A Tramp Abroad

By

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

www.freeclassicebooks.com

A TRAMP ABROAD, Part 1

By Mark Twain

(Samuel L. Clemens)

First published in 1880

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I - [The Knighted Knave of Bergen]. 7

CHAPTER II – Heidelberg - [Landing a Monarch at Heidelberg]. 13

CHAPTER III - Baker's Bluejay Yarn - [What Stumped the Blue Jays]. 24

CHAPTER IV - Student Life - [The Laborious Beer King]. 29

CHAPTER V - At the Students' Dueling-Ground - [Dueling by Wholesale]. 36

CHAPTER VI - [A Sport that Sometimes Kills]. 43

CHAPTER VII - [How Bismark Fought]. 48

CHAPTER VIII - The Great French Duel. 60

CHAPTER IX - [What the Beautiful Maiden Said]. 77

CHAPTER X - [How Wagner Operas Bang Along]. 84

CHAPTER XI - [I Paint a "Turner"]. 95

CHAPTER XII - [What the Wives Saved]. 102

CHAPTER XIII - [My Long Crawl in the Dark]. 109

CHAPTER XIV - [Rafting Down the Neckar]. 117

CHAPTER XV - [Charming Waterside Pictures]. 128

CHAPTER XVI - An Ancient Legend of the Rhine [The Lorelei]. 137

CHAPTER XVII - [Why Germans Wear Spectacles]. 149

CHAPTER XVIII - [The Kindly Courtesy of Germans]. 162

CHAPTER XIX - [The Deadly Jest of Dilsberg]. 174

CHAPTER XX - [My Precious, Priceless Tear-Jug]. 189

CHAPTER XXI - [Insolent Shopkeepers and Gabbling Americans]. 199

CHAPTER XXII - [The Black Forest and Its Treasures]. 217

CHAPTER XXIII - [Nicodemus Dodge and the Skeleton]. 231

CHAPTER XXIV - [I Protect the Empress of Germany]. 242

CHAPTER XXV - [Hunted by the Little Chamois]. 251

CHAPTER XXVI - [The Nest of the Cuckoo-clock]. 271

CHAPTER XXVII - [I Spare an Awful Bore]. 286

CHAPTER XXVIII - [The Jodel and Its Native Wilds]. 303

CHAPTER XXIX - [Looking West for Sunrise]. 324

CