thewalls; also one or two lithographs of celebrated guides, and a portraitof the scientist De Saussure. 

In glass cases were some labeled fragments of boots and batons, andother suggestive relics and remembrances of casualties on Mount Blanc. In a book was a record of all the ascents which have ever been made, beginning with Nos. 1 and 2--being those of Jacques Balmat and DeSaussure, in 1787, and ending with No. 685, which wasn't cold yet. Infact No. 685 was standing by the official table waiting to receive theprecious official diploma which should prove to his German household andto his descendants that he had once been indiscreet enough to climb tothe top of Mont Blanc. He looked very happy when he got his document; infact, he spoke up and said he WAS happy. 

I tried to buy a diploma for an invalid friend at home who had nevertraveled, and whose desire all his life has been to ascend Mont Blanc, but the Guide-in-Chief rather insolently refused to sell me one. I wasvery much offended. I said I did not propose to be discriminated againston the account of my nationality; that he had just sold a diploma tothis German gentleman, and my money was a good as his; I would see toit that he couldn't keep his shop for Germans and deny his produce toAmericans; I would have his license taken away from him at the droppingof a handkerchief; if France refused to break him, I would make aninternational matter of it and bring on a war; the soil should bedrenched with blood; and not only that, but I would set up an oppositionshow and sell diplomas at half price. 

For two cents I would have done these things, too; but nobody offered metwo cents. I tried to move that German's feelings, but it could not bedone; he would not give me his diploma, neither would he sell it to me. I TOLD him my friend was sick and could not come himself, but he saidhe did not care a VERDAMMTES PFENNIG, he wanted his diploma forhimself--did I suppose he was going to risk his neck for that thing andthen give it to a sick stranger? Indeed he wouldn't, so he wouldn't. Iresolved, then, that I would do all I could to injure Mont Blanc. 

In the record-book was a list of all the fatal accidents which happenedon the mountain. It began with the one in 1820 when the Russian Dr. Hamel's three guides were lost in a crevice of the glacier, and itrecorded the delivery of the remains in the valley by the slow-movingglacier forty-one years later. The latest catastrophe bore the date1877. 

We stepped out and roved about the village awhile. In front of thelittle church was a monument to the memory of the bold guide JacquesBalmat, the first man who ever stood upon the summit of Mont Blanc. Hemade that wild trip solitary and alone. He accomplished the ascenta number of times afterward. A stretch of nearly half a century laybetween his first ascent and his last one. At the ripe old age ofseventy-two he was climbing around a corner of a lofty precipice of thePic du Midi--nobody with him--when he slipped and fell. So he died inthe harness. 

He had grown very avaricious in his old age, and used to go offstealthily to hunt for non-existent and impossible gold among thoseperilous peaks and precipices. He was on a quest of that kind when helost his life. There was a statue to him, and another to De Saussure, inthe hall of our hotel, and a metal plate on the door of a room upstairsbore an inscription to the effect that that room had been occupiedby Albert Smith. Balmat and De Saussure discovered Mont Blanc--so tospeak--but it was Smith who made it a paying property. His articles inBLACKWOOD and his lectures on Mont Blanc in London advertised it andmade people as anxious to see it as if it owed them money. 

As we strolled along the road we looked up and saw a red signal-lightglowing in the darkness of the mountainside. It seemed but a triflingway up--perhaps a hundred yards, a climb of ten minutes. It was a luckypiece of sagacity in us that we concluded to stop a man whom we met andget a light for our pipes from him instead of continuing the climb tothat lantern to get a light, as had been our purpose. The man said thatthat lantern was on the Grands Mulets, some sixty-five hundred feetabove the valley! I know by our Riffelberg experience, that it wouldhave taken us a good part of a week to go up there. I would sooner notsmoke at all, than take all that trouble for a light. 

Even in the daytime the foreshadowing effect of this mountain's closeproximity creates curious deceptions. For instance, one sees with thenaked eye a cabin up there beside the glacier, and a little above andbeyond he sees the spot where that red light was located; he thinks hecould throw a stone from the one place to the other. But he couldn't, for the difference between the two altitudes is more than three thousandfeet. It looks impossible, from below, that this can be true, but it istrue, nevertheless. 

While strolling around, we kept the run of the moon all the time, and westill kept an eye on her after we got back to the hotel portico. I hada theory that the gravitation of refraction, being subsidiary toatmospheric compensation, the refrangibility of the earth's surfacewould emphasize this effect in regions where great mountain rangesoccur, and possibly so even-handed impact the odic and idyllic forcestogether, the one upon the other, as to prevent the moon from risinghigher than 12, 200 feet above sea-level. This daring theory had beenreceived with frantic scorn by some of my fellow-scientists, and withan eager silence by others. Among the former I may mention Prof. H----y;and among the latter Prof. T----l. Such is professional jealousy; ascientist will never show any kindness for a theory which he did notstart himself. There is no feeling of brotherhood among these people. Indeed, they always resent it when I call them brother. To show how fartheir ungenerosity can carry them, I will state that I offered to letProf. H----y publish my great theory as his own discovery; I even beggedhim to do it; I even proposed to print it myself as his theory. Insteadof thanking me, he said that if I tried to fasten that theory on him hewould sue me for slander. I was going to offer it to Mr. Darwin, whomI understood to be a man without prejudices, but it occurred to methat perhaps he would not be interested in it since it did not concernheraldry. 

But I am glad now, that I was forced to father my intrepid theorymyself, for, on the night of which I am writing, it was triumphantlyjustified and established. Mont Blanc is nearly sixteen thousand feethigh; he hid the moon utterly; near him is a peak which is 12, 216 feethigh; the moon slid along behind the pinnacles, and when she approachedthat one I watched her with intense interest, for my reputation as ascientist must stand or fall by its decision. I cannot describe theemotions which surged like tidal waves through my breast when I saw themoon glide behind that lofty needle and pass it by without exposing morethan two feet four inches of her upper rim above it; I was secure, then. I knew she could rise no higher, and I was right. She sailed behind allthe peaks and never succeeded in hoisting her disk above a single one ofthem. 

While the moon was behind one of those sharp fingers, its shadow wasflung athwart the vacant heavens--a long, slanting, clean-cut, darkray--with a streaming and energetic suggestion of FORCE about it, suchas the ascending jet of water from a powerful fire-engine affords. Itwas curious to see a good strong shadow of an earthly object cast uponso intangible a field as the atmosphere. 

We went to bed, at last, and went quickly to sleep, but I woke up, after about three hours, with throbbing temples, and a head which wasphysically sore, outside and in. I was dazed, dreamy, wretched, seedy, unrefreshed. I recognized the occasion of all this: it was that torrent. In the mountain villages of Switzerland, and along the roads, one hasalways the roar of the torrent in his ears. He imagines it is music, andhe thinks poetic things about it; he lies in his comfortable bed and islulled to sleep by it. But by and by he begins to notice that hishead is very sore--he cannot account for it; in solitudes where theprofoundest silence reigns, he notices a sullen, distant, continuousroar in his ears, which is like what he would experience if he hadsea-shells pressed against them--he cannot account for it; he is drowsyand absent-minded; there is no tenacity to his mind, he cannot keep holdof a thought and follow it out; if he sits down to write, his vocabularyis empty, no suitable words will come, he forgets what he started to do, and remains there, pen in hand, head tilted up, eyes closed, listeningpainfully to the muffled roar of a distant train in his ears; in hissoundest sleep the strain continues, he goes on listening, alwayslistening intently, anxiously, and wakes at last, harassed, irritable, unrefreshed. He cannot manage to account for these things. 

Day after day he feels as if he had spent his nights in a sleeping-car. It actually takes him weeks to find out that it is those persecutingtorrents that have been making all the mischief. It is time for himto get out of Switzerland, then, for as soon as he has discovered thecause, the misery is magnified several fold. The roar of the torrent ismaddening, then, for his imagination is assisting; the physical painit inflicts is exquisite. When he finds he is approaching one of thosestreams, his dread is so lively that he is disposed to fly the track andavoid the implacable foe. 

Eight or nine months after the distress of the torrents had departedfrom me, the roar and thunder of the streets of Paris brought it allback again. I moved to the sixth story of the hotel to hunt for peace. About midnight the noises dulled away, and I was sinking to sleep, when I heard a new and curious sound; I listened: evidently some joyouslunatic was softly dancing a "double shuffle" in the room over my head. I had to wait for him to get through, of course. Five long, long minuteshe smoothly shuffled away--a pause followed, then something fell witha thump on the floor. I said to myself "There--he is pulling off hisboots--thank heavens he is done. " Another slight pause--he went toshuffling again! I said to myself, "Is he trying to see what he can dowith only one boot on?" Presently came another pause and another thumpon the floor. I said "Good, he has pulled off his other boot--NOW he isdone. " But he wasn't. The next moment he was shuffling again. I said, "Confound him, he is at it in his slippers!" After a little came thatsame old pause, and right after it that thump on the floor once more. Isaid, "Hang him, he had on TWO pair of boots!" For an hour that magicianwent on shuffling and pulling off boots till he had shed as many astwenty-five pair, and I was hovering on the verge of lunacy. I gotmy gun and stole up there. The fellow was in the midst of an acre ofsprawling boots, and he had a boot in his hand, shuffling it--no, I meanPOLISHING it. The mystery was explained. He hadn't been dancing. He wasthe "Boots" of the hotel, and was attending to business. 

CHAPTER XLIX

[I Scale Mont Blanc--by Telescope]

After breakfast, that next morning in Chamonix, we went out in the yardand watched the gangs of excursioning tourists arriving and departingwith their mules and guides and porters; then we took a look throughthe telescope at the snowy hump of Mont Blanc. It was brilliant withsunshine, and the vast smooth bulge seemed hardly five hundred yardsaway. With the naked eye we could dimly make out the house at the PierrePointue, which is located by the side of the great glacier, and is morethan three thousand feet above the level of the valley; but with thetelescope we could see all its details. While I looked, a woman rode bythe house on a mule, and I saw her with sharp distinctness; I could havedescribed her dress. I saw her nod to the people of the house, and reinup her mule, and put her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. I wasnot used to telescopes; in fact, I had never looked through a good onebefore; it seemed incredible to me that this woman could be so far away. I was satisfied that I could see all these details with my nakedeye; but when I tried it, that mule and those vivid people had whollyvanished, and the house itself was become small and vague. I triedthe telescope again, and again everything was vivid. The strong blackshadows of the mule and the woman were flung against the side of thehouse, and I saw the mule's silhouette wave its ears. 

The telescopulist--or the telescopulariat--I do not know which isright--said a party were making a grand ascent, and would come in sighton the remote upper heights, presently; so we waited to observe thisperformance. Presently I had a superb idea. I wanted to stand with aparty on the summit of Mont Blanc, merely to be able to say I had doneit, and I believed the telescope could set me within seven feet of theuppermost man. The telescoper assured me that it could. I then asked himhow much I owed him for as far as I had got? He said, one franc. I askedhim how much it would cost to make the entire ascent? Three francs. I atonce determined to make the entire ascent. But first I inquired if therewas any danger? He said no--not by telescope; said he had taken a greatmany parties to the summit, and never lost a man. I asked what he wouldcharge to let my agent go with me, together with such guides and portersas might be necessary. He said he would let Harris go for two francs;and that unless we were unusually timid, he should consider guides andporters unnecessary; it was not customary to take them, when going bytelescope, for they were rather an encumbrance than a help. He said thatthe party now on the mountain were approaching the most difficult part, and if we hurried we should overtake them within ten minutes, and couldthen join them and have the benefit of their guides and porters withouttheir knowledge, and without expense to us. 

I then said we would start immediately. I believe I said it calmly, though I was conscious of a shudder and of a paling cheek, in view ofthe nature of the exploit I was so unreflectingly engaged in. But theold daredevil spirit was upon me, and I said that as I had committedmyself I would not back down; I would ascend Mont Blanc if it cost memy life. I told the man to slant his machine in the proper direction andlet us be off. 

Harris was afraid and did not want to go, but I heartened him up andsaid I would hold his hand all the way; so he gave his consent, thoughhe trembled a little at first. I took a last pathetic look upon thepleasant summer scene about me, then boldly put my eye to the glass andprepared to mount among the grim glaciers and the everlasting snows. 

We took our way carefully and cautiously across the great Glacier desBossons, over yawning and terrific crevices and among imposing cragsand buttresses of ice which were fringed with icicles of giganticproportions. The desert of ice that stretched far and wide about us waswild and desolate beyond description, and the perils which beset us wereso great that at times I was minded to turn back. But I pulled my plucktogether and pushed on. 

We passed the glacier safely and began to mount the steeps beyond, withgreat alacrity. When we were seven minutes out from the starting-point, we reached an altitude where the scene took a new aspect; an apparentlylimitless continent of gleaming snow was tilted heavenward before ourfaces. As my eye followed that awful acclivity far away up into theremote skies, it seemed to me that all I had ever seen before ofsublimity and magnitude was small and insignificant compared to this. 

We rested a moment, and then began to mount with speed. Within threeminutes we caught sight of the party ahead of us, and stopped to observethem. They were toiling up a long, slanting ridge of snow--twelvepersons, roped together some fifteen feet apart, marching in singlefile, and strongly marked against the clear blue sky. One was a woman. We could see them lift their feet and put them down; we saw them swingtheir alpenstocks forward in unison, like so many pendulums, and thenbear their weight upon them; we saw the lady wave her handkerchief. Theydragged themselves upward in a worn and weary way, for they had beenclimbing steadily from the Grand Mulets, on the Glacier des Bossons, since three in the morning, and it was eleven, now. We saw them sinkdown in the snow and rest, and drink something from a bottle. After awhile they moved on, and as they approached the final short dash of thehome-stretch we closed up on them and joined them. 

Presently we all stood together on the summit! What a view was spreadout below! Away off under the northwestern horizon rolled the silentbillows of the Farnese Oberland, their snowy crests glinting softly inthe subdued lights of distance; in the north rose the giant form of theWobblehorn, draped from peak to shoulder in sable thunder-clouds; beyondhim, to the right, stretched the grand processional summits of theCisalpine Cordillera, drowned in a sensuous haze; to the east loomed thecolossal masses of the Yodelhorn, the Fuddelhorn, and the Dinnerhorn, their cloudless summits flashing white and cold in the sun; beyondthem shimmered the faint far line of the Ghauts of Jubbelpore and theAiguilles des Alleghenies; in the south towered the smoking peakof Popocatapetl and the unapproachable altitudes of the peerlessScrabblehorn; in the west-south the stately range of the Himalayas laydreaming in a purple gloom; and thence all around the curving horizonthe eye roved over a troubled sea of sun-kissed Alps, and noted, here and there, the noble proportions and the soaring domes of theBottlehorn, and the Saddlehorn, and the Shovelhorn, and the Powderhorn, all bathed in the glory of noon and mottled with softly gliding blots, the shadows flung from drifting clouds. 

Overcome by the scene, we all raised a triumphant, tremendous shout, inunison. A startled man at my elbow said:

"Confound you, what do you yell like that for, right here in thestreet?"

That brought me down to Chamonix, like a flirt. I gave that man somespiritual advice and disposed of him, and then paid the telescope manhis full fee, and said that we were charmed with the trip and wouldremain down, and not reascend and require him to fetch us down bytelescope. This pleased him very much, for of course we could havestepped back to the summit and put him to the trouble of bringing ushome if we wanted to. 

I judged we could get diplomas, now, anyhow; so we went after them, butthe Chief Guide put us off, with one pretext or another, during all thetime we stayed in Chamonix, and we ended by never getting them at all. So much for his prejudice against people's nationality. However, weworried him enough to make him remember us and our ascent for sometime. He even said, once, that he wished there was a lunatic asylumin Chamonix. This shows that he really had fears that we were going todrive him mad. It was what we intended to do, but lack of time defeatedit. 

I cannot venture to advise the reader one way or the other, as toascending Mont Blanc. I say only this: if he is at all timid, theenjoyments of the trip will hardly make up for the hardships andsufferings he will have to endure. But, if he has good nerve, youth, health, and a bold, firm will, and could leave his family comfortablyprovided for in case the worst happened, he would find the ascent awonderful experience, and the view from the top a vision to dream about, and tell about, and recall with exultation all the days of his life. 

While I do not advise such a person to attempt the ascent, I do notadvise him against it. But if he elects to attempt it, let him be warilycareful of two things: chose a calm, clear day; and do not pay thetelescope man in advance. There are dark stories of his getting advancepayers on the summit and then leaving them there to rot. 

A frightful tragedy was once witnessed through the Chamonix telescopes. Think of questions and answers like these, on an inquest:

CORONER. You saw deceased lose his life?

WITNESS. I did. 

C. Where was he, at the time?

W. Close to the summit of Mont Blanc. 

C. Where were you?

W. In the main street of Chamonix. 

C. What was the distance between you?

W. A LITTLE OVER FIVE MILES, as the bird flies. 

This accident occurred in 1866, a year and a month after the disasteron the Matterhorn. Three adventurous English gentlemen, [1] of greatexperience in mountain-climbing, made up their minds to ascend MontBlanc without guides or porters. All endeavors to dissuade them fromtheir project failed. Powerful telescopes are numerous in Chamonix. These huge brass tubes, mounted on their scaffoldings and pointedskyward from every choice vantage-ground, have the formidable look ofartillery, and give the town the general aspect of getting readyto repel a charge of angels. The reader may easily believe that thetelescopes had plenty of custom on that August morning in 1866, foreverybody knew of the dangerous undertaking which was on foot, andall had fears that misfortune would result. All the morning the tubesremained directed toward the mountain heights, each with its anxiousgroup around it; but the white deserts were vacant. 

1. Sir George Young and his brothers James and Albert. 

At last, toward eleven o'clock, the people who were looking through thetelescopes cried out "There they are!"--and sure enough, far up, onthe loftiest terraces of the Grand Plateau, the three pygmies appeared, climbing with remarkable vigor and spirit. They disappeared in the"Corridor, " and were lost to sight during an hour. Then they reappeared, and were presently seen standing together upon the extreme summitof Mont Blanc. So, all was well. They remained a few minutes on thathighest point of land in Europe, a target for all the telescopes, andwere then seen to begin descent. Suddenly all three vanished. An instantafter, they appeared again, TWO THOUSAND FEET BELOW!

Evidently, they had tripped and been shot down an almost perpendicularslope of ice to a point where it joined the border of the upper glacier. Naturally, the distant witness supposed they were now looking upon threecorpses; so they could hardly believe their eyes when they presently sawtwo of the men rise to their feet and bend over the third. Duringtwo hours and a half they watched the two busying themselves over theextended form of their brother, who seemed entirely inert. Chamonix'saffairs stood still; everybody was in the street, all interest wascentered upon what was going on upon that lofty and isolated stagefive miles away. Finally the two--one of them walking with greatdifficulty--were seen to begin descent, abandoning the third, who was nodoubt lifeless. Their movements were followed, step by step, until theyreached the "Corridor" and disappeared behind its ridge. Before they hadhad time to traverse the "Corridor" and reappear, twilight was come, andthe power of the telescope was at an end. 

The survivors had a most perilous journey before them in the gatheringdarkness, for they must get down to the Grands Mulets before they wouldfind a safe stopping-place--a long and tedious descent, and perilousenough even in good daylight. The oldest guides expressed the opinionthat they could not succeed; that all the chances were that they wouldlose their lives. 

Yet those brave men did succeed. They reached the Grands Mulets insafety. Even the fearful shock which their nerves had sustained was notsufficient to overcome their coolness and courage. It would appear fromthe official account that they were threading their way down throughthose dangers from the closing in of twilight until two o'clock in themorning, or later, because the rescuing party from Chamonix reachedthe Grand Mulets about three in the morning and moved thence toward thescene of the disaster under the leadership of Sir George Young, "who hadonly just arrived. "

After having been on his feet twenty-four hours, in the exhausting workof mountain-climbing, Sir George began the reascent at the head of therelief party of six guides, to recover the corpse of his brother. Thiswas considered a new imprudence, as the number was too few for theservice required. Another relief party presently arrived at the cabinon the Grands Mulets and quartered themselves there to await events. Tenhours after Sir George's departure toward the summit, this new reliefwere still scanning the snowy altitudes above them from their own highperch among the ice deserts ten thousand feet above the level of thesea, but the whole forenoon had passed without a glimpse of any livingthing appearing up there. 

This was alarming. Half a dozen of their number set out, then early inthe afternoon, to seek and succor Sir George and his guides. The personsremaining at the cabin saw these disappear, and then ensued anotherdistressing wait. Four hours passed, without tidings. Then at fiveo'clock another relief, consisting of three guides, set forward fromthe cabin. They carried food and cordials for the refreshment of theirpredecessors; they took lanterns with them, too; night was coming on, and to make matters worse, a fine, cold rain had begun to fall. 

At the same hour that these three began their dangerous ascent, theofficial Guide-in-Chief of the Mont Blanc region undertook the dangerousdescent to Chamonix, all alone, to get reinforcements. However, a coupleof hours later, at 7 P. M. , the anxious solicitude came to an end, andhappily. A bugle note was heard, and a cluster of black specks wasdistinguishable against the snows of the upper heights. The watcherscounted these specks eagerly--fourteen--nobody was missing. An hour anda half later they were all safe under the roof of the cabin. They hadbrought the corpse with them. Sir George Young tarried there but a fewminutes, and then began the long and troublesome descent from the cabinto Chamonix. He probably reached there about two or three o'clock in themorning, after having been afoot among the rocks and glaciers during twodays and two nights. His endurance was equal to his daring. 

The cause of the unaccountable delay of Sir George and the reliefparties among the heights where the disaster had happened was a thickfog--or, partly that and partly the slow and difficult work of conveyingthe dead body down the perilous steeps. 

The corpse, upon being viewed at the inquest, showed no bruises, and itwas some time before the surgeons discovered that the neck was broken. One of the surviving brothers had sustained some unimportant injuries, but the other had suffered no hurt at all. How these men could fall twothousand feet, almost perpendicularly, and live afterward, is a moststrange and unaccountable thing. 

A great many women have made the ascent of Mont Blanc. An English girl, Miss Stratton, conceived the daring idea, two or three years ago, ofattempting the ascent in the middle of winter. She tried it--and shesucceeded. Moreover, she froze two of her fingers on the way up, shefell in love with her guide on the summit, and she married him when shegot to the bottom again. There is nothing in romance, in the way of astriking "situation, " which can beat this love scene in midheaven onan isolated ice-crest with the thermometer at zero and an Artic galeblowing. 

The first woman who ascended Mont Blanc was a girl agedtwenty-two--Mlle. Maria Paradis--1809. Nobody was with her but hersweetheart, and he was not a guide. The sex then took a rest for aboutthirty years, when a Mlle. D'Angeville made the ascent --1838. InChamonix I picked up a rude old lithograph of that day which picturedher "in the act. "

However, I value it less as a work of art than as a fashion-plate. Missd'Angeville put on a pair of men's pantaloons to climb it, which waswise; but she cramped their utility by adding her petticoat, which wasidiotic. 

One of the mournfulest calamities which men's disposition to climbdangerous mountains has resulted in, happened on Mont Blanc in September1870. M. D'Arve tells the story briefly in his HISTOIRE DU MONT BLANC. In the next chapter I will copy its chief features. 

CHAPTER XLV

A Catastrophe Which Cost Eleven Lives

On the 5th of September, 1870, a caravan of eleven persons departedfrom Chamonix to make the ascent of Mont Blanc. Three of the partywere tourists; Messrs. Randall and Bean, Americans, and Mr. GeorgeCorkindale, a Scotch gentleman; there were three guides and fiveporters. The cabin on the Grands Mulets was reached that day; the ascentwas resumed early the next morning, September 6th. The day was fineand clear, and the movements of the party were observed through thetelescopes of Chamonix; at two o'clock in the afternoon they were seento reach the summit. A few minutes later they were seen making the firststeps of the descent; then a cloud closed around them and hid them fromview. 

Eight hours passed, the cloud still remained, night came, no one hadreturned to the Grands Mulets. Sylvain Couttet, keeper of the cabinthere, suspected a misfortune, and sent down to the valley for help. Adetachment of guides went up, but by the time they had made the tedioustrip and reached the cabin, a raging storm had set in. They had to wait;nothing could be attempted in such a tempest. 

The wild storm lasted MORE THAN A WEEK, without ceasing; but on the17th, Couttet, with several guides, left the cabin and succeeded inmaking the ascent. In the snowy wastes near the summit they came uponfive bodies, lying upon their sides in a reposeful attitude whichsuggested that possibly they had fallen asleep there, while exhaustedwith fatigue and hunger and benumbed with cold, and never knew whendeath stole upon them. Couttet moved a few steps further and discoveredfive more bodies. The eleventh corpse--that of a porter--was not found, although diligent search was made for it. 

In the pocket of Mr. Bean, one of the Americans, was found a note-bookin which had been penciled some sentences which admit us, in flesh andspirit, as it were, to the presence of these men during their last hoursof life, and to the grisly horrors which their fading vision looked uponand their failing consciousness took cognizance of: TUESDAY, SEPT. 6. I have made the ascent of Mont Blanc, with tenpersons--eight guides, and Mr. Corkindale and Mr. Randall. We reachedthe summit at half past 2. Immediately after quitting it, we wereenveloped in clouds of snow. We passed the night in a grotto hollowed inthe snow, which afforded us but poor shelter, and I was ill all night. 

SEPT. 7--MORNING. The cold is excessive. The snow falls heavily andwithout interruption. The guides take no rest. 

EVENING. My Dear Hessie, we have been two days on Mont Blanc, in themidst of a terrible hurricane of snow, we have lost our way, and arein a hole scooped in the snow, at an altitude of 15, 000 feet. I have nolonger any hope of descending. 

They had wandered around, and around, in the blinding snow-storm, hopelessly lost, in a space only a hundred yards square; and when coldand fatigue vanquished them at last, they scooped their cave and laydown there to die by inches, UNAWARE THAT FIVE STEPS MORE WOULD HAVEBROUGHT THEM INTO THE TRUTH PATH. They were so near to life and safetyas that, and did not suspect it. The thought of this gives the sharpestpang that the tragic story conveys. 

The author of the HISTOIRE DU MONT BLANC introduced the closingsentences of Mr. Bean's pathetic record thus:

"Here the characters are large and unsteady; the hand which traces themis become chilled and torpid; but the spirit survives, and the faith andresignation of the dying man are expressed with a sublime simplicity. "

Perhaps this note-book will be found and sent to you. We have nothing toeat, my feet are already frozen, and I am exhausted; I have strength towrite only a few words more. I have left means for C's education; I knowyou will employ them wisely. I die with faith in God, and with lovingthoughts of you. Farewell to all. We shall meet again, in Heaven. ... Ithink of you always. 

It is the way of the Alps to deliver death to their victims with amerciful swiftness, but here the rule failed. These men sufferedthe bitterest death that has been recorded in the history of thosemountains, freighted as that history is with grisly tragedies. 

CHAPTER XLVI

[Meeting a Hog on a Precipice]

Mr. Harris and I took some guides and porters and ascended to the Hoteldes Pyramides, which is perched on the high moraine which borders theGlacier des Bossons. The road led sharply uphill, all the way, throughgrass and flowers and woods, and was a pleasant walk, barring thefatigue of the climb. 

From the hotel we could view the huge glacier at very close range. Aftera rest we followed down a path which had been made in the steep innerfrontage of the moraine, and stepped upon the glacier itself. One of theshows of the place was a tunnel-like cavern, which had been hewn in theglacier. The proprietor of this tunnel took candles and conducted usinto it. It was three or four feet wide and about six feet high. Itswalls of pure and solid ice emitted a soft and rich blue light thatproduced a lovely effect, and suggested enchanted caves, and that sortof thing. When we had proceeded some yards and were entering darkness, we turned about and had a dainty sunlit picture of distant woods andheights framed in the strong arch of the tunnel and seen through thetender blue radiance of the tunnel's atmosphere. 

The cavern was nearly a hundred yards long, and when we reached itsinner limit the proprietor stepped into a branch tunnel with his candlesand left us buried in the bowels of the glacier, and in pitch-darkness. We judged his purpose was murder and robbery; so we got out our matchesand prepared to sell our lives as dearly as possible by setting theglacier on fire if the worst came to the worst--but we soon perceivedthat this man had changed his mind; he began to sing, in a deep, melodious voice, and woke some curious and pleasing echoes. By and by hecame back and pretended that that was what he had gone behind there for. We believed as much of that as we wanted to. 

Thus our lives had been once more in imminent peril, but by the exerciseof the swift sagacity and cool courage which had saved us so often, wehad added another escape to the long list. The tourist should visit thatice-cavern, by all means, for it is well worth the trouble; but I wouldadvise him to go only with a strong and well-armed force. I do notconsider artillery necessary, yet it would not be unadvisable to takeit along, if convenient. The journey, going and coming, is about threemiles and a half, three of which are on level ground. We made it inless than a day, but I would counsel the unpracticed--if not pressedfor time--to allow themselves two. Nothing is gained in the Alps byover-exertion; nothing is gained by crowding two days' work into one forthe poor sake of being able to boast of the exploit afterward. It willbe found much better, in the long run, to do the thing in two days, andthen subtract one of them from the narrative. This saves fatigue, anddoes not injure the narrative. All the more thoughtful among the Alpinetourists do this. 

We now called upon the Guide-in-Chief, and asked for a squadron ofguides and porters for the ascent of the Montanvert. This idiot glaredat us, and said:

"You don't need guides and porters to go to the Montanvert. "

"What do we need, then?"

"Such as YOU?--an ambulance!"

I was so stung by this brutal remark that I took my custom elsewhere. 

Betimes, next morning, we had reached an altitude of five thousand feetabove the level of the sea. Here we camped and breakfasted. There wasa cabin there--the spot is called the Caillet--and a spring of ice-coldwater. On the door of the cabin was a sign, in French, to the effectthat "One may here see a living chamois for fifty centimes. " We did notinvest; what we wanted was to see a dead one. 

A little after noon we ended the ascent and arrived at the new hotel onthe Montanvert, and had a view of six miles, right up the great glacier, the famous Mer de Glace. At this point it is like a sea whose deepswales and long, rolling swells have been caught in mid-movement andfrozen solid; but further up it is broken up into wildly tossing billowsof ice. 

We descended a ticklish path in the steep side of the moraine, andinvaded the glacier. There were tourists of both sexes scattered far andwide over it, everywhere, and it had the festive look of a skating-rink. 

The Empress Josephine came this far, once. She ascended the Montanvertin 1810--but not alone; a small army of men preceded her to clear thepath--and carpet it, perhaps--and she followed, under the protection ofSIXTY-EIGHT guides. 

Her successor visited Chamonix later, but in far different style. 

It was seven weeks after the first fall of the Empire, and poor MarieLouise, ex-Empress was a fugitive. She came at night, and in a storm, with only two attendants, and stood before a peasant's hut, tired, bedraggled, soaked with rain, "the red print of her lost crown stillgirdling her brow, " and implored admittance--and was refused! A few daysbefore, the adulations and applauses of a nation were sounding in herears, and now she was come to this!

We crossed the Mer de Glace in safety, but we had misgivings. Thecrevices in the ice yawned deep and blue and mysterious, and it made onenervous to traverse them. The huge round waves of ice were slippery anddifficult to climb, and the chances of tripping and sliding down themand darting into a crevice were too many to be comfortable. 

In the bottom of a deep swale between two of the biggest of theice-waves, we found a fraud who pretended to be cutting steps to insurethe safety of tourists. He was "soldiering" when we came upon him, buthe hopped up and chipped out a couple of steps about big enough for acat, and charged us a franc or two for it. Then he sat down again, todoze till the next party should come along. 

He had collected blackmail from two or three hundred people already, that day, but had not chipped out ice enough to impair the glacierperceptibly. I have heard of a good many soft sinecures, but it seemsto me that keeping toll-bridge on a glacier is the softest one I haveencountered yet. 

That was a blazing hot day, and it brought a persistent and persecutingthirst with it. What an unspeakable luxury it was to slake that thirstwith the pure and limpid ice-water of the glacier! Down the sides ofevery great rib of pure ice poured limpid rills in gutters carved bytheir own attrition; better still, wherever a rock had lain, there wasnow a bowl-shaped hole, with smooth white sides and bottom of ice, andthis bowl was brimming with water of such absolute clearness that thecareless observer would not see it at all, but would think the bowl wasempty. These fountains had such an alluring look that I often stretchedmyself out when I was not thirsty and dipped my face in and drank tillmy teeth ached. Everywhere among the Swiss mountains we had at hand theblessing--not to be found in Europe EXCEPT in the mountains--of watercapable of quenching thirst. Everywhere in the Swiss highlands brilliantlittle rills of exquisitely cold water went dancing along by theroadsides, and my comrade and I were always drinking and alwaysdelivering our deep gratitude. 

But in Europe everywhere except in the mountains, the water is flat andinsipid beyond the power of words to describe. It is served lukewarm;but no matter, ice could not help it; it is incurably flat, incurablyinsipid. It is only good to wash with; I wonder it doesn't occur tothe average inhabitant to try it for that. In Europe the people saycontemptuously, "Nobody drinks water here. " Indeed, they have a soundand sufficient reason. In many places they even have what may be calledprohibitory reasons. In Paris and Munich, for instance, they say, "Don'tdrink the water, it is simply poison. "

Either America is healthier than Europe, notwithstanding her "deadly"indulgence in ice-water, or she does not keep the run of her death-rateas sharply as Europe does. I think we do keep up the death statisticsaccurately; and if we do, our cities are healthier than the cities ofEurope. Every month the German government tabulates the death-rate ofthe world and publishes it. I scrap-booked these reports during severalmonths, and it was curious to see how regular and persistently each cityrepeated its same death-rate month after month. The tables might as wellhave been stereotyped, they varied so little. These tables werebased upon weekly reports showing the average of deaths in each 1, 000population for a year. Munich was always present with her 33 deaths ineach 1, 000 of her population (yearly average), Chicago was as constantwith her 15 or 17, Dublin with her 48--and so on. 

Only a few American cities appear in these tables, but they arescattered so widely over the country that they furnish a good generalaverage of CITY health in the United States; and I think it will begranted that our towns and villages are healthier than our cities. 

Here is the average of the only American cities reported in the Germantables:

Chicago, deaths in 1, 000 population annually, 16; Philadelphia, 18; St. Louis, 18; San Francisco, 19; New York (the Dublin of America), 23. 

See how the figures jump up, as soon as one arrives at the transatlanticlist:

Paris, 27; Glasgow, 27; London, 28; Vienna, 28; Augsburg, 28;Braunschweig, 28; Königsberg, 29; Cologne, 29; Dresden, 29; Hamburg, 29;Berlin, 30; Bombay, 30; Warsaw, 31; Breslau, 31; Odessa, 32; Munich, 33;Strasburg, 33, Pesth, 35; Cassel, 35; Lisbon, 36; Liverpool, 36;Prague, 37; Madras, 37; Bucharest, 39; St. Petersburg, 40; Trieste, 40;Alexandria (Egypt), 43; Dublin, 48; Calcutta, 55. 

Edinburgh is as healthy as New York--23; but there is no CITY in theentire list which is healthier, except Frankfort-on-the-Main--20. ButFrankfort is not as healthy as Chicago, San Francisco, St. Louis, orPhiladelphia. 

Perhaps a strict average of the world might develop the fact that whereone in 1, 000 of America's population dies, two in 1, 000 of the otherpopulations of the earth succumb. 

I do not like to make insinuations, but I do think the above statisticsdarkly suggest that these people over here drink this detestable water"on the sly. "

We climbed the moraine on the opposite side of the glacier, and thencrept along its sharp ridge a hundred yards or so, in pretty constantdanger of a tumble to the glacier below. The fall would have been onlyone hundred feet, but it would have closed me out as effectually as onethousand, therefore I respected the distance accordingly, and wasglad when the trip was done. A moraine is an ugly thing to assaulthead-first. At a distance it looks like an endless grave of fine sand, accurately shaped and nicely smoothed; but close by, it is found to bemade mainly of rough boulders of all sizes, from that of a man's head tothat of a cottage. 

By and by we came to the Mauvais Pas, or the Villainous Road, totranslate it feelingly. It was a breakneck path around the face of aprecipice forty or fifty feet high, and nothing to hang on to but someiron railings. I got along, slowly, safely, and uncomfortably, andfinally reached the middle. My hopes began to rise a little, but theywere quickly blighted; for there I met a hog--a long-nosed, bristlyfellow, that held up his snout and worked his nostrils at meinquiringly. A hog on a pleasure excursion in Switzerland--think of it!It is striking and unusual; a body might write a poem about it. Hecould not retreat, if he had been disposed to do it. It would have beenfoolish to stand upon our dignity in a place where there was hardly roomto stand upon our feet, so we did nothing of the sort. There were twentyor thirty ladies and gentlemen behind us; we all turned about and wentback, and the hog followed behind. The creature did not seem set up bywhat he had done; he had probably done it before. 

We reached the restaurant on the height called the Chapeau at four inthe afternoon. It was a memento-factory, and the stock was large, cheap, and varied. I bought the usual paper-cutter to remember the place by, and had Mont Blanc, the Mauvais Pas, and the rest of the region brandedon my alpenstock; then we descended to the valley and walked homewithout being tied together. This was not dangerous, for the valley wasfive miles wide, and quite level. 

We reached the hotel before nine o'clock. Next morning we left forGeneva on top of the diligence, under shelter of a gay awning. If Iremember rightly, there were more than twenty people up there. It wasso high that the ascent was made by ladder. The huge vehicle was fulleverywhere, inside and out. Five other diligences left at the same time, all full. We had engaged our seats two days beforehand, to make sure, and paid the regulation price, five dollars each; but the rest of thecompany were wiser; they had trusted Baedeker, and waited; consequentlysome of them got their seats for one or two dollars. Baedeker knowsall about hotels, railway and diligence companies, and speaks his mindfreely. He is a trustworthy friend of the traveler. 

We never saw Mont Blanc at his best until we were many miles away; thenhe lifted his majestic proportions high into the heavens, all whiteand cold and solemn, and made the rest of the world seem little andplebeian, and cheap and trivial. 

As he passed out of sight at last, an old Englishman settled himself inhis seat and said:

"Well, I am satisfied, I have seen the principal features of Swissscenery--Mont Blanc and the goiter--now for home!"

CHAPTER XLVII

[Queer European Manners]

We spent a few pleasant restful days at Geneva, that delightful citywhere accurate time-pieces are made for all the rest of the world, butwhose own clocks never give the correct time of day by any accident. 

Geneva is filled with pretty shops, and the shops are filled with themost enticing gimcrackery, but if one enters one of these places he isat once pounced upon, and followed up, and so persecuted to buy this, that, and the other thing, that he is very grateful to get out again, and is not at all apt to repeat his experiment. The shopkeepers of thesmaller sort, in Geneva, are as troublesome and persistent as arethe salesmen of that monster hive in Paris, the Grands Magasins duLouvre--an establishment where ill-mannered pestering, pursuing, andinsistence have been reduced to a science. 

In Geneva, prices in the smaller shops are very elastic--that is anotherbad feature. I was looking in at a window at a very pretty string ofbeads, suitable for a child. I was only admiring them; I had no use forthem; I hardly ever wear beads. The shopwoman came out and offered themto me for thirty-five francs. I said it was cheap, but I did not needthem. 

"Ah, but monsieur, they are so beautiful!"

I confessed it, but said they were not suitable for one of my age andsimplicity of character. She darted in and brought them out and tried toforce them into my hands, saying:

"Ah, but only see how lovely they are! Surely monsieur will take them;monsieur shall have them for thirty francs. There, I have said it--it isa loss, but one must live. "

I dropped my hands, and tried to move her to respect my unprotectedsituation. But no, she dangled the beads in the sun before my face, exclaiming, "Ah, monsieur CANNOT resist them!" She hung them on my coatbutton, folded her hand resignedly, and said: "Gone, --and for thirtyfrancs, the lovely things--it is incredible!--but the good God willsanctify the sacrifice to me. "

I removed them gently, returned them, and walked away, shaking my headand smiling a smile of silly embarrassment while the passers-by haltedto observe. The woman leaned out of her door, shook the beads, andscreamed after me:

"Monsieur shall have them for twenty-eight!"

I shook my head. 

"Twenty-seven! It is a cruel loss, it is ruin--but take them, only takethem. "

I still retreated, still wagging my head. 

"MON DIEU, they shall even go for twenty-six! There, I have said it. Come!"

I wagged another negative. A nurse and a little English girl had beennear me, and were following me, now. The shopwoman ran to the nurse, thrust the beads into her hands, and said:

"Monsieur shall have them for twenty-five! Take them to the hotel--heshall send me the money tomorrow--next day--when he likes. " Then to thechild: "When thy father sends me the money, come thou also, my angel, and thou shall have something oh so pretty!"

I was thus providentially saved. The nurse refused the beads squarelyand firmly, and that ended the matter. 

The "sights" of Geneva are not numerous. I made one attempt to hunt upthe houses once inhabited by those two disagreeable people, Rousseau andCalvin, but I had no success. Then I concluded to go home. I foundit was easier to propose to do that than to do it; for that town is abewildering place. I got lost in a tangle of narrow and crooked streets, and stayed lost for an hour or two. Finally I found a street whichlooked somewhat familiar, and said to myself, "Now I am at home, Ijudge. " But I was wrong; this was "HELL street. " Presently I foundanother place which had a familiar look, and said to myself, "Now I amat home, sure. " It was another error. This was "PURGATORY street. " Aftera little I said, "NOW I've got the right place, anyway ... No, this is'PARADISE street'; I'm further from home than I was in the beginning. "Those were queer names--Calvin was the author of them, likely. "Hell" and "Purgatory" fitted those two streets like a glove, but the"Paradise" appeared to be sarcastic. 

I came out on the lake-front, at last, and then I knew where I was. I was walking along before the glittering jewelry shops when I saw acurious performance. A lady passed by, and a trim dandy lounged acrossthe walk in such an apparently carefully timed way as to bring himselfexactly in front of her when she got to him; he made no offer to stepout of the way; he did not apologize; he did not even notice her. Shehad to stop still and let him lounge by. I wondered if he had done thatpiece of brutality purposely. He strolled to a chair and seated himselfat a small table; two or three other males were sitting at similartables sipping sweetened water. I waited; presently a youth came by, andthis fellow got up and served him the same trick. Still, it did not seempossible that any one could do such a thing deliberately. To satisfy mycuriosity I went around the block, and, sure enough, as I approached, ata good round speed, he got up and lounged lazily across my path, foulingmy course exactly at the right moment to receive all my weight. Thisproved that his previous performances had not been accidental, butintentional. 

I saw that dandy's curious game played afterward, in Paris, but notfor amusement; not with a motive of any sort, indeed, but simply from aselfish indifference to other people's comfort and rights. One does notsee it as frequently in Paris as he might expect to, for there the lawsays, in effect, "It is the business of the weak to get out of the wayof the strong. " We fine a cabman if he runs over a citizen; Paris finesthe citizen for being run over. At least so everybody says--but I sawsomething which caused me to doubt; I saw a horseman run over an oldwoman one day--the police arrested him and took him away. That looked asif they meant to punish him. 

It will not do for me to find merit in American manners--for are theynot the standing butt for the jests of critical and polished Europe?Still, I must venture to claim one little matter of superiority in ourmanners; a lady may traverse our streets all day, going and coming asshe chooses, and she will never be molested by any man; but if a lady, unattended, walks abroad in the streets of London, even at noonday, shewill be pretty likely to be accosted and insulted--and not by drunkensailors, but by men who carry the look and wear the dress of gentlemen. It is maintained that these people are not gentlemen, but are a lowersort, disguised as gentlemen. The case of Colonel Valentine Bakerobstructs that argument, for a man cannot become an officer in theBritish army except he hold the rank of gentleman. This person, findinghimself alone in a railway compartment with an unprotected girl--butit is an atrocious story, and doubtless the reader remembers it wellenough. London must have been more or less accustomed to Bakers, and theways of Bakers, else London would have been offended and excited. Bakerwas "imprisoned"--in a parlor; and he could not have been more visited, or more overwhelmed with attentions, if he had committed six murders andthen--while the gallows was preparing--"got religion"--after the mannerof the holy Charles Peace, of saintly memory. Arkansaw--it seems alittle indelicate to be trumpeting forth our own superiorities, andcomparisons are always odious, but still--Arkansaw would certainly havehanged Baker. I do not say she would have tried him first, but she wouldhave hanged him, anyway. 

Even the most degraded woman can walk our streets unmolested, her sexand her weakness being her sufficient protection. She will encounterless polish than she would in the old world, but she will run acrossenough humanity to make up for it. 

The music of a donkey awoke us early in the morning, and we rose up andmade ready for a pretty formidable walk--to Italy; but the road was solevel that we took the train.. We lost a good deal of time by this, butit was no matter, we were not in a hurry. We were four hours going toChamb`ery. The Swiss trains go upward of three miles an hour, in places, but they are quite safe. 

That aged French town of Chambèry was as quaint and crooked asHeilbronn. A drowsy reposeful quiet reigned in the back streets whichmade strolling through them very pleasant, barring the almost unbearableheat of the sun. In one of these streets, which was eight feet wide, gracefully curved, and built up with small antiquated houses, I sawthree fat hogs lying asleep, and a boy (also asleep) taking care ofthem. 

From queer old-fashioned windows along the curve projected boxes ofbright flowers, and over the edge of one of these boxes hung the headand shoulders of a cat--asleep. The five sleeping creatures were theonly living things visible in that street. There was not a sound;absolute stillness prevailed. It was Sunday; one is not used tosuch dreamy Sundays on the continent. In our part of the town it wasdifferent that night. A regiment of brown and battered soldiers hadarrived home from Algiers, and I judged they got thirsty on the way. They sang and drank till dawn, in the pleasant open air. 

We left for Turin at ten the next morning by a railway which wasprofusely decorated with tunnels. We forgot to take a lantern along, consequently we missed all the scenery. Our compartment was full. Aponderous tow-headed Swiss woman, who put on many fine-lady airs, butwas evidently more used to washing linen than wearing it, sat in acorner seat and put her legs across into the opposite one, propping themintermediately with her up-ended valise. In the seat thus pirated, sattwo Americans, greatly incommoded by that woman's majestic coffin-cladfeet. One of them begged, politely, to remove them. She opened her wideeyes and gave him a stare, but answered nothing. By and by he proferredhis request again, with great respectfulness. She said, in good English, and in a deeply offended tone, that she had paid her passage and was notgoing to be bullied out of her "rights" by ill-bred foreigners, even ifshe was alone and unprotected. 

"But I have rights, also, madam. My ticket entitles me to a seat, butyou are occupying half of it. "

"I will not talk with you, sir. What right have you to speak to me? Ido not know you. One would know you came from a land where there are nogentlemen. No GENTLEMAN would treat a lady as you have treated me. "

"I come from a region where a lady would hardly give me the sameprovocation. "

"You have insulted me, sir! You have intimated that I am not a lady--andI hope I am NOT one, after the pattern of your country. "

"I beg that you will give yourself no alarm on that head, madam; but atthe same time I must insist--always respectfully--that you let me havemy seat. "

Here the fragile laundress burst into tears and sobs. 

"I never was so insulted before! Never, never! It is shameful, it isbrutal, it is base, to bully and abuse an unprotected lady who haslost the use of her limbs and cannot put her feet to the floor withoutagony!"

"Good heavens, madam, why didn't you say that at first! I offer athousand pardons. And I offer them most sincerely. I did not know--ICOULD not know--anything was the matter. You are most welcome to theseat, and would have been from the first if I had only known. I am trulysorry it all happened, I do assure you. "

But he couldn't get a word of forgiveness out of her. She simply sobbedand sniffed in a subdued but wholly unappeasable way for two long hours, meantime crowding the man more than ever with her undertaker-furnitureand paying no sort of attention to his frequent and humble littleefforts to do something for her comfort. Then the train halted at theItalian line and she hopped up and marched out of the car with as firm aleg as any washerwoman of all her tribe! And how sick I was, to see howshe had fooled me. 

Turin is a very fine city. In the matter of roominess it transcendsanything that was ever dreamed of before, I fancy. It sits in the midstof a vast dead-level, and one is obliged to imagine that land may behad for the asking, and no taxes to pay, so lavishly do they use it. Thestreets are extravagantly wide, the paved squares are prodigious, thehouses are huge and handsome, and compacted into uniform blocks thatstretch away as straight as an arrow, into the distance. The sidewalksare about as wide as ordinary European STREETS, and are covered overwith a double arcade supported on great stone piers or columns. Onewalks from one end to the other of these spacious streets, under shelterall the time, and all his course is lined with the prettiest of shopsand the most inviting dining-houses. 

There is a wide and lengthy court, glittering with the most wickedlyenticing shops, which is roofed with glass, high aloft overhead, andpaved with soft-toned marbles laid in graceful figures; and at nightwhen the place is brilliant with gas and populous with a sauntering andchatting and laughing multitude of pleasure-seekers, it is a spectacleworth seeing. 

Everything is on a large scale; the public buildings, for instance--andthey are architecturally imposing, too, as well as large. The bigsquares have big bronze monuments in them. At the hotel they gave usrooms that were alarming, for size, and parlor to match. It was well theweather required no fire in the parlor, for I think one might as wellhave tried to warm a park. The place would have a warm look, though, inany weather, for the window-curtains were of red silk damask, and thewalls were covered with the same fire-hued goods--so, also, were thefour sofas and the brigade of chairs. The furniture, the ornaments, thechandeliers, the carpets, were all new and bright and costly. We did notneed a parlor at all, but they said it belonged to the two bedrooms andwe might use it if we chose. Since it was to cost nothing, we were notaverse to using it, of course. 

Turin must surely read a good deal, for it has more book-stores to thesquare rod than any other town I know of. And it has its own share ofmilitary folk. The Italian officers' uniforms are very much the mostbeautiful I have ever seen; and, as a general thing, the men in themwere as handsome as the clothes. They were not large men, but they hadfine forms, fine features, rich olive complexions, and lustrous blackeyes. 

For several weeks I had been culling all the information I could aboutItaly, from tourists. The tourists were all agreed upon one thing--onemust expect to be cheated at every turn by the Italians. I took anevening walk in Turin, and presently came across a little Punch and Judyshow in one of the great squares. Twelve or fifteen people constitutedthe audience. This miniature theater was not much bigger than a man'scoffin stood on end; the upper part was open and displayed atinseled parlor--a good-sized handkerchief would have answered for adrop-curtain; the footlights consisted of a couple of candle-ends aninch long; various manikins the size of dolls appeared on the stage andmade long speeches at each other, gesticulating a good deal, and theygenerally had a fight before they got through. They were worked bystrings from above, and the illusion was not perfect, for one saw notonly the strings but the brawny hand that manipulated them--and theactors and actresses all talked in the same voice, too. The audiencestood in front of the theater, and seemed to enjoy the performanceheartily. 

When the play was done, a youth in his shirt-sleeves started around witha small copper saucer to make a collection. I did not know how much toput in, but thought I would be guided by my predecessors. Unluckily, Ionly had two of these, and they did not help me much because they didnot put in anything. I had no Italian money, so I put in a small Swisscoin worth about ten cents. The youth finished his collection trip andemptied the result on the stage; he had some very animated talk withthe concealed manager, then he came working his way through the littlecrowd--seeking me, I thought. I had a mind to slip away, but concludedI wouldn't; I would stand my ground, and confront the villainy, whateverit was. The youth stood before me and held up that Swiss coin, sureenough, and said something. I did not understand him, but I judged hewas requiring Italian money of me. The crowd gathered close, to listen. I was irritated, and said--in English, of course:

"I know it's Swiss, but you'll take that or none. I haven't any other. "

He tried to put the coin in my hand, and spoke again. I drew my handaway, and said:

"NO, sir. I know all about you people. You can't play any of yourfraudful tricks on me. If there is a discount on that coin, I am sorry, but I am not going to make it good. I noticed that some of the audiencedidn't pay you anything at all. You let them go, without a word, but youcome after me because you think I'm a stranger and will put up withan extortion rather than have a scene. But you are mistaken thistime--you'll take that Swiss money or none. "

The youth stood there with the coin in his fingers, nonplused andbewildered; of course he had not understood a word. An English-speakingItalian spoke up, now, and said:

"You are misunderstanding the boy. He does not mean any harm. He didnot suppose you gave him so much money purposely, so he hurried back toreturn you the coin lest you might get away before you discovered yourmistake. Take it, and give him a penny--that will make everything smoothagain. "

I probably blushed, then, for there was occasion. Through theinterpreter I begged the boy's pardon, but I nobly refused to take backthe ten cents. I said I was accustomed to squandering large sums in thatway--it was the kind of person I was. Then I retired to make a note tothe effect that in Italy persons connected with the drama do not cheat. 

The episode with the showman reminds me of a dark chapter in my history. I once robbed an aged and blind beggar-woman of four dollars--in achurch. It happened this way. When I was out with the Innocents Abroad, the ship stopped in the Russian port of Odessa and I went ashore, withothers, to view the town. I got separated from the rest, and wanderedabout alone, until late in the afternoon, when I entered a Greek churchto see what it was like. When I was ready to leave, I observed twowrinkled old women standing stiffly upright against the inner wall, nearthe door, with their brown palms open to receive alms. I contributed tothe nearer one, and passed out. I had gone fifty yards, perhaps, when itoccurred to me that I must remain ashore all night, as I had heard thatthe ship's business would carry her away at four o'clock and keep heraway until morning. It was a little after four now. I had come ashorewith only two pieces of money, both about the same size, but differinglargely in value--one was a French gold piece worth four dollars, theother a Turkish coin worth two cents and a half. With a sudden andhorrified misgiving, I put my hand in my pocket, now, and sure enough, Ifetched out that Turkish penny!

Here was a situation. A hotel would require pay in advance --I must walkthe street all night, and perhaps be arrested as a suspicious character. There was but one way out of the difficulty--I flew back to the church, and softly entered. There stood the old woman yet, and in the palm ofthe nearest one still lay my gold piece. I was grateful. I creptclose, feeling unspeakably mean; I got my Turkish penny ready, and wasextending a trembling hand to make the nefarious exchange, when I hearda cough behind me. I jumped back as if I had been accused, and stoodquaking while a worshiper entered and passed up the aisle. 

I was there a year trying to steal that money; that is, it seemed ayear, though, of course, it must have been much less. The worshiperswent and came; there were hardly ever three in the church at once, butthere was always one or more. Every time I tried to commit my crimesomebody came in or somebody started out, and I was prevented; but atlast my opportunity came; for one moment there was nobody in the churchbut the two beggar-women and me. I whipped the gold piece out of thepoor old pauper's palm and dropped my Turkish penny in its place. Poorold thing, she murmured her thanks--they smote me to the heart. Then Isped away in a guilty hurry, and even when I was a mile from the churchI was still glancing back, every moment, to see if I was being pursued. 

That experience has been of priceless value and benefit to me; for Iresolved then, that as long as I lived I would never again rob a blindbeggar-woman in a church; and I have always kept my word. The mostpermanent lessons in morals are those which come, not of booky teaching, but of experience. 

CHAPTER XLVIII

[Beauty of Women--and of Old Masters]

In Milan we spent most of our time in the vast and beautiful Arcade orGallery, or whatever it is called. Blocks of tall new buildings of themost sumptuous sort, rich with decoration and graced with statues, thestreets between these blocks roofed over with glass at a great height, the pavements all of smooth and variegated marble, arranged in tastefulpatterns--little tables all over these marble streets, people sittingat them, eating, drinking, or smoking--crowds of other people strollingby--such is the Arcade. I should like to live in it all the time. Thewindows of the sumptuous restaurants stand open, and one breakfaststhere and enjoys the passing show. 

We wandered all over the town, enjoying whatever was going on in thestreets. We took one omnibus ride, and as I did not speak Italian andcould not ask the price, I held out some copper coins to the conductor, and he took two. Then he went and got his tariff card and showed methat he had taken only the right sum. So I made a note--Italian omnibusconductors do not cheat. 

Near the Cathedral I saw another instance of probity. An old man waspeddling dolls and toy fans. Two small American children bought fans, and one gave the old man a franc and three copper coins, and bothstarted away; but they were called back, and the franc and one of thecoppers were restored to them. Hence it is plain that in Italy, partiesconnected with the drama and the omnibus and the toy interests do notcheat. 

The stocks of goods in the shops were not extensive, generally. In thevestibule of what seemed to be a clothing store, we saw eight or tenwooden dummies grouped together, clothed in woolen business suits andeach marked with its price. One suit was marked forty-five francs--ninedollars. Harris stepped in and said he wanted a suit like that. Nothingeasier: the old merchant dragged in the dummy, brushed him off with abroom, stripped him, and shipped the clothes to the hotel. He said hedid not keep two suits of the same kind in stock, but manufactured asecond when it was needed to reclothe the dummy. 

In another quarter we found six Italians engaged in a violent quarrel. They danced fiercely about, gesticulating with their heads, their arms, their legs, their whole bodies; they would rush forward occasionallywith a sudden access of passion and shake their fists in each other'svery faces. We lost half an hour there, waiting to help cord up thedead, but they finally embraced each other affectionately, and thetrouble was over. The episode was interesting, but we could not haveafforded all the time to it if we had known nothing was going to come ofit but a reconciliation. Note made--in Italy, people who quarrel cheatthe spectator. 

We had another disappointment afterward. We approached a deeplyinterested crowd, and in the midst of it found a fellow wildlychattering and gesticulating over a box on the ground which was coveredwith a piece of old blanket. Every little while he would bend downand take hold of the edge of the blanket with the extreme tips of hisfingertips, as if to show there was no deception--chattering away allthe while--but always, just as I was expecting to see a wonder feat oflegerdemain, he would let go the blanket and rise to explain further. However, at last he uncovered the box and got out a spoon with a liquidin it, and held it fair and frankly around, for people to see that itwas all right and he was taking no advantage--his chatter became moreexcited than ever. I supposed he was going to set fire to the liquidand swallow it, so I was greatly wrought up and interested. I got a centready in one hand and a florin in the other, intending to give him theformer if he survived and the latter if he killed himself--for his losswould be my gain in a literary way, and I was willing to pay a fairprice for the item --but this impostor ended his intensely movingperformance by simply adding some powder to the liquid and polishingthe spoon! Then he held it aloft, and he could not have shown a wilderexultation if he had achieved an immortal miracle. The crowd applaudedin a gratified way, and it seemed to me that history speaks the truthwhen it says these children of the south are easily entertained. 

We spent an impressive hour in the noble cathedral, where long shaftsof tinted light were cleaving through the solemn dimness from the loftywindows and falling on a pillar here, a picture there, and a kneelingworshiper yonder. The organ was muttering, censers were swinging, candles were glinting on the distant altar and robed priests were filingsilently past them; the scene was one to sweep all frivolous thoughtsaway and steep the soul in a holy calm. A trim young American ladypaused a yard or two from me, fixed her eyes on the mellow sparksflecking the far-off altar, bent her head reverently a moment, thenstraightened up, kicked her train into the air with her heel, caught itdeftly in her hand, and marched briskly out. 

We visited the picture-galleries and the other regulation "sights" ofMilan--not because I wanted to write about them again, but to see ifI had learned anything in twelve years. I afterward visited the greatgalleries of Rome and Florence for the same purpose. I found I hadlearned one thing. When I wrote about the Old Masters before, I saidthe copies were better than the originals. That was a mistake of largedimensions. The Old Masters were still unpleasing to me, but they weretruly divine contrasted with the copies. The copy is to the original asthe pallid, smart, inane new wax-work group is to the vigorous, earnest, dignified group of living men and women whom it professes to duplicate. There is a mellow richness, a subdued color, in the old pictures, whichis to the eye what muffled and mellowed sound is to the ear. That is themerit which is most loudly praised in the old picture, and is the onewhich the copy most conspicuously lacks, and which the copyist must nothope to compass. It was generally conceded by the artists with whom Italked, that that subdued splendor, that mellow richness, is impartedto the picture by AGE. Then why should we worship the Old Master for it, who didn't impart it, instead of worshiping Old Time, who did? Perhapsthe picture was a clanging bell, until Time muffled it and sweetened it. 

In conversation with an artist in Venice, I asked: "What is it thatpeople see in the Old Masters? I have been in the Doge's palace and Isaw several acres of very bad drawing, very bad perspective, and veryincorrect proportions. Paul Veronese's dogs to not resemble dogs; allthe horses look like bladders on legs; one man had a RIGHT leg onthe left side of his body; in the large picture where the Emperor(Barbarossa?) is prostrate before the Pope, there are three men in theforeground who are over thirty feet high, if one may judge by the sizeof a kneeling little boy in the center of the foreground; and accordingto the same scale, the Pope is seven feet high and the Doge is ashriveled dwarf of four feet. "

The artist said:

"Yes, the Old Masters often drew badly; they did not care much for truthand exactness in minor details; but after all, in spite of bad drawing, bad perspective, bad proportions, and a choice of subjects which nolonger appeal to people as strongly as they did three hundred years ago, there is a SOMETHING about their pictures which is divine--a somethingwhich is above and beyond the art of any epoch since--a something whichwould be the despair of artists but that they never hope or expect toattain it, and therefore do not worry about it. "

That is what he said--and he said what he believed; and not onlybelieved, but felt. 

Reasoning--especially reasoning, without technical knowledge--must beput aside, in cases of this kind. It cannot assist the inquirer. Itwill lead him, in the most logical progression, to what, in the eyes ofartists, would be a most illogical conclusion. Thus: bad drawing, badproportion, bad perspective, indifference to truthful detail, colorwhich gets its merit from time, and not from the artist--these thingsconstitute the Old Master; conclusion, the Old Master was a bad painter, the Old Master was not an Old Master at all, but an Old Apprentice. Yourfriend the artist will grant your premises, but deny your conclusion;he will maintain that notwithstanding this formidable list of confesseddefects, there is still a something that is divine and unapproachableabout the Old Master, and that there is no arguing the fact away by anysystem of reasoning whatsoever. 

I can believe that. There are women who have an indefinable charm intheir faces which makes them beautiful to their intimates, but a coldstranger who tried to reason the matter out and find this beauty wouldfail. He would say of one of these women: This chin is too short, thisnose is too long, this forehead is too high, this hair is too red, thiscomplexion is too pallid, the perspective of the entire compositionis incorrect; conclusion, the woman is not beautiful. But her nearestfriend might say, and say truly, "Your premises are right, your logicis faultless, but your conclusion is wrong, nevertheless; she is an OldMaster--she is beautiful, but only to such as know her; it is a beautywhich cannot be formulated, but it is there, just the same. "

I found more pleasure in contemplating the Old Masters this time thanI did when I was in Europe in former years, but still it was a calmpleasure; there was nothing overheated about it. When I was in Venicebefore, I think I found no picture which stirred me much, but this timethere were two which enticed me to the Doge's palace day after day, andkept me there hours at a time. One of these was Tintoretto's three-acrepicture in the Great Council Chamber. When I saw it twelve years agoI was not strongly attracted to it--the guide told me it was aninsurrection in heaven--but this was an error. 

The movement of this great work is very fine. There are ten thousandfigures, and they are all doing something. There is a wonderful "go"to the whole composition. Some of the figures are driving headlongdownward, with clasped hands, others are swimming through thecloud-shoals--some on their faces, some on their backs--greatprocessions of bishops, martyrs, and angels are pouring swiftlycenterward from various outlying directions--everywhere is enthusiasticjoy, there is rushing movement everywhere. There are fifteen or twentyfigures scattered here and there, with books, but they cannot keep theirattention on their reading--they offer the books to others, but no onewishes to read, now. The Lion of St. Mark is there with his book; St. Mark is there with his pen uplifted; he and the Lion are lookingeach other earnestly in the face, disputing about the way to spell aword--the Lion looks up in rapt admiration while St. Mark spells. Thisis wonderfully interpreted by the artist. It is the master-stroke ofthis imcomparable painting. 

I visited the place daily, and never grew tired of looking at thatgrand picture. As I have intimated, the movement is almost unimaginablyvigorous; the figures are singing, hosannahing, and many are blowingtrumpets. So vividly is noise suggested, that spectators who becomeabsorbed in the picture almost always fall to shouting comments in eachother's ears, making ear-trumpets of their curved hands, fearing theymay not otherwise be heard. One often sees a tourist, with the eloquenttears pouring down his cheeks, funnel his hands at his wife's ear, andhears him roar through them, "OH, TO BE THERE AND AT REST!"

None but the supremely great in art can produce effects like these withthe silent brush. 

Twelve years ago I could not have appreciated this picture. One year agoI could not have appreciated it. My study of Art in Heidelberg has beena noble education to me. All that I am today in Art, I owe to that. 

The other great work which fascinated me was Bassano's immortal HairTrunk. This is in the Chamber of the Council of Ten. It is in one ofthe three forty-foot pictures which decorate the walls of the room. The composition of this picture is beyond praise. The Hair Trunk is nothurled at the stranger's head--so to speak--as the chief feature of animmortal work so often is; no, it is carefully guarded from prominence, it is subordinated, it is restrained, it is most deftly and cleverlyheld in reserve, it is most cautiously and ingeniously led up to, by themaster, and consequently when the spectator reaches it at last, heis taken unawares, he is unprepared, and it bursts upon him with astupefying surprise. 

One is lost in wonder at all the thought and care which this elaborateplanning must have cost. A general glance at the picture could neversuggest that there was a hair trunk in it; the Hair Trunk is notmentioned in the title even--which is, "Pope Alexander III. And the DogeZiani, the Conqueror of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa"; you see, the title is actually utilized to help divert attention from the Trunk;thus, as I say, nothing suggests the presence of the Trunk, by any hint, yet everything studiedly leads up to it, step by step. Let us examineinto this, and observe the exquisitely artful artlessness of the plan. 

At the extreme left end of the picture are a couple of women, one ofthem with a child looking over her shoulder at a wounded man sittingwith bandaged head on the ground. These people seem needless, but no, they are there for a purpose; one cannot look at them without seeingthe gorgeous procession of grandees, bishops, halberdiers, andbanner-bearers which is passing along behind them; one cannot see theprocession without feeling the curiosity to follow it and learn whitherit is going; it leads him to the Pope, in the center of the picture, whois talking with the bonnetless Doge--talking tranquilly, too, althoughwithin twelve feet of them a man is beating a drum, and not far from thedrummer two persons are blowing horns, and many horsemen are plungingand rioting about--indeed, twenty-two feet of this great work is all adeep and happy holiday serenity and Sunday-school procession, and thenwe come suddenly upon eleven and one-half feet of turmoil and racket andinsubordination. This latter state of things is not an accident, it hasits purpose. But for it, one would linger upon the Pope and the Doge, thinking them to be the motive and supreme feature of the picture;whereas one is drawn along, almost unconsciously, to see what thetrouble is about. Now at the very END of this riot, within four feet ofthe end of the picture, and full thirty-six feet from the beginningof it, the Hair Trunk bursts with an electrifying suddenness upon thespectator, in all its matchless perfection, and the great master'striumph is sweeping and complete. From that moment no other thing inthose forty feet of canvas has any charm; one sees the Hair Trunk, andthe Hair Trunk only--and to see it is to worship it. Bassano even placedobjects in the immediate vicinity of the Supreme Feature whose pretendedpurpose was to divert attention from it yet a little longer and thusdelay and augment the surprise; for instance, to the right of it he hasplaced a stooping man with a cap so red that it is sure to hold the eyefor a moment--to the left of it, some six feet away, he has placed ared-coated man on an inflated horse, and that coat plucks your eyeto that locality the next moment--then, between the Trunk and the redhorseman he has intruded a man, naked to his waist, who is carryinga fancy flour-sack on the middle of his back instead of on hisshoulder--this admirable feat interests you, of course--keeps you atbay a little longer, like a sock or a jacket thrown to the pursuingwolf--but at last, in spite of all distractions and detentions, the eyeof even the most dull and heedless spectator is sure to fall upon theWorld's Masterpiece, and in that moment he totters to his chair or leansupon his guide for support. 

Descriptions of such a work as this must necessarily be imperfect, yetthey are of value. The top of the Trunk is arched; the arch is a perfecthalf-circle, in the Roman style of architecture, for in the thenrapid decadence of Greek art, the rising influence of Rome was alreadybeginning to be felt in the art of the Republic. The Trunk is bound orbordered with leather all around where the lid joins the main body. Manycritics consider this leather too cold in tone; but I consider this itshighest merit, since it was evidently made so to emphasize by contrastthe impassioned fervor of the hasp. The highlights in this part of thework are cleverly managed, the MOTIF is admirably subordinated to theground tints, and the technique is very fine. The brass nail-heads arein the purest style of the early Renaissance. The strokes, here, arevery firm and bold--every nail-head is a portrait. The handle on theend of the Trunk has evidently been retouched--I think, with a piece ofchalk--but one can still see the inspiration of the Old Master in thetranquil, almost too tranquil, hang of it. The hair of this Trunk isREAL hair--so to speak--white in patches, brown in patches. The detailsare finely worked out; the repose proper to hair in a recumbent andinactive attitude is charmingly expressed. There is a feeling about thispart of the work which lifts it to the highest altitudes of art; thesense of sordid realism vanishes away--one recognizes that there is SOULhere. 

View this Trunk as you will, it is a gem, it is a marvel, it is amiracle. Some of the effects are very daring, approaching even tothe boldest flights of the rococo, the sirocco, and the Byzantineschools--yet the master's hand never falters--it moves on, calm, majestic, confident--and, with that art which conceals art, it finallycasts over the TOUT ENSEMBLE, by mysterious methods of its own, a subtlesomething which refines, subdues, etherealizes the arid components andendures them with the deep charm and gracious witchery of poesy. 

Among the art-treasures of Europe there are pictures which approach theHair Trunk--there are two which may be said to equal it, possibly--butthere is none that surpasses it. So perfect is the Hair Trunk that itmoves even persons who ordinarily have no feeling for art. When an Eriebaggagemaster saw it two years ago, he could hardly keep from checkingit; and once when a customs inspector was brought into its presence, he gazed upon it in silent rapture for some moments, then slowly andunconsciously placed one hand behind him with the palm uppermost, andgot out his chalk with the other. These facts speak for themselves. 

CHAPTER XLIX

[Hanged with a Golden Rope]

One lingers about the Cathedral a good deal, in Venice. There is astrong fascination about it--partly because it is so old, and partlybecause it is so ugly. Too many of the world's famous buildings fail ofone chief virtue--harmony; they are made up of a methodless mixtureof the ugly and the beautiful; this is bad; it is confusing, it isunrestful. One has a sense of uneasiness, of distress, without knowingwhy. But one is calm before St. Mark's, one is calm within it, onewould be calm on top of it, calm in the cellar; for its details aremasterfully ugly, no misplaced and impertinent beauties are intrudedanywhere; and the consequent result is a grand harmonious whole, ofsoothing, entrancing, tranquilizing, soul-satisfying ugliness. One'sadmiration of a perfect thing always grows, never declines; and this isthe surest evidence to him that it IS perfect. St. Mark's is perfect. Tome it soon grew to be so nobly, so augustly ugly, that it was difficultto stay away from it, even for a little while. Every time its squatdomes disappeared from my view, I had a despondent feeling; wheneverthey reappeared, I felt an honest rapture--I have not known any happierhours than those I daily spent in front of Florian's, looking across theGreat Square at it. Propped on its long row of low thick-legged columns, its back knobbed with domes, it seemed like a vast warty bug taking ameditative walk. 

St. Mark's is not the oldest building in the world, of course, but itseems the oldest, and looks the oldest--especially inside. 

When the ancient mosaics in its walls become damaged, they are repairedbut not altered; the grotesque old pattern is preserved. Antiquity hasa charm of its own, and to smarten it up would only damage it. One dayI was sitting on a red marble bench in the vestibule looking up at anancient piece of apprentice-work, in mosaic, illustrative of the commandto "multiply and replenish the earth. " The Cathedral itself had seemedvery old; but this picture was illustrating a period in history whichmade the building seem young by comparison. But I presently found anantique which was older than either the battered Cathedral or the dateassigned to the piece of history; it was a spiral-shaped fossil as largeas the crown of a hat; it was embedded in the marble bench, and hadbeen sat upon by tourists until it was worn smooth. Contrasted with theinconceivable antiquity of this modest fossil, those other things wereflippantly modern--jejune--mere matters of day-before-yesterday. Thesense of the oldness of the Cathedral vanished away under the influenceof this truly venerable presence. 

St. Mark's is monumental; it is an imperishable remembrancer of theprofound and simple piety of the Middle Ages. Whoever could ravish acolumn from a pagan temple, did it and contributed his swag to thisChristian one. So this fane is upheld by several hundred acquisitionsprocured in that peculiar way. In our day it would be immoral to go onthe highway to get bricks for a church, but it was no sin in the oldtimes. St. Mark's was itself the victim of a curious robbery once. Thething is set down in the history of Venice, but it might be smuggledinto the Arabian Nights and not seem out of place there:

Nearly four hundred and fifty years ago, a Candian named Stammato, inthe suite of a prince of the house of Este, was allowed to view theriches of St. Mark's. His sinful eye was dazzled and he hid himselfbehind an altar, with an evil purpose in his heart, but a priestdiscovered him and turned him out. Afterward he got in again--by falsekeys, this time. He went there, night after night, and worked hard andpatiently, all alone, overcoming difficulty after difficulty with histoil, and at last succeeded in removing a great brick of the marblepaneling which walled the lower part of the treasury; this block hefixed so that he could take it out and put it in at will. Afterthat, for weeks, he spent all his midnights in his magnificent mine, inspecting it in security, gloating over its marvels at his leisure, andalways slipping back to his obscure lodgings before dawn, with aduke's ransom under his cloak. He did not need to grab, haphazard, andrun--there was no hurry. He could make deliberate and well-consideredselections; he could consult his esthetic tastes. One comprehends howundisturbed he was, and how safe from any danger of interruption, when it is stated that he even carried off a unicorn's horn--a merecuriosity--which would not pass through the egress entire, but had tobe sawn in two--a bit of work which cost him hours of tedious labor. Hecontinued to store up his treasures at home until his occupation lostthe charm of novelty and became monotonous; then he ceased from it, contented. Well he might be; for his collection, raised to modernvalues, represented nearly fifty million dollars!

He could have gone home much the richest citizen of his country, andit might have been years before the plunder was missed; but he washuman--he could not enjoy his delight alone, he must have somebody totalk about it with. So he exacted a solemn oath from a Candian noblenamed Crioni, then led him to his lodgings and nearly took his breathaway with a sight of his glittering hoard. He detected a look in hisfriend's face which excited his suspicion, and was about to slip astiletto into him when Crioni saved himself by explaining that that lookwas only an expression of supreme and happy astonishment. Stammatomade Crioni a present of one of the state's principal jewels--a hugecarbuncle, which afterward figured in the Ducal cap of state--and thepair parted. Crioni went at once to the palace, denounced the criminal, and handed over the carbuncle as evidence. Stammato was arrested, tried, and condemned, with the old-time Venetian promptness. He was hangedbetween the two great columns in the Piazza--with a gilded rope, out ofcompliment to his love of gold, perhaps. He got no good of his booty atall--it was ALL recovered. 

In Venice we had a luxury which very seldom fell to our lot on thecontinent--a home dinner with a private family. If one could always stopwith private families, when traveling, Europe would have a charm whichit now lacks. As it is, one must live in the hotels, of course, and thatis a sorrowful business. A man accustomed to American food and Americandomestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe; but Ithink he would gradually waste away, and eventually die. 

He would have to do without his accustomed morning meal. That is tooformidable a change altogether; he would necessarily suffer from it. Hecould get the shadow, the sham, the base counterfeit of that meal; butit would do him no good, and money could not buy the reality. 

To particularize: the average American's simplest and commonest form ofbreakfast consists of coffee and beefsteak; well, in Europe, coffee isan unknown beverage. You can get what the European hotel-keeper thinksis coffee, but it resembles the real thing as hypocrisy resemblesholiness. It is a feeble, characterless, uninspiring sort of stuff, andalmost as undrinkable as if it had been made in an American hotel. Themilk used for it is what the French call "Christian" milk--milk whichhas been baptized. 

After a few months' acquaintance with European "coffee, " one's mindweakens, and his faith with it, and he begins to wonder if the richbeverage of home, with its clotted layer of yellow cream on top of it, is not a mere dream, after all, and a thing which never existed. 

Next comes the European bread--fair enough, good enough, after afashion, but cold; cold and tough, and unsympathetic; and never anychange, never any variety--always the same tiresome thing. 

Next, the butter--the sham and tasteless butter; no salt in it, and madeof goodness knows what. 

Then there is the beefsteak. They have it in Europe, but they don't knowhow to cook it. Neither will they cut it right. It comes on the table ina small, round pewter platter. It lies in the center of this platter, in a bordering bed of grease-soaked potatoes; it is the size, shape, andthickness of a man's hand with the thumb and fingers cut off. It is alittle overdone, is rather dry, it tastes pretty insipidly, it rouses noenthusiasm. 

Imagine a poor exile contemplating that inert thing; and imagine anangel suddenly sweeping down out of a better land and setting before hima mighty porterhouse steak an inch and a half thick, hot and sputteringfrom the griddle; dusted with a fragrant pepper; enriched withlittle melting bits of butter of the most unimpeachable freshness andgenuineness; the precious juices of the meat trickling out and joiningthe gravy, archipelagoed with mushrooms; a township or two of tender, yellowish fat gracing an outlying district of this ample county ofbeefsteak; the long white bone which divides the sirloin from thetenderloin still in its place; and imagine that the angel also adds agreat cup of American home-made coffee, with a cream a-froth on top, some real butter, firm and yellow and fresh, some smoking hot-biscuits, a plate of hot buckwheat cakes, with transparent syrup--could wordsdescribe the gratitude of this exile?

The European dinner is better than the European breakfast, but it hasits faults and inferiorities; it does not satisfy. He comes to the tableeager and hungry; he swallows his soup--there is an undefinablelack about it somewhere; thinks the fish is going to be the thing hewants--eats it and isn't sure; thinks the next dish is perhaps the onethat will hit the hungry place--tries it, and is conscious that therewas a something wanting about it, also. And thus he goes on, from dishto dish, like a boy after a butterfly which just misses getting caughtevery time it alights, but somehow doesn't get caught after all; and atthe end the exile and the boy have fared about alike; the one is full, but grievously unsatisfied, the other has had plenty of exercise, plentyof interest, and a fine lot of hopes, but he hasn't got any butterfly. There is here and there an American who will say he can remember risingfrom a European table d'hôte perfectly satisfied; but we must notoverlook the fact that there is also here and there an American who willlie. 

The number of dishes is sufficient; but then it is such a monotonousvariety of UNSTRIKING dishes. It is an inane dead-level of"fair-to-middling. " There is nothing to ACCENT it. Perhaps if the roastof mutton or of beef--a big, generous one--were brought on the table andcarved in full view of the client, that might give the right sense ofearnestness and reality to the thing; but they don't do that, they passthe sliced meat around on a dish, and so you are perfectly calm, it doesnot stir you in the least. Now a vast roast turkey, stretched on thebroad of his back, with his heels in the air and the rich juices oozingfrom his fat sides ... But I may as well stop there, for they would notknow how to cook him. They can't even cook a chicken respectably; and asfor carving it, they do that with a hatchet. 

This is about the customary table d'hôte bill in summer:

 Soup (characterless). 

 Fish--sole, salmon, or whiting--usually tolerably good. 

 Roast--mutton or beef--tasteless--and some last year's potatoes. 

 A pate, or some other made dish--usually good--"considering. "

 One vegetable--brought on in state, and all alone--usually insipid lentils, or string-beans, or indifferent asparagus. 

 Roast chicken, as tasteless as paper. 

 Lettuce-salad--tolerably good. 

 Decayed strawberries or cherries. 

 Sometimes the apricots and figs are fresh, but this is no advantage, as these fruits are of no account anyway. 

 The grapes are generally good, and sometimes there is a tolerably good peach, by mistake. 

The variations of the above bill are trifling. After a fortnight onediscovers that the variations are only apparent, not real; in the thirdweek you get what you had the first, and in the fourth the week you getwhat you had the second. Three or four months of this weary samenesswill kill the robustest appetite. 

It has now been many months, at the present writing, since I have hada nourishing meal, but I shall soon have one--a modest, private affair, all to myself. I have selected a few dishes, and made out a little billof fare, which will go home in the steamer that precedes me, and be hotwhen I arrive--as follows:

 Radishes. Baked apples, with cream Fried oysters; stewed oysters. Frogs. American coffee, with real cream. American butter. Fried chicken, Southern style. Porter-house steak. Saratoga potatoes. Broiled chicken, American style. Hot biscuits, Southern style. Hot wheat-bread, Southern style. Hot buckwheat cakes. American toast. Clear maple syrup. Virginia bacon, broiled. Blue points, on the half shell. Cherry-stone clams. San Francisco mussels, steamed. Oyster soup. Clam Soup. Philadelphia Terapin soup. Oysters roasted in shell-Northern style. Soft-shell crabs. Connecticut shad. Baltimore perch. Brook trout, from Sierra Nevadas. Lake trout, from Tahoe. Sheep-head and croakers, from New Orleans. Black bass from the Mississippi. American roast beef. Roast turkey, Thanksgiving style. Cranberry sauce. Celery. Roast wild turkey. Woodcock. Canvas-back-duck, from Baltimore. Prairie liens, from Illinois. Missouri partridges, broiled. 'Possum. Coon. Boston bacon and beans. Bacon and greens, Southern style. Hominy. Boiled onions. Turnips. Pumpkin. Squash. Asparagus. Butter beans. Sweet potatoes. Lettuce. Succotash. String beans. Mashed potatoes. Catsup. Boiled potatoes, in their skins. New potatoes, minus the skins. Early rose potatoes, roasted in the ashes, Southern style, served hot. Sliced tomatoes, with sugar or vinegar. Stewed tomatoes. Green corn, cut from the ear and served with butter and pepper. Green corn, on the ear. Hot corn-pone, with chitlings, Southern style. Hot hoe-cake, Southern style. Hot egg-bread, Southern style. Hot light-bread, Southern style. Buttermilk. Iced sweet milk. Apple dumplings, with real cream. Apple pie. Apple fritters. Apple puffs, Southern style. Peach cobbler, Southern style Peach pie. American mince pie. Pumpkin pie. Squash pie. All sorts of American pastry. 

Fresh American fruits of all sorts, including strawberries which arenot to be doled out as if they were jewelry, but in a more liberal way. Ice-water--not prepared in the ineffectual goblet, but in the sincereand capable refrigerator. 

Americans intending to spend a year or so in European hotels willdo well to copy this bill and carry it along. They will find it anexcellent thing to get up an appetite with, in the dispiriting presenceof the squalid table d'hôte. 

Foreigners cannot enjoy our food, I suppose, any more than we canenjoy theirs. It is not strange; for tastes are made, not born. I mightglorify my bill of fare until I was tired; but after all, the Scotchmanwould shake his head and say, "Where's your haggis?" and the Fijianwould sigh and say, "Where's your missionary?"

I have a neat talent in matters pertaining to nourishment. This hasmet with professional recognition. I have often furnished recipes forcook-books. Here are some designs for pies and things, which I recentlyprepared for a friend's projected cook-book, but as I forgot to furnishdiagrams and perspectives, they had to be left out, of course. 

RECIPE FOR AN ASH-CAKE Take a lot of water and add to it a lot of coarseIndian-meal and about a quarter of a lot of salt. Mix well together, knead into the form of a "pone, " and let the pone stand awhile--not onits edge, but the other way. Rake away a place among the embers, lay itthere, and cover it an inch deep with hot ashes. When it is done, removeit; blow off all the ashes but one layer; butter that one and eat. 

N. B. --No household should ever be without this talisman. It has beennoticed that tramps never return for another ash-cake. ----------

RECIPE FOR NEW ENGLISH PIE To make this excellent breakfast dish, proceed as follows: Take a sufficiency of water and a sufficiency offlour, and construct a bullet-proof dough. Work this into the form ofa disk, with the edges turned up some three-fourths of an inch. Toughenand kiln-dry in a couple days in a mild but unvarying temperature. Construct a cover for this redoubt in the same way and of the samematerial. Fill with stewed dried apples; aggravate with cloves, lemon-peel, and slabs of citron; add two portions of New Orleans sugars, then solder on the lid and set in a safe place till it petrifies. Servecold at breakfast and invite your enemy. ----------

RECIPE FOR GERMAN COFFEE Take a barrel of water and bring it to a boil;rub a chicory berry against a coffee berry, then convey the former intothe water. Continue the boiling and evaporation until the intensity ofthe flavor and aroma of the coffee and chicory has been diminished toa proper degree; then set aside to cool. Now unharness the remains of aonce cow from the plow, insert them in a hydraulic press, and when youshall have acquired a teaspoon of that pale-blue juice which a Germansuperstition regards as milk, modify the malignity of its strength in abucket of tepid water and ring up the breakfast. Mix the beverage in acold cup, partake with moderation, and keep a wet rag around your headto guard against over-excitement. 

TO CARVE FOWLS IN THE GERMAN FASHION Use a club, and avoid the joints. 

CHAPTER L

[Titian Bad and Titian Good]

I wonder why some things are? For instance, Art is allowed as muchindecent license today as in earlier times--but the privileges ofLiterature in this respect have been sharply curtailed within thepast eighty or ninety years. Fielding and Smollett could portray thebeastliness of their day in the beastliest language; we have plentyof foul subjects to deal with in our day, but we are not allowed toapproach them very near, even with nice and guarded forms of speech. But not so with Art. The brush may still deal freely with any subject, however revolting or indelicate. It makes a body ooze sarcasm at everypore, to go about Rome and Florence and see what this last generationhas been doing with the statues. These works, which had stood ininnocent nakedness for ages, are all fig-leaved now. Yes, every one ofthem. Nobody noticed their nakedness before, perhaps; nobody can helpnoticing it now, the fig-leaf makes it so conspicuous. But the comicalthing about it all, is, that the fig-leaf is confined to cold and pallidmarble, which would be still cold and unsuggestive without this sham andostentatious symbol of modesty, whereas warm-blood paintings which doreally need it have in no case been furnished with it. 

At the door of the Uffizzi, in Florence, one is confronted by statuesof a man and a woman, noseless, battered, black with accumulatedgrime--they hardly suggest human beings--yet these ridiculous creatureshave been thoughtfully and conscientiously fig-leaved by this fastidiousgeneration. You enter, and proceed to that most-visited little gallerythat exists in the world--the Tribune--and there, against the wall, without obstructing rag or leaf, you may look your fill upon thefoulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses--Titian'sVenus. It isn't that she is naked and stretched out on a bed--no, it isthe attitude of one of her arms and hand. If I ventured to describethat attitude, there would be a fine howl--but there the Venus lies, foranybody to gloat over that wants to--and there she has a right to lie, for she is a work of art, and Art has its privileges. I saw younggirls stealing furtive glances at her; I saw young men gaze long andabsorbedly at her; I saw aged, infirm men hang upon her charms with apathetic interest. How I should like to describe her--just to see whata holy indignation I could stir up in the world--just to hear theunreflecting average man deliver himself about my grossness andcoarseness, and all that. The world says that no worded description ofa moving spectacle is a hundredth part as moving as the same spectacleseen with one's own eyes--yet the world is willing to let its sonand its daughter and itself look at Titian's beast, but won't standa description of it in words. Which shows that the world is not asconsistent as it might be. 

There are pictures of nude women which suggest no impure thought--Iam well aware of that. I am not railing at such. What I am trying toemphasize is the fact that Titian's Venus is very far from being one ofthat sort. Without any question it was painted for a bagnio and it wasprobably refused because it was a trifle too strong. In truth, it is toostrong for any place but a public Art Gallery. Titian has two Venuses inthe Tribune; persons who have seen them will easily remember which one Iam referring to. 

In every gallery in Europe there are hideous pictures of blood, carnage, oozing brains, putrefaction--pictures portraying intolerablesuffering--pictures alive with every conceivable horror, wrought out indreadful detail--and similar pictures are being put on the canvas everyday and publicly exhibited--without a growl from anybody--for theyare innocent, they are inoffensive, being works of art. But supposea literary artist ventured to go into a painstaking and elaboratedescription of one of these grisly things--the critics would skin himalive. Well, let it go, it cannot be helped; Art retains her privileges, Literature has lost hers. Somebody else may cipher out the whys and thewherefores and the consistencies of it--I haven't got time. 

Titian's Venus defiles and disgraces the Tribune, there is no softeningthat fact, but his "Moses" glorifies it. The simple truthfulness ofits noble work wins the heart and the applause of every visitor, be helearned or ignorant. After wearying one's self with the acres of stuffy, sappy, expressionless babies that populate the canvases of the OldMasters of Italy, it is refreshing to stand before this peerless childand feel that thrill which tells you you are at last in the presence ofthe real thing. This is a human child, this is genuine. You have seenhim a thousand times--you have seen him just as he is here--and youconfess, without reserve, that Titian WAS a Master. The doll-faces ofother painted babes may mean one thing, they may mean another, butwith the "Moses" the case is different. The most famous of all theart-critics has said, "There is no room for doubt, here--plainly thischild is in trouble. "

I consider that the "Moses" has no equal among the works of the OldMasters, except it be the divine Hair Trunk of Bassano. I feel sure thatif all the other Old Masters were lost and only these two preserved, theworld would be the gainer by it. 

My sole purpose in going to Florence was to see this immortal "Moses, "and by good fortune I was just in time, for they were already preparingto remove it to a more private and better-protected place because afashion of robbing the great galleries was prevailing in Europe at thetime. 

I got a capable artist to copy the picture; Pannemaker, the engraver ofDoré's books, engraved it for me, and I have the pleasure of laying itbefore the reader in this volume. 

We took a turn to Rome and some other Italian cities--then to Munich, and thence to Paris--partly for exercise, but mainly because thesethings were in our projected program, and it was only right that weshould be faithful to it. 

From Paris I branched out and walked through Holland and Belgium, procuring an occasional lift by rail or canal when tired, and I hada tolerably good time of it "by and large. " I worked Spain and otherregions through agents to save time and shoe-leather. 

We crossed to England, and then made the homeward passage in theCunarder GALLIA, a very fine ship. I was glad to get home--immeasurablyglad; so glad, in fact, that it did not seem possible that anythingcould ever get me out of the country again. I had not enjoyed a pleasureabroad which seemed to me to compare with the pleasure I felt in seeingNew York harbor again. Europe has many advantages which we have not, butthey do not compensate for a good many still more valuable ones whichexist nowhere but in our own country. Then we are such a homeless lotwhen we are over there! So are Europeans themselves, for that matter. They live in dark and chilly vast tombs--costly enough, maybe, butwithout conveniences. To be condemned to live as the average Europeanfamily lives would make life a pretty heavy burden to the averageAmerican family. 

On the whole, I think that short visits to Europe are better for us thanlong ones. The former preserve us from becoming Europeanized; they keepour pride of country intact, and at the same time they intensify ouraffection for our country and our people; whereas long visits have theeffect of dulling those feelings--at least in the majority of cases. Ithink that one who mixes much with Americans long resident abroad mustarrive at this conclusion. 

APPENDIX Nothing gives such weight and dignity to a book as an Appendix. --HERODOTUS

APPENDIX A. 

The Portier

Omar Khay'am, the poet-prophet of Persia, writing more than eighthundred years ago, has said:

"In the four parts of the earth are many that are able to write learnedbooks, many that are able to lead armies, and many also that are able togovern kingdoms and empires; but few there be that can keep a hotel. "

A word about the European hotel PORTIER. He is a most admirableinvention, a most valuable convenience. He always wears a conspicuousuniform; he can always be found when he is wanted, for he sticks closelyto his post at the front door; he is as polite as a duke; he speaksfrom four to ten languages; he is your surest help and refuge in time oftrouble or perplexity. He is not the clerk, he is not the landlord; heranks above the clerk, and represents the landlord, who is seldom seen. Instead of going to the clerk for information, as we do at home, yougo to the portier. It is the pride of our average hotel clerk to knownothing whatever; it is the pride of the portier to know everything. Youask the portier at what hours the trains leave--he tells you instantly;or you ask him who is the best physician in town; or what is the hacktariff; or how many children the mayor has; or what days the galleriesare open, and whether a permit is required, and where you are to get it, and what you must pay for it; or when the theaters open and close, whatthe plays are to be, and the price of seats; or what is the newest thingin hats; or how the bills of mortality average; or "who struck BillyPatterson. " It does not matter what you ask him: in nine cases out often he knows, and in the tenth case he will find out for you before youcan turn around three times. There is nothing he will not put his handto. Suppose you tell him you wish to go from Hamburg to Peking by theway of Jericho, and are ignorant of routes and prices--the next morninghe will hand you a piece of paper with the whole thing worked out on itto the last detail. Before you have been long on European soil, you findyourself still SAYING you are relying on Providence, but when you cometo look closer you will see that in reality you are relying on theportier. He discovers what is puzzling you, or what is troubling you, or what your need is, before you can get the half of it out, and hepromptly says, "Leave that to me. " Consequently, you easily drift intothe habit of leaving everything to him. There is a certain embarrassmentabout applying to the average American hotel clerk, a certain hesitancy, a sense of insecurity against rebuff; but you feel no embarrassment inyour intercourse with the portier; he receives your propositions with anenthusiasm which cheers, and plunges into their accomplishment with analacrity which almost inebriates. The more requirements you can pileupon him, the better he likes it. Of course the result is that you ceasefrom doing anything for yourself. He calls a hack when you want one;puts you into it; tells the driver whither to take you; receives youlike a long-lost child when you return; sends you about your business, does all the quarreling with the hackman himself, and pays him his moneyout of his own pocket. He sends for your theater tickets, and pays forthem; he sends for any possible article you can require, be it a doctor, an elephant, or a postage stamp; and when you leave, at last, you willfind a subordinate seated with the cab-driver who will put you in yourrailway compartment, buy your tickets, have your baggage weighed, bringyou the printed tags, and tell you everything is in your bill and paidfor. At home you get such elaborate, excellent, and willing service asthis only in the best hotels of our large cities; but in Europe you getit in the mere back country-towns just as well. 

What is the secret of the portier's devotion? It is very simple: he getsFEES, AND NO SALARY. His fee is pretty closely regulated, too. If youstay a week, you give him five marks--a dollar and a quarter, or abouteighteen cents a day. If you stay a month, you reduce this averagesomewhat. If you stay two or three months or longer, you cut it downhalf, or even more than half. If you stay only one day, you give theportier a mark. 

The head waiter's fee is a shade less than the portier's; the Boots, whonot only blacks your boots and brushes your clothes, but is usually theporter and handles your baggage, gets a somewhat smaller fee than thehead waiter; the chambermaid's fee ranks below that of the Boots. Youfee only these four, and no one else. A German gentleman told me thatwhen he remained a week in a hotel, he gave the portier five marks, thehead waiter four, the Boots three, and the chambermaid two; and if hestayed three months he divided ninety marks among them, in about theabove proportions. Ninety marks make $22. 50. 

None of these fees are ever paid until you leave the hotel, though itbe a year--except one of these four servants should go away in the meantime; in that case he will be sure to come and bid you good-by andgive you the opportunity to pay him what is fairly coming to him. Itis considered very bad policy to fee a servant while you are still toremain longer in the hotel, because if you gave him too little he mightneglect you afterward, and if you gave him too much he might neglectsomebody else to attend to you. It is considered best to keep hisexpectations "on a string" until your stay is concluded. 

I do not know whether hotel servants in New York get any wages or not, but I do know that in some of the hotels there the feeing system invogue is a heavy burden. The waiter expects a quarter at breakfast--andgets it. You have a different waiter at luncheon, and so he gets aquarter. Your waiter at dinner is another stranger--consequently he getsa quarter. The boy who carries your satchel to your room and lights yourgas fumbles around and hangs around significantly, and you fee him toget rid of him. Now you may ring for ice-water; and ten minutes laterfor a lemonade; and ten minutes afterward, for a cigar; and by and byfor a newspaper--and what is the result? Why, a new boy has appearedevery time and fooled and fumbled around until you have paid himsomething. Suppose you boldly put your foot down, and say it is thehotel's business to pay its servants? You will have to ring your bellten or fifteen times before you get a servant there; and when he goesoff to fill your order you will grow old and infirm before you see himagain. You may struggle nobly for twenty-four hours, maybe, if you arean adamantine sort of person, but in the mean time you will have beenso wretchedly served, and so insolently, that you will haul down yourcolors, and go to impoverishing yourself with fees. 

It seems to me that it would be a happy idea to import the Europeanfeeing system into America. I believe it would result in getting eventhe bells of the Philadelphia hotels answered, and cheerful servicerendered. 

The greatest American hotels keep a number of clerks and a cashier, andpay them salaries which mount up to a considerable total in the courseof a year. The great continental hotels keep a cashier on a triflingsalary, and a portier WHO PAYS THE HOTEL A SALARY. By the latter systemboth the hotel and the public save money and are better served than byour system. One of our consuls told me that a portier of a great Berlinhotel paid five thousand dollars a year for his position, and yetcleared six thousand dollars for himself. The position of portier in thechief hotels of Saratoga, Long Branch, New York, and similar centers ofresort, would be one which the holder could afford to pay even more thanfive thousand dollars for, perhaps. 

When we borrowed the feeing fashion from Europe a dozen years ago, thesalary system ought to have been discontinued, of course. We might makethis correction now, I should think. And we might add the portier, too. Since I first began to study the portier, I have had opportunities toobserve him in the chief cities of Germany, Switzerland, and Italy;and the more I have seen of him the more I have wished that he might beadopted in America, and become there, as he is in Europe, the stranger'sguardian angel. 

Yes, what was true eight hundred years ago, is just as true today: "Fewthere be that can keep a hotel. " Perhaps it is because the landlords andtheir subordinates have in too many cases taken up their trade withoutfirst learning it. In Europe the trade of hotel-keeper is taught. Theapprentice begins at the bottom of the ladder and masters the severalgrades one after the other. Just as in our country printing-offices theapprentice first learns how to sweep out and bring water; then learnsto "roll"; then to sort "pi"; then to set type; and finally roundsand completes his education with job-work and press-work; so thelandlord-apprentice serves as call-boy; then as under-waiter; then asa parlor waiter; then as head waiter, in which position he often has tomake out all the bills; then as clerk or cashier; then as portier. Histrade is learned now, and by and by he will assume the style and dignityof landlord, and be found conducting a hotel of his own. 

Now in Europe, the same as in America, when a man has kept a hotelso thoroughly well during a number of years as to give it a greatreputation, he has his reward. He can live prosperously on thatreputation. He can let his hotel run down to the last degree ofshabbiness and yet have it full of people all the time. For instance, there is the Hotel de Ville, in Milan. It swarms with mice and fleas, and if the rest of the world were destroyed it could furnish dirt enoughto start another one with. The food would create an insurrection in apoorhouse; and yet if you go outside to get your meals that hotel makesup its loss by overcharging you on all sorts of trifles--and withoutmaking any denials or excuses about it, either. But the Hotel de Ville'sold excellent reputation still keeps its dreary rooms crowded withtravelers who would be elsewhere if they had only some wise friend towarn them. 

APPENDIX B. 

Heidelberg Castle Heidelberg Castle must have been very beautiful beforethe French battered and bruised and scorched it two hundred years ago. The stone is brown, with a pinkish tint, and does not seem to staineasily. The dainty and elaborate ornamentation upon its two chief frontsis as delicately carved as if it had been intended for the interior ofa drawing-room rather than for the outside of a house. Many fruit andflower clusters, human heads and grim projecting lions' heads are stillas perfect in every detail as if they were new. But the statues whichare ranked between the windows have suffered. These are life-sizestatues of old-time emperors, electors, and similar grandees, clad inmail and bearing ponderous swords. Some have lost an arm, some a head, and one poor fellow is chopped off at the middle. There is a saying thatif a stranger will pass over the drawbridge and walk across the court tothe castle front without saying anything, he can make a wish and it willbe fulfilled. But they say that the truth of this thing has never hada chance to be proved, for the reason that before any stranger can walkfrom the drawbridge to the appointed place, the beauty of the palacefront will extort an exclamation of delight from him. 

A ruin must be rightly situated, to be effective. This one could nothave been better placed. It stands upon a commanding elevation, it isburied in green woods, there is no level ground about it, but, on thecontrary, there are wooded terraces upon terraces, and one looks downthrough shining leaves into profound chasms and abysses where twilightreigns and the sun cannot intrude. Nature knows how to garnish a ruin toget the best effect. One of these old towers is split down the middle, and one half has tumbled aside. It tumbled in such a way as to establishitself in a picturesque attitude. Then all it lacked was a fittingdrapery, and Nature has furnished that; she has robed the rugged mass inflowers and verdure, and made it a charm to the eye. The standing halfexposes its arched and cavernous rooms to you, like open, toothlessmouths; there, too, the vines and flowers have done their work of grace. The rear portion of the tower has not been neglected, either, but isclothed with a clinging garment of polished ivy which hides the woundsand stains of time. Even the top is not left bare, but is crowned with aflourishing group of trees and shrubs. Misfortune has done for this oldtower what it has done for the human character sometimes--improved it. 

A gentleman remarked, one day, that it might have been fine to live inthe castle in the day of its prime, but that we had one advantage whichits vanished inhabitants lacked--the advantage of having a charming ruinto visit and muse over. But that was a hasty idea. Those people had theadvantage of US. They had the fine castle to live in, and they couldcross the Rhine valley and muse over the stately ruin of Trifelsbesides. The Trifels people, in their day, five hundred years ago, couldgo and muse over majestic ruins that have vanished, now, to the laststone. There have always been ruins, no doubt; and there have alwaysbeen pensive people to sigh over them, and asses to scratch upon themtheir names and the important date of their visit. Within a hundredyears after Adam left Eden, the guide probably gave the usual generalflourish with his hand and said: "Place where the animals were named, ladies and gentlemen; place where the tree of the forbidden fruit stood;exact spot where Adam and Eve first met; and here, ladies and gentlemen, adorned and hallowed by the names and addresses of three generations oftourists, we have the crumbling remains of Cain's altar--fine old ruin!"Then, no doubt, he taxed them a shekel apiece and let them go. 

An illumination of Heidelberg Castle is one of the sights of Europe. The Castle's picturesque shape; its commanding situation, midway up thesteep and wooded mountainside; its vast size--these features combine tomake an illumination a most effective spectacle. It is necessarily anexpensive show, and consequently rather infrequent. Therefore wheneverone of these exhibitions is to take place, the news goes about in thepapers and Heidelberg is sure to be full of people on that night. I andmy agent had one of these opportunities, and improved it. 

About half past seven on the appointed evening we crossed the lowerbridge, with some American students, in a pouring rain, and started upthe road which borders the Neunheim side of the river. This roadway wasdensely packed with carriages and foot-passengers; the former of allages, and the latter of all ages and both sexes. This black and solidmass was struggling painfully onward, through the slop, the darkness, and the deluge. We waded along for three-quarters of a mile, and finallytook up a position in an unsheltered beer-garden directly oppositethe Castle. We could not SEE the Castle--or anything else, for thatmatter--but we could dimly discern the outlines of the mountain over theway, through the pervading blackness, and knew whereabouts the Castlewas located. We stood on one of the hundred benches in the garden, underour umbrellas; the other ninety-nine were occupied by standing men andwomen, and they also had umbrellas. All the region round about, and upand down the river-road, was a dense wilderness of humanity hiddenunder an unbroken pavement of carriage tops and umbrellas. Thus we stoodduring two drenching hours. No rain fell on my head, but the convergingwhalebone points of a dozen neighboring umbrellas poured little coolingsteams of water down my neck, and sometimes into my ears, and thus keptme from getting hot and impatient. I had the rheumatism, too, andhad heard that this was good for it. Afterward, however, I was led tobelieve that the water treatment is NOT good for rheumatism. There wereeven little girls in that dreadful place. A man held one in his arms, just in front of me, for as much as an hour, with umbrella-drippingssoaking into her clothing all the time. 

In the circumstances, two hours was a good while for us to have to wait, but when the illumination did at last come, we felt repaid. It cameunexpectedly, of course--things always do, that have been long lookedand longed for. With a perfectly breath-taking suddenness several mastsheaves of varicolored rockets were vomited skyward out of the blackthroats of the Castle towers, accompanied by a thundering crash ofsound, and instantly every detail of the prodigious ruin stood revealedagainst the mountainside and glowing with an almost intolerable splendorof fire and color. For some little time the whole building was ablinding crimson mass, the towers continued to spout thick columns ofrockets aloft, and overhead the sky was radiant with arrowy bolts whichclove their way to the zenith, paused, curved gracefully downward, thenburst into brilliant fountain-sprays of richly colored sparks. The redfires died slowly down, within the Castle, and presently the shell grewnearly black outside; the angry glare that shone out through the brokenarches and innumerable sashless windows, now, reproduced the aspectwhich the Castle must have borne in the old time when the Frenchspoilers saw the monster bonfire which they had made there fading andspoiling toward extinction. 

While we still gazed and enjoyed, the ruin was suddenly enveloped inrolling and rumbling volumes of vaporous green fire; then in dazzlingpurple ones; then a mixture of many colors followed, then drowned thegreat fabric in its blended splendors. Meantime the nearest bridge hadbeen illuminated, and from several rafts anchored in the river, meteorshowers of rockets, Roman candles, bombs, serpents, and Catharine wheelswere being discharged in wasteful profusion into the sky--a marveloussight indeed to a person as little used to such spectacles as I was. Fora while the whole region about us seemed as bright as day, and yet therain was falling in torrents all the time. The evening's entertainmentpresently closed, and we joined the innumerable caravan of half-drownedstrangers, and waded home again. 

The Castle grounds are very ample and very beautiful; and as they joinedthe Hotel grounds, with no fences to climb, but only some nobly shadedstone stairways to descend, we spent a part of nearly every day inidling through their smooth walks and leafy groves. There was anattractive spot among the trees where were a great many wooden tablesand benches; and there one could sit in the shade and pretend to sip athis foamy beaker of beer while he inspected the crowd. I say pretend, because I only pretended to sip, without really sipping. That is thepolite way; but when you are ready to go, you empty the beaker at adraught. There was a brass band, and it furnished excellent music everyafternoon. Sometimes so many people came that every seat was occupied, every table filled. And never a rough in the assemblage--all nicelydressed fathers and mothers, young gentlemen and ladies and children;and plenty of university students and glittering officers; with here andthere a gray professor, or a peaceful old lady with her knitting; andalways a sprinkling of gawky foreigners. Everybody had his glass ofbeer before him, or his cup of coffee, or his bottle of wine, or hishot cutlet and potatoes; young ladies chatted, or fanned themselves, orwrought at their crocheting or embroidering; the students fed sugar totheir dogs, or discussed duels, or illustrated new fencing trickswith their little canes; and everywhere was comfort and enjoyment, andeverywhere peace and good-will to men. The trees were jubilant withbirds, and the paths with rollicking children. One could have a seat inthat place and plenty of music, any afternoon, for about eight cents, ora family ticket for the season for two dollars. 

For a change, when you wanted one, you could stroll to the Castle, andburrow among its dungeons, or climb about its ruined towers, or visitits interior shows--the great Heidelberg Tun, for instance. Everybodyhas heard of the great Heidelberg Tun, and most people have seen it, nodoubt. It is a wine-cask as big as a cottage, and some traditions sayit holds eighteen thousand bottles, and other traditions say it holdseighteen hundred million barrels. I think it likely that one of thesestatements is a mistake, and the other is a lie. However, the merematter of capacity is a thing of no sort of consequence, since the caskis empty, and indeed has always been empty, history says. An empty caskthe size of a cathedral could excite but little emotion in me. 

I do not see any wisdom in building a monster cask to hoard up emptinessin, when you can get a better quality, outside, any day, free ofexpense. What could this cask have been built for? The more one studiesover that, the more uncertain and unhappy he becomes. Some historianssay that thirty couples, some say thirty thousand couples, can dance onthe head of this cask at the same time. Even this does not seem to meto account for the building of it. It does not even throw light on it. Aprofound and scholarly Englishman--a specialist--who had made the greatHeidelberg Tun his sole study for fifteen years, told me he had at lastsatisfied himself that the ancients built it to make German cream in. He said that the average German cow yielded from one to two and halfteaspoons of milk, when she was not worked in the plow or the hay-wagonmore than eighteen or nineteen hours a day. This milk was very sweet andgood, and a beautiful transparent bluish tint; but in order to get creamfrom it in the most economical way, a peculiar process was necessary. Now he believed that the habit of the ancients was to collect severalmilkings in a teacup, pour it into the Great Tun, fill up with water, and then skim off the cream from time to time as the needs of the GermanEmpire demanded. 

This began to look reasonable. It certainly began to account for theGerman cream which I had encountered and marveled over in so many hotelsand restaurants. But a thought struck me--

"Why did not each ancient dairyman take his own teacup of milk and hisown cask of water, and mix them, without making a government matter ofit?'

"Where could he get a cask large enough to contain the right proportionof water?"

Very true. It was plain that the Englishman had studied the matter fromall sides. Still I thought I might catch him on one point; so I askedhim why the modern empire did not make the nation's cream in theHeidelberg Tun, instead of leaving it to rot away unused. But heanswered as one prepared--

"A patient and diligent examination of the modern German cream hadsatisfied me that they do not use the Great Tun now, because they havegot a BIGGER one hid away somewhere. Either that is the case or theyempty the spring milkings into the mountain torrents and then skim theRhine all summer. "

There is a museum of antiquities in the Castle, and among its mosttreasured relics are ancient manuscripts connected with German history. There are hundreds of these, and their dates stretch back through manycenturies. One of them is a decree signed and sealed by the hand of asuccessor of Charlemagne, in the year 896. A signature made by a handwhich vanished out of this life near a thousand years ago, is a moreimpressive thing than even a ruined castle. Luther's wedding-ring wasshown me; also a fork belonging to a time anterior to our era, and anearly bootjack. And there was a plaster cast of the head of a man whowas assassinated about sixty years ago. The stab-wounds in the facewere duplicated with unpleasant fidelity. One or two real hairs stillremained sticking in the eyebrows of the cast. That trifle seemed toalmost change the counterfeit into a corpse. 

There are many aged portraits--some valuable, some worthless; some ofgreat interest, some of none at all. I bought a couple--one a gorgeousduke of the olden time, and the other a comely blue-eyed damsel, a princess, maybe. I bought them to start a portrait-gallery of myancestors with. I paid a dollar and a half for the duke and a half forthe princess. One can lay in ancestors at even cheaper rates than these, in Europe, if he will mouse among old picture shops and look out forchances. 

APPENDIX C. 

The College Prison It seems that the student may break a good many ofthe public laws without having to answer to the public authorities. His case must come before the University for trial and punishment. If apoliceman catches him in an unlawful act and proceeds to arrest him, the offender proclaims that he is a student, and perhaps shows hismatriculation card, whereupon the officer asks for his address, thengoes his way, and reports the matter at headquarters. If the offense isone over which the city has no jurisdiction, the authorities reportthe case officially to the University, and give themselves no furtherconcern about it. The University court send for the student, listen tothe evidence, and pronounce judgment. The punishment usually inflictedis imprisonment in the University prison. As I understand it, astudent's case is often tried without his being present at all. Then something like this happens: A constable in the service of theUniversity visits the lodgings of the said student, knocks, is invitedto come in, does so, and says politely--

"If you please, I am here to conduct you to prison. "

"Ah, " says the student, "I was not expecting it. What have I beendoing?"

"Two weeks ago the public peace had the honor to be disturbed by you. "

"It is true; I had forgotten it. Very well: I have been complained of, tried, and found guilty--is that it?"

"Exactly. You are sentenced to two days' solitary confinement in theCollege prison, and I am sent to fetch you. "

STUDENT. "O, I can't go today. "

OFFICER. "If you please--why?"

STUDENT. "Because I've got an engagement. "

OFFICER. "Tomorrow, then, perhaps?"

STUDENT. "No, I am going to the opera, tomorrow. "

OFFICER. "Could you come Friday?"

STUDENT. (Reflectively. ) "Let me see--Friday--Friday. I don't seem tohave anything on hand Friday. "

OFFICER. "Then, if you please, I will expect you on Friday. "

STUDENT. "All right, I'll come around Friday. "

OFFICER. "Thank you. Good day, sir. "

STUDENT. "Good day. "

So on Friday the student goes to the prison of his own accord, and isadmitted. 

It is questionable if the world's criminal history can show a custommore odd than this. Nobody knows, now, how it originated. There havealways been many noblemen among the students, and it is presumed thatall students are gentlemen; in the old times it was usual to mar theconvenience of such folk as little as possible; perhaps this indulgentcustom owes its origin to this. 

One day I was listening to some conversation upon this subject when anAmerican student said that for some time he had been under sentencefor a slight breach of the peace and had promised the constable that hewould presently find an unoccupied day and betake himself to prison. Iasked the young gentleman to do me the kindness to go to jail as soonas he conveniently could, so that I might try to get in there and visithim, and see what college captivity was like. He said he would appointthe very first day he could spare. 

His confinement was to endure twenty-four hours. He shortly chosehis day, and sent me word. I started immediately. When I reached theUniversity Place, I saw two gentlemen talking together, and, as theyhad portfolios under their arms, I judged they were tutors or elderlystudents; so I asked them in English to show me the college jail. Ihad learned to take it for granted that anybody in Germany who knowsanything, knows English, so I had stopped afflicting people with myGerman. These gentlemen seemed a trifle amused--and a trifle confused, too--but one of them said he would walk around the corner with me andshow me the place. He asked me why I wanted to get in there, and I saidto see a friend--and for curiosity. He doubted if I would be admitted, but volunteered to put in a word or two for me with the custodian. 

He rang the bell, a door opened, and we stepped into a paved way andthen up into a small living-room, where we were received by a heartyand good-natured German woman of fifty. She threw up her hands with asurprised "ACH GOTT, HERR PROFESSOR!" and exhibited a mighty deferencefor my new acquaintance. By the sparkle in her eye I judged she was agood deal amused, too. The "Herr Professor" talked to her in German, andI understood enough of it to know that he was bringing very plausiblereasons to bear for admitting me. They were successful. So the HerrProfessor received my earnest thanks and departed. The old dame got herkeys, took me up two or three flights of stairs, unlocked a door, andwe stood in the presence of the criminal. Then she went into a jolly andeager description of all that had occurred downstairs, and what the HerrProfessor had said, and so forth and so on. Plainly, she regarded it asquite a superior joke that I had waylaid a Professor and employed himin so odd a service. But I wouldn't have done it if I had known he was aProfessor; therefore my conscience was not disturbed. 

Now the dame left us to ourselves. The cell was not a roomy one; stillit was a little larger than an ordinary prison cell. It had a windowof good size, iron-grated; a small stove; two wooden chairs; two oakentables, very old and most elaborately carved with names, mottoes, faces, armorial bearings, etc. --the work of several generations of imprisonedstudents; and a narrow wooden bedstead with a villainous straw mattress, but no sheets, pillows, blankets, or coverlets--for these the studentmust furnish at his own cost if he wants them. There was no carpet, ofcourse. 

The ceiling was completely covered with names, dates, and monograms, done with candle-smoke. The walls were thickly covered with pictures andportraits (in profile), some done with ink, some with soot, some with apencil, and some with red, blue, and green chalks; and whenever an inchor two of space had remained between the pictures, the captives hadwritten plaintive verses, or names and dates. I do not think I was everin a more elaborately frescoed apartment. 

Against the wall hung a placard containing the prison laws. I made anote of one or two of these. For instance: The prisoner must pay, forthe "privilege" of entering, a sum equivalent to 20 cents of our money;for the privilege of leaving, when his term had expired, 20 cents; forevery day spent in the prison, 12 cents; for fire and light, 12 cents aday. The jailer furnishes coffee, mornings, for a small sum; dinners andsuppers may be ordered from outside if the prisoner chooses--and he isallowed to pay for them, too. 

Here and there, on the walls, appeared the names of American students, and in one place the American arms and motto were displayed in coloredchalks. 

With the help of my friend I translated many of the inscriptions. 

Some of them were cheerful, others the reverse. I will give the reader afew specimens:

"In my tenth semester (my best one), I am cast here through thecomplaints of others. Let those who follow me take warning. "

"III TAGE OHNE GRUND ANGEBLICH AUS NEUGIERDE. " Which is to say, he had acuriosity to know what prison life was like; so he made a breach in somelaw and got three days for it. It is more than likely that he never hadthe same curiosity again. 

(TRANSLATION. ) "E. Glinicke, four days for being too eager a spectatorof a row. "

"F. Graf Bismarck--27-29, II, '74. " Which means that Count Bismarck, sonof the great statesman, was a prisoner two days in 1874. 

(TRANSLATION. ) "R. Diergandt--for Love--4 days. " Many people in thisworld have caught it heavier than for the same indiscretion. 

This one is terse. I translate:

"Four weeks for MISINTERPRETED GALLANTRY. " I wish the sufferer hadexplained a little more fully. A four-week term is a rather seriousmatter. 

There were many uncomplimentary references, on the walls, to a certainunpopular dignitary. One sufferer had got three days for not salutinghim. Another had "here two days slept and three nights lain awake, "on account of this same "Dr. K. " In one place was a picture of Dr. K. Hanging on a gallows. 

Here and there, lonesome prisoners had eased the heavy time by alteringthe records left by predecessors. Leaving the name standing, and thedate and length of the captivity, they had erased the description of themisdemeanor, and written in its place, in staring capitals, "FOR THEFT!"or "FOR MURDER!" or some other gaudy crime. In one place, all by itself, stood this blood-curdling word:

"Rache!" [1]

1. "Revenge!"

There was no name signed, and no date. It was an inscription wellcalculated to pique curiosity. One would greatly like to know the natureof the wrong that had been done, and what sort of vengeance was wanted, and whether the prisoner ever achieved it or not. But there was no wayof finding out these things. 

Occasionally, a name was followed simply by the remark, "II days, fordisturbing the peace, " and without comment upon the justice or injusticeof the sentence. 

In one place was a hilarious picture of a student of the green capcorps with a bottle of champagne in each hand; and below was the legend:"These make an evil fate endurable. "

There were two prison cells, and neither had space left on walls orceiling for another name or portrait or picture. The inside surfaces ofthe two doors were completely covered with CARTES DE VISITE of formerprisoners, ingeniously let into the wood and protected from dirt andinjury by glass. 

I very much wanted one of the sorry old tables which the prisoners hadspent so many years in ornamenting with their pocket-knives, but redtape was in the way. The custodian could not sell one without anorder from a superior; and that superior would have to get it from HISsuperior; and this one would have to get it from a higher one--and so onup and up until the faculty should sit on the matter and deliver finaljudgment. The system was right, and nobody could find fault with it; butit did not seem justifiable to bother so many people, so I proceeded nofurther. It might have cost me more than I could afford, anyway; forone of those prison tables, which was at the time in a private museumin Heidelberg, was afterward sold at auction for two hundred and fiftydollars. It was not worth more than a dollar, or possibly a dollar andhalf, before the captive students began their work on it. Persons whosaw it at the auction said it was so curiously and wonderfully carvedthat it was worth the money that was paid for it. 

Among them many who have tasted the college prison's dreary hospitalitywas a lively young fellow from one of the Southern states of America, whose first year's experience of German university life was ratherpeculiar. The day he arrived in Heidelberg he enrolled his name on thecollege books, and was so elated with the fact that his dearest hopehad found fruition and he was actually a student of the old and renowneduniversity, that he set to work that very night to celebrate the eventby a grand lark in company with some other students. In the course ofhis lark he managed to make a wide breach in one of the university'smost stringent laws. Sequel: before noon, next day, he was in thecollege prison--booked for three months. The twelve long weeks draggedslowly by, and the day of deliverance came at last. A great crowd ofsympathizing fellow-students received him with a rousing demonstrationas he came forth, and of course there was another grand lark--in thecourse of which he managed to make a wide breach of the CITY'S moststringent laws. Sequel: before noon, next day, he was safe in the citylockup--booked for three months. This second tedious captivity drew toan end in the course of time, and again a great crowd of sympathizingfellow students gave him a rousing reception as he came forth; buthis delight in his freedom was so boundless that he could not proceedsoberly and calmly, but must go hopping and skipping and jumping downthe sleety street from sheer excess of joy. Sequel: he slipped and brokehis leg, and actually lay in the hospital during the next three months!

When he at last became a free man again, he said he believed he wouldhunt up a brisker seat of learning; the Heidelberg lectures mightbe good, but the opportunities of attending them were too rare, theeducational process too slow; he said he had come to Europe with theidea that the acquirement of an education was only a matter of time, but if he had averaged the Heidelberg system correctly, it was rather amatter of eternity. 

APPENDIX D. 

The Awful German Language

 A little learning makes the whole world kin. --Proverbs xxxii, 7. 

I went often to look at the collection of curiosities in HeidelbergCastle, and one day I surprised the keeper of it with my German. I spokeentirely in that language. He was greatly interested; and after I hadtalked a while he said my German was very rare, possibly a "unique"; andwanted to add it to his museum. 

If he had known what it had cost me to acquire my art, he would alsohave known that it would break any collector to buy it. Harris and I hadbeen hard at work on our German during several weeks at that time, andalthough we had made good progress, it had been accomplished under greatdifficulty and annoyance, for three of our teachers had died in the meantime. A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what aperplexing language it is. 

Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp. One is washed about in it, hither and thither, in the most helpless way; and when at last he thinkshe has captured a rule which offers firm ground to take a rest on amidthe general rage and turmoil of the ten parts of speech, he turns overthe page and reads, "Let the pupil make careful note of the followingEXCEPTIONS. " He runs his eye down and finds that there are moreexceptions to the rule than instances of it. So overboard he goes again, to hunt for another Ararat and find another quicksand. Such has been, and continues to be, my experience. Every time I think I have got oneof these four confusing "cases" where I am master of it, a seeminglyinsignificant preposition intrudes itself into my sentence, clothed withan awful and unsuspected power, and crumbles the ground from underme. For instance, my book inquires after a certain bird--(it is alwaysinquiring after things which are of no sort of consequence to anybody):"Where is the bird?" Now the answer to this question--according to thebook--is that the bird is waiting in the blacksmith shop on account ofthe rain. Of course no bird would do that, but then you must stick tothe book. Very well, I begin to cipher out the German for that answer. Ibegin at the wrong end, necessarily, for that is the German idea. Isay to myself, "REGEN (rain) is masculine--or maybe it is feminine--orpossibly neuter--it is too much trouble to look now. Therefore, itis either DER (the) Regen, or DIE (the) Regen, or DAS (the) Regen, according to which gender it may turn out to be when I look. In theinterest of science, I will cipher it out on the hypothesis that it ismasculine. Very well--then THE rain is DER Regen, if it is simply inthe quiescent state of being MENTIONED, without enlargement ordiscussion--Nominative case; but if this rain is lying around, in a kindof a general way on the ground, it is then definitely located, it isDOING SOMETHING--that is, RESTING (which is one of the German grammar'sideas of doing something), and this throws the rain into the Dativecase, and makes it DEM Regen. However, this rain is not resting, but isdoing something ACTIVELY, --it is falling--to interfere with the bird, likely--and this indicates MOVEMENT, which has the effect of sliding itinto the Accusative case and changing DEM Regen into DEN Regen. "Having completed the grammatical horoscope of this matter, I answerup confidently and state in German that the bird is staying in theblacksmith shop "wegen (on account of) DEN Regen. " Then the teacher letsme softly down with the remark that whenever the word "wegen" dropsinto a sentence, it ALWAYS throws that subject into the GENITIVE case, regardless of consequences--and therefore this bird stayed in theblacksmith shop "wegen DES Regens. "

N. B. --I was informed, later, by a higher authority, that there wasan "exception" which permits one to say "wegen DEN Regen" in certainpeculiar and complex circumstances, but that this exception is notextended to anything BUT rain. 

There are ten parts of speech, and they are all troublesome. An averagesentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity;it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts ofspeech--not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compoundwords constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found inany dictionary--six or seven words compacted into one, without jointor seam--that is, without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteendifferent subjects, each enclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with hereand there extra parentheses, making pens within pens: finally, all theparentheses and reparentheses are massed together between a coupleof king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of themajestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line ofit--AFTER WHICH COMES THE VERB, and you find out for the first time whatthe man has been talking about; and after the verb--merely by way ofornament, as far as I can make out--the writer shovels in "HABEN SINDGEWESEN GEHABT HAVEN GEWORDEN SEIN, " or words to that effect, and themonument is finished. I suppose that this closing hurrah is in thenature of the flourish to a man's signature--not necessary, but pretty. German books are easy enough to read when you hold them beforethe looking-glass or stand on your head--so as to reverse theconstruction--but I think that to learn to read and understand a Germannewspaper is a thing which must always remain an impossibility to aforeigner. 

Yet even the German books are not entirely free from attacks of theParenthesis distemper--though they are usually so mild as to cover onlya few lines, and therefore when you at last get down to the verb itcarries some meaning to your mind because you are able to remember agood deal of what has gone before. Now here is a sentence from a popularand excellent German novel--with a slight parenthesis in it. I will makea perfectly literal translation, and throw in the parenthesis-marks andsome hyphens for the assistance of the reader--though in the originalthere are no parenthesis-marks or hyphens, and the reader is left toflounder through to the remote verb the best way he can:

"But when he, upon the street, the(in-satin-and-silk-covered-now-very-unconstrained-after-the-newest-fashioned-dressed)government counselor's wife MET, " etc. , etc. [1]

1. Wenn er aber auf der Strasse der in Sammt und Seide gehuelltenjetz sehr ungenirt nach der neusten mode gekleideten Regierungsrathinbegegnet. 

That is from THE OLD MAMSELLE'S SECRET, by Mrs. Marlitt. And thatsentence is constructed upon the most approved German model. You observehow far that verb is from the reader's base of operations; well, in aGerman newspaper they put their verb away over on the next page; andI have heard that sometimes after stringing along the excitingpreliminaries and parentheses for a column or two, they get in a hurryand have to go to press without getting to the verb at all. Of course, then, the reader is left in a very exhausted and ignorant state. 

We have the Parenthesis disease in our literature, too; and one may seecases of it every day in our books and newspapers: but with us it is themark and sign of an unpracticed writer or a cloudy intellect, whereaswith the Germans it is doubtless the mark and sign of a practiced penand of the presence of that sort of luminous intellectual fogwhich stands for clearness among these people. For surely it is NOTclearness--it necessarily can't be clearness. Even a jury would havepenetration enough to discover that. A writer's ideas must be a gooddeal confused, a good deal out of line and sequence, when he starts outto say that a man met a counselor's wife in the street, and then rightin the midst of this so simple undertaking halts these approachingpeople and makes them stand still until he jots down an inventory of thewoman's dress. That is manifestly absurd. It reminds a person of thosedentists who secure your instant and breathless interest in a tooth bytaking a grip on it with the forceps, and then stand there anddrawl through a tedious anecdote before they give the dreaded jerk. Parentheses in literature and dentistry are in bad taste. 

The Germans have another kind of parenthesis, which they make bysplitting a verb in two and putting half of it at the beginning ofan exciting chapter and the OTHER HALF at the end of it. Can any oneconceive of anything more confusing than that? These things are called"separable verbs. " The German grammar is blistered all over withseparable verbs; and the wider the two portions of one of them arespread apart, the better the author of the crime is pleased with hisperformance. A favorite one is REISTE AB--which means departed. Here isan example which I culled from a novel and reduced to English:

"The trunks being now ready, he DE- after kissing his mother andsisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the amplefolds of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, stillpale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing tolay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom sheloved more dearly than life itself, PARTED. "

However, it is not well to dwell too much on the separable verbs. One issure to lose his temper early; and if he sticks to the subject, and willnot be warned, it will at last either soften his brain or petrifyit. Personal pronouns and adjectives are a fruitful nuisance in thislanguage, and should have been left out. For instance, the same sound, SIE, means YOU, and it means SHE, and it means HER, and it means IT, and it means THEY, and it means THEM. Think of the ragged poverty ofa language which has to make one word do the work of six--and a poorlittle weak thing of only three letters at that. But mainly, think ofthe exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker istrying to convey. This explains why, whenever a person says SIE to me, Igenerally try to kill him, if a stranger. 

Now observe the Adjective. Here was a case where simplicity would havebeen an advantage; therefore, for no other reason, the inventor of thislanguage complicated it all he could. When we wish to speak of our "goodfriend or friends, " in our enlightened tongue, we stick to the one formand have no trouble or hard feeling about it; but with the Germantongue it is different. When a German gets his hands on an adjective, he declines it, and keeps on declining it until the common sense is alldeclined out of it. It is as bad as Latin. He says, for instance:

SINGULAR

Nominative--Mein gutER Freund, my good friend. Genitives--MeinES GutENFreundES, of my good friend. Dative--MeinEM gutEN Freund, to my goodfriend. Accusative--MeinEN gutEN Freund, my good friend. 

PLURAL

N. --MeinE gutEN FreundE, my good friends. G. --MeinER gutEN FreundE, of my good friends. D. --MeinEN gutEN FreundEN, to my good friends. A. --MeinE gutEN FreundE, my good friends. 

Now let the candidate for the asylum try to memorize those variations, and see how soon he will be elected. One might better go without friendsin Germany than take all this trouble about them. I have shown what abother it is to decline a good (male) friend; well this is only a thirdof the work, for there is a variety of new distortions of the adjectiveto be learned when the object is feminine, and still another when theobject is neuter. Now there are more adjectives in this language thanthere are black cats in Switzerland, and they must all be aselaborately declined as the examples above suggested. Difficult?--troublesome?--these words cannot describe it. I heard aCalifornian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, thathe would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective. 

The inventor of the language seems to have taken pleasure incomplicating it in every way he could think of. For instance, if one iscasually referring to a house, HAUS, or a horse, PFERD, or a dog, HUND, he spells these words as I have indicated; but if he is referring tothem in the Dative case, he sticks on a foolish and unnecessary E andspells them HAUSE, PFERDE, HUNDE. So, as an added E often signifies theplural, as the S does with us, the new student is likely to go on for amonth making twins out of a Dative dog before he discovers his mistake;and on the other hand, many a new student who could ill afford loss, has bought and paid for two dogs and only got one of them, becausehe ignorantly bought that dog in the Dative singular when he reallysupposed he was talking plural--which left the law on the seller's side, of course, by the strict rules of grammar, and therefore a suit forrecovery could not lie. 

In German, all the Nouns begin with a capital letter. Now that is a goodidea; and a good idea, in this language, is necessarily conspicuous fromits lonesomeness. I consider this capitalizing of nouns a good idea, because by reason of it you are almost always able to tell a noun theminute you see it. You fall into error occasionally, because you mistakethe name of a person for the name of a thing, and waste a good deal oftime trying to dig a meaning out of it. German names almost always domean something, and this helps to deceive the student. I translated apassage one day, which said that "the infuriated tigress broke looseand utterly ate up the unfortunate fir forest" (Tannenwald). When I wasgirding up my loins to doubt this, I found out that Tannenwald in thisinstance was a man's name. 

Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in thedistribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and byheart. There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like amemorandum-book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and whatcallous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print--I translatethis from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-schoolbooks:

"Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip?

"Wilhelm. She has gone to the kitchen. 

"Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?

"Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera. "

To continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds arefemale, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, catsare female--tomcats included, of course; a person's mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his headis male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and NOTaccording to the sex of the individual who wears it--for in Germany allthe women wear either male heads or sexless ones; a person's nose, lips, shoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven't any sexat all. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about aconscience from hearsay. 

Now, by the above dissection, the reader will see that in Germany aman may THINK he is a man, but when he comes to look into the matterclosely, he is bound to have his doubts; he finds that in sober truthhe is a most ridiculous mixture; and if he ends by trying to comforthimself with the thought that he can at least depend on a third of thismess as being manly and masculine, the humiliating second thought willquickly remind him that in this respect he is no better off than anywoman or cow in the land. 

In the German it is true that by some oversight of the inventor ofthe language, a Woman is a female; but a Wife (Weib) is not--which isunfortunate. A Wife, here, has no sex; she is neuter; so, accordingto the grammar, a fish is HE, his scales are SHE, but a fishwife isneither. To describe a wife as sexless may be called under-description;that is bad enough, but over-description is surely worse. A Germanspeaks of an Englishman as the ENGLÄNNDER; to change the sex, headds INN, and that stands for Englishwoman--ENGLÄNDERINN. That seemsdescriptive enough, but still it is not exact enough for a German; so heprecedes the word with that article which indicates that the creature tofollow is feminine, and writes it down thus: "die Engländerinn, "--whichmeans "the she-Englishwoman. " I consider that that person isover-described. 

Well, after the student has learned the sex of a great number of nouns, he is still in a difficulty, because he finds it impossible to persuadehis tongue to refer to things as "he" and "she, " and "him" and "her, "which it has been always accustomed to refer to as "it. " When he evenframes a German sentence in his mind, with the hims and hers in theright places, and then works up his courage to the utterance-point, itis no use--the moment he begins to speak his tongue flies the track andall those labored males and females come out as "its. " And even when heis reading German to himself, he always calls those things "it, " whereashe ought to read in this way:

TALE OF THE FISHWIFE AND ITS SAD FATE [2]

2. I capitalize the nouns, in the German (and ancient English) fashion. 

It is a bleak Day. Hear the Rain, how he pours, and the Hail, how herattles; and see the Snow, how he drifts along, and of the Mud, howdeep he is! Ah the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire; it hasdropped its Basket of Fishes; and its Hands have been cut by the Scalesas it seized some of the falling Creatures; and one Scale has even gotinto its Eye, and it cannot get her out. It opens its Mouth to cryfor Help; but if any Sound comes out of him, alas he is drowned by theraging of the Storm. And now a Tomcat has got one of the Fishes and shewill surely escape with him. No, she bites off a Fin, she holds her inher Mouth--will she swallow her? No, the Fishwife's brave Mother-dogdeserts his Puppies and rescues the Fin--which he eats, himself, as hisReward. O, horror, the Lightning has struck the Fish-basket; he sets himon Fire; see the Flame, how she licks the doomed Utensil with her redand angry Tongue; now she attacks the helpless Fishwife's Foot--sheburns him up, all but the big Toe, and even SHE is partly consumed; andstill she spreads, still she waves her fiery Tongues; she attacks theFishwife's Leg and destroys IT; she attacks its Hand and destroys HERalso; she attacks the Fishwife's Leg and destroys HER also; she attacksits Body and consumes HIM; she wreathes herself about its Heart and ITis consumed; next about its Breast, and in a Moment SHE is a Cinder; nowshe reaches its Neck--He goes; now its Chin--IT goes; now its Nose--SHEgoes. In another Moment, except Help come, the Fishwife will be no more. Time presses--is there none to succor and save? Yes! Joy, joy, with flying Feet the she-Englishwoman comes! But alas, the generousshe-Female is too late: where now is the fated Fishwife? It has ceasedfrom its Sufferings, it has gone to a better Land; all that is left ofit for its loved Ones to lament over, is this poor smoldering Ash-heap. Ah, woeful, woeful Ash-heap! Let us take him up tenderly, reverently, upon the lowly Shovel, and bear him to his long Rest, with the Prayerthat when he rises again it will be a Realm where he will have one goodsquare responsible Sex, and have it all to himself, instead of having amangy lot of assorted Sexes scattered all over him in Spots. 

There, now, the reader can see for himself that this pronoun business isa very awkward thing for the unaccustomed tongue. I suppose that in alllanguages the similarities of look and sound between words which haveno similarity in meaning are a fruitful source of perplexity to theforeigner. It is so in our tongue, and it is notably the case in theGerman. Now there is that troublesome word VERMÄHLT: to me it has soclose a resemblance--either real or fancied--to three or four otherwords, that I never know whether it means despised, painted, suspected, or married; until I look in the dictionary, and then I find it means thelatter. There are lots of such words and they are a great torment. Toincrease the difficulty there are words which SEEM to resemble eachother, and yet do not; but they make just as much trouble as if theydid. For instance, there is the word VERMIETHEN (to let, to lease, tohire); and the word VERHEIRATHEN (another way of saying to marry). Iheard of an Englishman who knocked at a man's door in Heidelberg andproposed, in the best German he could command, to "verheirathen" thathouse. Then there are some words which mean one thing when you emphasizethe first syllable, but mean something very different if you throw theemphasis on the last syllable. For instance, there is a word whichmeans a runaway, or the act of glancing through a book, according to theplacing of the emphasis; and another word which signifies toASSOCIATE with a man, or to AVOID him, according to where you put theemphasis--and you can generally depend on putting it in the wrong placeand getting into trouble. 

There are some exceedingly useful words in this language. SCHLAG, forexample; and ZUG. There are three-quarters of a column of SCHLAGS in thedictonary, and a column and a half of ZUGS. The word SCHLAG means Blow, Stroke, Dash, Hit, Shock, Clap, Slap, Time, Bar, Coin, Stamp, Kind, Sort, Manner, Way, Apoplexy, Wood-cutting, Enclosure, Field, Forest-clearing. This is its simple and EXACT meaning--that is to say, its restricted, its fettered meaning; but there are ways by whichyou can set it free, so that it can soar away, as on the wings of themorning, and never be at rest. You can hang any word you please toits tail, and make it mean anything you want to. You can beginwith SCHLAG-ADER, which means artery, and you can hang on the wholedictionary, word by word, clear through the alphabet to SCHLAG-WASSER, which means bilge-water--and including SCHLAG-MUTTER, which meansmother-in-law. 

Just the same with ZUG. Strictly speaking, ZUG means Pull, Tug, Draught, Procession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction, Expedition, Train, Caravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line, Flourish, Trait of Character, Feature, Lineament, Chess-move, Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer, Propensity, Inhalation, Disposition: but that thing which it does NOTmean--when all its legitimate pennants have been hung on, has not beendiscovered yet. 

One cannot overestimate the usefulness of SCHLAG and ZUG. Armed justwith these two, and the word ALSO, what cannot the foreigner on Germansoil accomplish? The German word ALSO is the equivalent of the Englishphrase "You know, " and does not mean anything at all--in TALK, thoughit sometimes does in print. Every time a German opens his mouth anALSO falls out; and every time he shuts it he bites one in two that wastrying to GET out. 

Now, the foreigner, equipped with these three noble words, is master ofthe situation. Let him talk right along, fearlessly; let him pour hisindifferent German forth, and when he lacks for a word, let him heave aSCHLAG into the vacuum; all the chances are that it fits it like aplug, but if it doesn't let him promptly heave a ZUG after it; the twotogether can hardly fail to bung the hole; but if, by a miracle, theySHOULD fail, let him simply say ALSO! and this will give him a moment'schance to think of the needful word. In Germany, when you load yourconversational gun it is always best to throw in a SCHLAG or two and aZUG or two, because it doesn't make any difference how much the rest ofthe charge may scatter, you are bound to bag something with THEM. Thenyou blandly say ALSO, and load up again. Nothing gives such an airof grace and elegance and unconstraint to a German or an Englishconversation as to scatter it full of "Also's" or "You knows. "

In my note-book I find this entry:

July 1. --In the hospital yesterday, a word of thirteen syllables wassuccessfully removed from a patient--a North German from near Hamburg;but as most unfortunately the surgeons had opened him in the wrongplace, under the impression that he contained a panorama, he died. Thesad event has cast a gloom over the whole community. 

That paragraph furnishes a text for a few remarks about one of the mostcurious and notable features of my subject--the length of German words. Some German words are so long that they have a perspective. Observethese examples:

Freundschaftsbezeigungen. 

Dilettantenaufdringlichkeiten. 

Stadtverordnetenversammlungen. 

These things are not words, they are alphabetical processions. And theyare not rare; one can open a German newspaper at any time and see themmarching majestically across the page--and if he has any imaginationhe can see the banners and hear the music, too. They impart a martialthrill to the meekest subject. I take a great interest in thesecuriosities. Whenever I come across a good one, I stuff it and put it inmy museum. In this way I have made quite a valuable collection. When Iget duplicates, I exchange with other collectors, and thus increase thevariety of my stock. Here are some specimens which I lately bought at anauction sale of the effects of a bankrupt bric-a-brac hunter:

Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen. 

Alterthumswissenschaften. 

Kinderbewahrungsanstalten. 

Unabhängigkeitserklärungen. 

Wiedererstellungbestrebungen. 

Waffenstillstandsunterhandlungen. 

Of course when one of these grand mountain ranges goes stretching acrossthe printed page, it adorns and ennobles that literary landscape--but atthe same time it is a great distress to the new student, for it blocksup his way; he cannot crawl under it, or climb over it, or tunnelthrough it. So he resorts to the dictionary for help, but there is nohelp there. The dictionary must draw the line somewhere--so it leavesthis sort of words out. And it is right, because these long things arehardly legitimate words, but are rather combinations of words, and theinventor of them ought to have been killed. They are compound words withthe hyphens left out. The various words used in building them are inthe dictionary, but in a very scattered condition; so you can hunt thematerials out, one by one, and get at the meaning at last, but it is atedious and harassing business. I have tried this process upon some ofthe above examples. "Freundshaftsbezeigungen" seems to be "Friendshipdemonstrations, " which is only a foolish and clumsy way of saying"demonstrations of friendship. " "Unabhängigkeitserklärungen" seems to be"Independencedeclarations, " which is no improvement upon"Declarations of Independence, " so far as I can see. "Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen" seems to be"General-statesrepresentativesmeetings, " as nearly as I can get at it--amere rhythmical, gushy euphemism for "meetings of the legislature, "I judge. We used to have a good deal of this sort of crime in ourliterature, but it has gone out now. We used to speak of a thing as a"never-to-be-forgotten" circumstance, instead of cramping it into thesimple and sufficient word "memorable" and then going calmly about ourbusiness as if nothing had happened. In those days we were not contentto embalm the thing and bury it decently, we wanted to build a monumentover it. 

But in our newspapers the compounding-disease lingers a little to thepresent day, but with the hyphens left out, in the German fashion. Thisis the shape it takes: instead of saying "Mr. Simmons, clerk of thecounty and district courts, was in town yesterday, " the new form putsit thus: "Clerk of the County and District Courts Simmons was in townyesterday. " This saves neither time nor ink, and has an awkwardsound besides. One often sees a remark like this in our papers: "MRS. Assistant District Attorney Johnson returned to her city residenceyesterday for the season. " That is a case of really unjustifiablecompounding; because it not only saves no time or trouble, but confersa title on Mrs. Johnson which she has no right to. But these littleinstances are trifles indeed, contrasted with the ponderous and dismalGerman system of piling jumbled compounds together. I wish to submit thefollowing local item, from a Mannheim journal, by way of illustration:

"In the daybeforeyesterdayshortlyaftereleveno'clock Night, theinthistownstandingtavern called 'The Wagoner' was downburnt. When thefire to the onthedownburninghouseresting Stork's Nest reached, flew theparent Storks away. But when the bytheraging, firesurrounded Nest ITSELFcaught Fire, straightway plunged the quickreturning Mother-Stork intothe Flames and died, her Wings over her young ones outspread. "

Even the cumbersome German construction is not able to take the pathosout of that picture--indeed, it somehow seems to strengthen it. Thisitem is dated away back yonder months ago. I could have used it sooner, but I was waiting to hear from the Father-stork. I am still waiting. 

"ALSO!" If I had not shown that the German is a difficult language, Ihave at least intended to do so. I have heard of an American studentwho was asked how he was getting along with his German, and who answeredpromptly: "I am not getting along at all. I have worked at it hard forthree level months, and all I have got to show for it is one solitaryGerman phrase--'ZWEI GLAS'" (two glasses of beer). He paused for amoment, reflectively; then added with feeling: "But I've got thatSOLID!"

And if I have not also shown that German is a harassing and infuriatingstudy, my execution has been at fault, and not my intent. I heard latelyof a worn and sorely tried American student who used to fly to a certainGerman word for relief when he could bear up under his aggravations nolonger--the only word whose sound was sweet and precious to his ear andhealing to his lacerated spirit. This was the word DAMIT. It was onlythe SOUND that helped him, not the meaning; [3] and so, at last, when helearned that the emphasis was not on the first syllable, his only stayand support was gone, and he faded away and died. 

3. It merely means, in its general sense, "herewith. "

I think that a description of any loud, stirring, tumultuous episodemust be tamer in German than in English. Our descriptive words of thischaracter have such a deep, strong, resonant sound, while their Germanequivalents do seem so thin and mild and energyless. Boom, burst, crash, roar, storm, bellow, blow, thunder, explosion; howl, cry, shout, yell, groan; battle, hell. These are magnificent words; the have a force andmagnitude of sound befitting the things which they describe. But theirGerman equivalents would be ever so nice to sing the children to sleepwith, or else my awe-inspiring ears were made for display and not forsuperior usefulness in analyzing sounds. Would any man want to die in abattle which was called by so tame a term as a SCHLACHT? Or would nota comsumptive feel too much bundled up, who was about to go out, ina shirt-collar and a seal-ring, into a storm which the bird-song wordGEWITTER was employed to describe? And observe the strongest of theseveral German equivalents for explosion--AUSBRUCH. Our word Toothbrushis more powerful than that. It seems to me that the Germans coulddo worse than import it into their language to describe particularlytremendous explosions with. The German word for hell--Hoelle--soundsmore like HELLY than anything else; therefore, how necessarily chipper, frivolous, and unimpressive it is. If a man were told in German to gothere, could he really rise to thee dignity of feeling insulted?

Having pointed out, in detail, the several vices of this language, Inow come to the brief and pleasant task of pointing out its virtues. Thecapitalizing of the nouns I have already mentioned. But far before thisvirtue stands another--that of spelling a word according to the sound ofit. After one short lesson in the alphabet, the student can tell how anyGerman word is pronounced without having to ask; whereas in our languageif a student should inquire of us, "What does B, O, W, spell?" we shouldbe obliged to reply, "Nobody can tell what it spells when you set if offby itself; you can only tell by referring to the context and finding outwhat it signifies--whether it is a thing to shoot arrows with, or a nodof one's head, or the forward end of a boat. "

There are some German words which are singularly and powerfullyeffective. For instance, those which describe lowly, peaceful, andaffectionate home life; those which deal with love, in any and allforms, from mere kindly feeling and honest good will toward the passingstranger, clear up to courtship; those which deal with outdoor Nature, in its softest and loveliest aspects--with meadows and forests, andbirds and flowers, the fragrance and sunshine of summer, and themoonlight of peaceful winter nights; in a word, those which deal withany and all forms of rest, repose, and peace; those also which deal withthe creatures and marvels of fairyland; and lastly and chiefly, inthose words which express pathos, is the language surpassingly richand affective. There are German songs which can make a stranger to thelanguage cry. That shows that the SOUND of the words is correct--itinterprets the meanings with truth and with exactness; and so the ear isinformed, and through the ear, the heart. 

The Germans do not seem to be afraid to repeat a word when it is theright one. They repeat it several times, if they choose. That iswise. But in English, when we have used a word a couple of times in aparagraph, we imagine we are growing tautological, and so we are weakenough to exchange it for some other word which only approximatesexactness, to escape what we wrongly fancy is a greater blemish. Repetition may be bad, but surely inexactness is worse. 

There are people in the world who will take a great deal of trouble topoint out the faults in a religion or a language, and then go blandlyabout their business without suggesting any remedy. I am not that kindof person. I have shown that the German language needs reforming. Verywell, I am ready to reform it. At least I am ready to make the propersuggestions. Such a course as this might be immodest in another; but Ihave devoted upward of nine full weeks, first and last, to a careful andcritical study of this tongue, and thus have acquired a confidence inmy ability to reform it which no mere superficial culture could haveconferred upon me. 

In the first place, I would leave out the Dative case. It confuses theplurals; and, besides, nobody ever knows when he is in the Dative case, except he discover it by accident--and then he does not know when orwhere it was that he got into it, or how long he has been in it, orhow he is ever going to get out of it again. The Dative case is but anornamental folly--it is better to discard it. 

In the next place, I would move the Verb further up to the front. Youmay load up with ever so good a Verb, but I notice that you never reallybring down a subject with it at the present German range--you onlycripple it. So I insist that this important part of speech should bebrought forward to a position where it may be easily seen with the nakedeye. 

Thirdly, I would import some strong words from the English tongue--toswear with, and also to use in describing all sorts of vigorous thingsin a vigorous way. [4]

1. "Verdammt, " and its variations and enlargements, are words whichhave plenty of meaning, but the SOUNDS are so mild and ineffectual thatGerman ladies can use them without sin. German ladies who could not beinduced to commit a sin by any persuasion or compulsion, promptly ripout one of these harmless little words when they tear their dresses ordon't like the soup. It sounds about as wicked as our "My gracious. "German ladies are constantly saying, "Ach! Gott!" "Mein Gott!" "Gott inHimmel!" "Herr Gott" "Der Herr Jesus!" etc. They think our ladies havethe same custom, perhaps; for I once heard a gentle and lovely oldGerman lady say to a sweet young American girl: "The two languages areso alike--how pleasant that is; we say 'Ach! Gott!' you say 'Goddamn. '"

Fourthly, I would reorganizes the sexes, and distribute them accordinglyto the will of the creator. This as a tribute of respect, if nothingelse. 

Fifthly, I would do away with those great long compounded words; orrequire the speaker to deliver them in sections, with intermissions forrefreshments. To wholly do away with them would be best, for ideas aremore easily received and digested when they come one at a time than whenthey come in bulk. Intellectual food is like any other; it is pleasanterand more beneficial to take it with a spoon than with a shovel. 

Sixthly, I would require a speaker to stop when he is done, and nothang a string of those useless "haven sind gewesen gehabt haben gewordenseins" to the end of his oration. This sort of gewgaws undignify aspeech, instead of adding a grace. They are, therefore, an offense, andshould be discarded. 

Seventhly, I would discard the Parenthesis. Also the reparenthesis, there-reparenthesis, and the re-re-re-re-re-reparentheses, and likewisethe final wide-reaching all-enclosing king-parenthesis. I would requireevery individual, be he high or low, to unfold a plain straightforwardtale, or else coil it and sit on it and hold his peace. Infractions ofthis law should be punishable with death. 

And eighthly, and last, I would retain ZUG and SCHLAG, with theirpendants, and discard the rest of the vocabulary. This would simplifythe language. 

I have now named what I regard as the most necessary and importantchanges. These are perhaps all I could be expected to name for nothing;but there are other suggestions which I can and will make in case myproposed application shall result in my being formally employed by thegovernment in the work of reforming the language. 

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought tolearn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, Frenchin thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it isto remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside amongthe dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it. 

A FOURTH OF JULY ORATION IN THE GERMAN TONGUE, DELIVERED AT A BANQUET OFTHE ANGLO-AMERICAN CLUB OF STUDENTS BY THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK

Gentlemen: Since I arrived, a month ago, in this old wonderland, thisvast garden of Germany, my English tongue has so often proved a uselesspiece of baggage to me, and so troublesome to carry around, in a countrywhere they haven't the checking system for luggage, that I finally setto work, and learned the German language. Also! Es freut mich dass diesso ist, denn es muss, in ein hauptsächlich degree, höflich sein, dassman auf ein occasion like this, sein Rede in die Sprache des Landesworin he boards, aussprechen soll. Dafuer habe ich, aus reinischeVerlegenheit--no, Vergangenheit--no, I mean Höflichkeit--aus reinisheHöflichkeit habe ich resolved to tackle this business in the Germanlanguage, um Gottes willen! Also! Sie muessen so freundlich sein, undverzeih mich die interlarding von ein oder zwei Englischer Worte, hieund da, denn ich finde dass die deutsche is not a very copious language, and so when you've really got anything to say, you've got to draw on alanguage that can stand the strain. 

Wenn haber man kann nicht meinem Rede Verstehen, so werde ich ihm späterdasselbe uebersetz, wenn er solche Dienst verlangen wollen haben werdensollen sein hätte. (I don't know what wollen haben werden sollen seinhätte means, but I notice they always put it at the end of a Germansentence--merely for general literary gorgeousness, I suppose. )

This is a great and justly honored day--a day which is worthy of theveneration in which it is held by the true patriots of all climes andnationalities--a day which offers a fruitful theme for thought andspeech; und meinem Freunde--no, meinEN FreundEN--meinES FreundES--well, take your choice, they're all the same price; I don't know which one isright--also! ich habe gehabt haben worden gewesen sein, as Goethe saysin his Paradise Lost--ich--ich--that is to say--ich--but let us changecars. 

Also! Die Anblich so viele Grossbrittanischer und Amerikanischerhier zusammengetroffen in Bruderliche concord, ist zwar a welcome andinspiriting spectacle. And what has moved you to it? Can theterse German tongue rise to the expression of this impulse? Is itFreundschaftsbezeigungenstadtverordnetenversammlungenfamilieneigenthümlichkeiten?Nein, O nein! This is a crisp and noble word, but it fails to piercethe marrow of the impulse which has gathered this friendly meeting andproduced diese Anblick--eine Anblich welche ist gut zu sehen--gut fuerdie Augen in a foreign land and a far country--eine Anblick solche alsin die gewöhnliche Heidelberger phrase nennt man ein "schönes Aussicht!"Ja, freilich natürlich wahrscheinlich ebensowohl! Also! Die Aussicht aufdem Koenigsstuhl mehr grösser ist, aber geistlische sprechend nichtso schön, lob' Gott! Because sie sind hier zusammengetroffen, inBruderlichem concord, ein grossen Tag zu feirn, whose high benefits werenot for one land and one locality, but have conferred a measure ofgood upon all lands that know liberty today, and love it. Hundert Jahrevorueber, waren die Engländer und die Amerikaner Feinde; aber heut sindsie herzlichen Freunde, Gott sei Dank! May this good-fellowship endure;may these banners here blended in amity so remain; may they neverany more wave over opposing hosts, or be stained with blood which waskindred, is kindred, and always will be kindred, until a line drawn upona map shall be able to say: "THIS bars the ancestral blood from flowingin the veins of the descendant!"

APPENDIX E. 

Legend of the Castles Called the "Swallow's Nest" and "The Brothers, " asCondensed from the Captain's Tale

In the neighborhood of three hundred years ago the Swallow's Nest andthe larger castle between it and Neckarsteinach were owned and occupiedby two old knights who were twin brothers, and bachelors. They had norelatives. They were very rich. They had fought through the wars andretired to private life--covered with honorable scars. They were honest, honorable men in their dealings, but the people had given them a coupleof nicknames which were very suggestive--Herr Givenaught and HerrHeartless. The old knights were so proud of these names that if aburgher called them by their right ones they would correct them. 

The most renowned scholar in Europe, at the time, was the Herr DoctorFranz Reikmann, who lived in Heidelberg. All Germany was proud of thevenerable scholar, who lived in the simplest way, for great scholars arealways poor. He was poor, as to money, but very rich in his sweet youngdaughter Hildegarde and his library. He had been all his life collectinghis library, book and book, and he lived it as a miser loves his hoardedgold. He said the two strings of his heart were rooted, the one in hisdaughter, the other in his books; and that if either were severed hemust die. Now in an evil hour, hoping to win a marriage portion for hischild, this simple old man had intrusted his small savings to a sharperto be ventured in a glittering speculation. But that was not the worstof it: he signed a paper--without reading it. That is the way with poetsand scholars; they always sign without reading. This cunning paper madehim responsible for heaps of things. The rest was that one night hefound himself in debt to the sharper eight thousand pieces of gold!--anamount so prodigious that it simply stupefied him to think of it. It wasa night of woe in that house. 

"I must part with my library--I have nothing else. So perishes oneheartstring, " said the old man. 

"What will it bring, father?" asked the girl. 

"Nothing! It is worth seven hundred pieces of gold; but by auction itwill go for little or nothing. "

"Then you will have parted with the half of your heart and the joy ofyour life to no purpose, since so mighty a burden of debt will remainbehind. "

"There is no help for it, my child. Our darlings must pass under thehammer. We must pay what we can. "

"My father, I have a feeling that the dear Virgin will come to our help. Let us not lose heart. "

"She cannot devise a miracle that will turn NOTHING into eight thousandgold pieces, and lesser help will bring us little peace. "

"She can do even greater things, my father. She will save us, I know shewill. "

Toward morning, while the old man sat exhausted and asleep in his chairwhere he had been sitting before his books as one who watches by hisbeloved dead and prints the features on his memory for a solace in theaftertime of empty desolation, his daughter sprang into the room andgently woke him, saying--

"My presentiment was true! She will save us. Three times has sheappeared to me in my dreams, and said, 'Go to the Herr Givenaught, go tothe Herr Heartless, ask them to come and bid. ' There, did I not tell youshe would save us, the thrice blessed Virgin!"

Sad as the old man was, he was obliged to laugh. 

"Thou mightest as well appeal to the rocks their castles stand upon asto the harder ones that lie in those men's breasts, my child. THEY bidon books writ in the learned tongues!--they can scarce read their own. "

But Hildegarde's faith was in no wise shaken. Bright and early she wason her way up the Neckar road, as joyous as a bird. 

Meantime Herr Givenaught and Herr Heartless were having an earlybreakfast in the former's castle--the Sparrow's Nest--and flavoringit with a quarrel; for although these twins bore a love for each otherwhich almost amounted to worship, there was one subject upon which theycould not touch without calling each other hard names--and yet it wasthe subject which they oftenest touched upon. 

"I tell you, " said Givenaught, "you will beggar yourself yet with yourinsane squanderings of money upon what you choose to consider poor andworthy objects. All these years I have implored you to stop this foolishcustom and husband your means, but all in vain. You are always lyingto me about these secret benevolences, but you never have managed todeceive me yet. Every time a poor devil has been set upon his feet Ihave detected your hand in it--incorrigible ass!"

"Every time you didn't set him on his feet yourself, you mean. Where Igive one unfortunate a little private lift, you do the same for a dozen. The idea of YOUR swelling around the country and petting yourself withthe nickname of Givenaught--intolerable humbug! Before I would be sucha fraud as that, I would cut my right hand off. Your life is a continuallie. But go on, I have tried MY best to save you from beggaring yourselfby your riotous charities--now for the thousandth time I wash my handsof the consequences. A maundering old fool! that's what you are. "

"And you a blethering old idiot!" roared Givenaught, springing up. 

"I won't stay in the presence of a man who has no more delicacy than tocall me such names. Mannerless swine!"

So saying, Herr Heartless sprang up in a passion. But some luckyaccident intervened, as usual, to change the subject, and the dailyquarrel ended in the customary daily living reconciliation. Thegray-headed old eccentrics parted, and Herr Heartless walked off to hisown castle. 

Half an hour later, Hildegarde was standing in the presence of HerrGivenaught. He heard her story, and said--

"I am sorry for you, my child, but I am very poor, I care nothing forbookish rubbish, I shall not be there. "

He said the hard words kindly, but they nearly broke poor Hildegarde'sheart, nevertheless. When she was gone the old heartbreaker muttered, rubbing his hands--

"It was a good stroke. I have saved my brother's pocket this time, in spite of him. Nothing else would have prevented his rushing off torescue the old scholar, the pride of Germany, from his trouble. The poorchild won't venture near HIM after the rebuff she has received from hisbrother the Givenaught. "

But he was mistaken. The Virgin had commanded, and Hildegarde wouldobey. She went to Herr Heartless and told her story. But he saidcoldly--

"I am very poor, my child, and books are nothing to me. I wish you well, but I shall not come. "

When Hildegarde was gone, he chuckled and said--

"How my fool of a soft-headed soft-hearted brother would rage if he knewhow cunningly I have saved his pocket. How he would have flown to theold man's rescue! But the girl won't venture near him now. "

When Hildegarde reached home, her father asked her how she hadprospered. She said--

"The Virgin has promised, and she will keep her word; but not in the wayI thought. She knows her own ways, and they are best. "

The old man patted her on the head, and smiled a doubting smile, but hehonored her for her brave faith, nevertheless. 

II

Next day the people assembled in the great hall of the Ritter tavern, to witness the auction--for the proprietor had said the treasure ofGermany's most honored son should be bartered away in no meaner place. Hildegarde and her father sat close to the books, silent and sorrowful, and holding each other's hands. There was a great crowd of peoplepresent. The bidding began--

"How much for this precious library, just as it stands, all complete?"called the auctioneer. 

"Fifty pieces of gold!"

"A hundred!"

"Two hundred. "

"Three!"

"Four!"

"Five hundred!"

"Five twenty-five. "

A brief pause. 

"Five forty!"

A longer pause, while the auctioneer redoubled his persuasions. 

"Five-forty-five!"

A heavy drag--the auctioneer persuaded, pleaded, implored--it wasuseless, everybody remained silent--

"Well, then--going, going--one--two--"

"Five hundred and fifty!"

This in a shrill voice, from a bent old man, all hung with rags, andwith a green patch over his left eye. Everybody in his vicinityturned and gazed at him. It was Givenaught in disguise. He was using adisguised voice, too. 

"Good!" cried the auctioneer. "Going, going--one--two--"

"Five hundred and sixty!"

This, in a deep, harsh voice, from the midst of the crowd at the otherend of the room. The people near by turned, and saw an old man, in astrange costume, supporting himself on crutches. He wore a long whitebeard, and blue spectacles. It was Herr Heartless, in disguise, andusing a disguised voice. 

"Good again! Going, going--one--"

"Six hundred!"

Sensation. The crowd raised a cheer, and some one cried out, "Go it, Green-patch!" This tickled the audience and a score of voices shouted, "Go it, Green-patch!"

"Going--going--going--third and last call--one--two--"

"Seven hundred!"

"Huzzah!--well done, Crutches!" cried a voice. The crowd took it up, andshouted altogether, "Well done, Crutches!"

"Splendid, gentlemen! you are doing magnificently. Going, going--"

"A thousand!"

"Three cheers for Green-patch! Up and at him, Crutches!"

"Going--going--"

"Two thousand!"

And while the people cheered and shouted, "Crutches" muttered, "Who canthis devil be that is fighting so to get these useless books?--But nomatter, he sha'n't have them. The pride of Germany shall have his booksif it beggars me to buy them for him. "

"Going, going, going--"

"Three thousand!"

"Come, everybody--give a rouser for Green-patch!"

And while they did it, "Green-patch" muttered, "This cripple is plainlya lunatic; but the old scholar shall have his books, nevertheless, though my pocket sweat for it. "

"Going--going--"

"Four thousand!"

"Huzza!"

"Five thousand!"

"Huzza!"

"Six thousand!"

"Huzza!"

"Seven thousand!"

"Huzza!"

"EIGHT thousand!"

"We are saved, father! I told you the Holy Virgin would keep her word!""Blessed be her sacred name!" said the old scholar, with emotion. Thecrowd roared, "Huzza, huzza, huzza--at him again, Green-patch!"

"Going--going--"

"TEN thousand!" As Givenaught shouted this, his excitement was sogreat that he forgot himself and used his natural voice. His brotherrecognized it, and muttered, under cover of the storm of cheers--

"Aha, you are there, are you, besotted old fool? Take the books, I knowwhat you'll do with them!"

So saying, he slipped out of the place and the auction was at an end. Givenaught shouldered his way to Hildegarde, whispered a word inher ear, and then he also vanished. The old scholar and his daughterembraced, and the former said, "Truly the Holy Mother has done morethan she promised, child, for she has given you a splendid marriageportion--think of it, two thousand pieces of gold!"

"And more still, " cried Hildegarde, "for she has given you back yourbooks; the stranger whispered me that he would none of them--'thehonored son of Germany must keep them, ' so he said. I would I might haveasked his name and kissed his hand and begged his blessing; but he wasOur Lady's angel, and it is not meet that we of earth should venturespeech with them that dwell above. "

APPENDIX F. 

German Journals The daily journals of Hamburg, Frankfort, Baden, Munich, and Augsburg are all constructed on the same general plan. I speak ofthese because I am more familiar with them than with any other Germanpapers. They contain no "editorials" whatever; no "personals"--and thisis rather a merit than a demerit, perhaps; no funny-paragraph column;no police-court reports; no reports of proceedings of higher courts;no information about prize-fights or other dog-fights, horse-races, walking-machines, yachting-contents, rifle-matches, or other sportingmatters of any sort; no reports of banquet speeches; no department ofcurious odds and ends of floating fact and gossip; no "rumors" aboutanything or anybody; no prognostications or prophecies about anything oranybody; no lists of patents granted or sought, or any reference tosuch things; no abuse of public officials, big or little, or complaintsagainst them, or praises of them; no religious columns Saturdays, norehash of cold sermons Mondays; no "weather indications"; no "localitem" unveiling of what is happening in town--nothing of a local nature, indeed, is mentioned, beyond the movements of some prince, or theproposed meeting of some deliberative body. 

After so formidable a list of what one can't find in a German daily, the question may well be asked, What CAN be found in it? It is easilyanswered: A child's handful of telegrams, mainly about European nationaland international political movements; letter-correspondence about thesame things; market reports. There you have it. That is what a Germandaily is made of. A German daily is the slowest and saddest anddreariest of the inventions of man. Our own dailies infuriate thereader, pretty often; the German daily only stupefies him. Once aweek the German daily of the highest class lightens up its heavycolumns--that is, it thinks it lightens them up--with a profound, anabysmal, book criticism; a criticism which carries you down, down, downinto the scientific bowels of the subject--for the German critic isnothing if not scientific--and when you come up at last and scent thefresh air and see the bonny daylight once more, you resolve without adissenting voice that a book criticism is a mistaken way to lighten upa German daily. Sometimes, in place of the criticism, the first-classdaily gives you what it thinks is a gay and chipper essay--about ancientGrecian funeral customs, or the ancient Egyptian method of tarring amummy, or the reasons for believing that some of the peoples who existedbefore the flood did not approve of cats. These are not unpleasantsubjects; they are not uninteresting subjects; they are even excitingsubjects--until one of these massive scientists gets hold of them. Hesoon convinces you that even these matters can be handled in such a wayas to make a person low-spirited. 

As I have said, the average German daily is made up solely ofcorrespondences--a trifle of it by telegraph, the rest of it by mail. Every paragraph has the side-head, "London, " "Vienna, " or some othertown, and a date. And always, before the name of the town, is placeda letter or a sign, to indicate who the correspondent is, so that theauthorities can find him when they want to hang him. Stars, crosses, triangles, squares, half-moons, suns--such are some of the signs used bycorrespondents. 

Some of the dailies move too fast, others too slowly. For instance, myHeidelberg daily was always twenty-four hours old when it arrived atthe hotel; but one of my Munich evening papers used to come a fulltwenty-four hours before it was due. 

Some of the less important dailies give one a tablespoonful of acontinued story every day; it is strung across the bottom of the page, in the French fashion. By subscribing for the paper for five years Ijudge that a man might succeed in getting pretty much all of the story. 

If you ask a citizen of Munich which is the best Munich daily journal, he will always tell you that there is only one good Munich daily, andthat it is published in Augsburg, forty or fifty miles away. It is likesaying that the best daily paper in New York is published out in NewJersey somewhere. Yes, the Augsburg ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG is "the bestMunich paper, " and it is the one I had in my mind when I was describinga "first-class German daily" above. The entire paper, opened out, is notquite as large as a single page of the New York HERALD. It is printed onboth sides, of course; but in such large type that its entire contentscould be put, in HERALD type, upon a single page of the HERALD--andthere would still be room enough on the page for the ZEITUNG's"supplement" and some portion of the ZEITUNG's next day's contents. 

Such is the first-class daily. The dailies actually printed in Munichare all called second-class by the public. If you ask which is the bestof these second-class papers they say there is no difference; one is asgood as another. I have preserved a copy of one of them; it iscalled the MÜNCHENER TAGES-ANZEIGER, and bears date January 25, 1879. Comparisons are odious, but they need not be malicious; and without anymalice I wish to compare this journal, published in a German city of170, 000 inhabitants, with journals of other countries. I know of noother way to enable the reader to "size" the thing. 

A column of an average daily paper in America contains from 1, 800 to2, 500 words; the reading-matter in a single issue consists of from25, 000 to 50, 000 words. The reading-matter in my copy of the Munichjournal consists of a total of 1, 654 words --for I counted them. Thatwould be nearly a column of one of our dailies. A single issue of thebulkiest daily newspaper in the world--the London TIMES--often contains100, 000 words of reading-matter. Considering that the DAILY ANZEIGERissues the usual twenty-six numbers per month, the reading matter in asingle number of the London TIMES would keep it in "copy" two months anda half. 

The ANZEIGER is an eight-page paper; its page is one inch wider and oneinch longer than a foolscap page; that is to say, the dimensions of itspage are somewhere between those of a schoolboy's slate and a lady'spocket handkerchief. One-fourth of the first page is taken up with theheading of the journal; this gives it a rather top-heavy appearance;the rest of the first page is reading-matter; all of the second page isreading-matter; the other six pages are devoted to advertisements. 

The reading-matter is compressed into two hundred and five small-picalines, and is lighted up with eight pica headlines. The bill of fareis as follows: First, under a pica headline, to enforce attention andrespect, is a four-line sermon urging mankind to remember that, althoughthey are pilgrims here below, they are yet heirs of heaven; and that"When they depart from earth they soar to heaven. " Perhaps a four-linesermon in a Saturday paper is the sufficient German equivalent of theeight or ten columns of sermons which the New-Yorkers get in theirMonday morning papers. The latest news (two days old) follows thefour-line sermon, under the pica headline "Telegrams"--these are"telegraphed" with a pair of scissors out of the AUGSBURGER ZEITUNG ofthe day before. These telegrams consist of fourteen and two-thirds linesfrom Berlin, fifteen lines from Vienna, and two and five-eights linesfrom Calcutta. Thirty-three small-pica lines of telegraphic news in adaily journal in a King's Capital of one hundred and seventy thousandinhabitants is surely not an overdose. Next we have the pica heading, "News of the Day, " under which the following facts are set forth: PrinceLeopold is going on a visit to Vienna, six lines; Prince Arnulph iscoming back from Russia, two lines; the Landtag will meet at ten o'clockin the morning and consider an election law, three lines and one wordover; a city government item, five and one-half lines; prices of ticketsto the proposed grand Charity Ball, twenty-three lines--for this oneitem occupies almost one-fourth of the entire first page; there is to bea wonderful Wagner concert in Frankfurt-on-the-Main, with an orchestraof one hundred and eight instruments, seven and one-half lines. Thatconcludes the first page. Eighty-five lines, altogether, on that page, including three headlines. About fifty of those lines, as one perceives, deal with local matters; so the reporters are not overworked. 

Exactly one-half of the second page is occupied with an opera criticism, fifty-three lines (three of them being headlines), and "Death Notices, "ten lines. 

The other half of the second page is made up of two paragraphs underthe head of "Miscellaneous News. " One of these paragraphs tells about aquarrel between the Czar of Russia and his eldest son, twenty-one anda half lines; and the other tells about the atrocious destruction of apeasant child by its parents, forty lines, or one-fifth of the total ofthe reading-matter contained in the paper. 

Consider what a fifth part of the reading-matter of an American dailypaper issued in a city of one hundred and seventy thousand inhabitantsamounts to! Think what a mass it is. Would any one suppose I could sosnugly tuck away such a mass in a chapter of this book that it would bedifficult to find it again if the reader lost his place? Surely not. I will translate that child-murder word for word, to give the reader arealizing sense of what a fifth part of the reading-matter of a Munichdaily actually is when it comes under measurement of the eye:

"From Oberkreuzberg, January 21st, the DONAU ZEITUNG receives a longaccount of a crime, which we shortened as follows: In Rametuach, a village near Eppenschlag, lived a young married couple with twochildren, one of which, a boy aged five, was born three years before themarriage. For this reason, and also because a relative at Iggensbach hadbequeathed M400 ($100) to the boy, the heartless father considered himin the way; so the unnatural parents determined to sacrifice him in thecruelest possible manner. They proceeded to starve him slowly to death, meantime frightfully maltreating him--as the village people now makeknown, when it is too late. The boy was shut in a hole, and whenpeople passed by he cried, and implored them to give him bread. Hislong-continued tortures and deprivations destroyed him at last, on thethird of January. The sudden (sic) death of the child created suspicion, the more so as the body was immediately clothed and laid upon the bier. Therefore the coroner gave notice, and an inquest was held on the 6th. What a pitiful spectacle was disclosed then! The body was a completeskeleton. The stomach and intestines were utterly empty; they containednothing whatsoever. The flesh on the corpse was not as thick as the backof a knife, and incisions in it brought not one drop of blood. Therewas not a piece of sound skin the size of a dollar on the whole body;wounds, scars, bruises, discolored extravasated blood, everywhere--evenon the soles of the feet there were wounds. The cruel parents assertedthat the boy had been so bad that they had been obliged to use severepunishments, and that he finally fell over a bench and broke his neck. However, they were arrested two weeks after the inquest and put in theprison at Deggendorf. "

Yes, they were arrested "two weeks after the inquest. " What a home soundthat has. That kind of police briskness rather more reminds me of mynative land than German journalism does. 

I think a German daily journal doesn't do any good to speak of, but atthe same time it doesn't do any harm. That is a very large merit, andshould not be lightly weighted nor lightly thought of. 

The German humorous papers are beautifully printed upon fine paper, andthe illustrations are finely drawn, finely engraved, and are not vapidlyfunny, but deliciously so. So also, generally speaking, are the two orthree terse sentences which accompany the pictures. I remember one ofthese pictures: A most dilapidated tramp is ruefully contemplating somecoins which lie in his open palm. He says: "Well, begging is gettingplayed out. Only about five marks ($1. 25) for the whole day; many anofficial makes more!" And I call to mind a picture of a commercialtraveler who is about to unroll his samples:

MERCHANT (pettishly). --NO, don't. I don't want to buy anything!

DRUMMER. --If you please, I was only going to show you--

MERCHANT. --But I don't wish to see them!

DRUMMER (after a pause, pleadingly). --But do you you mind letting MElook at them! I haven't seen them for three weeks!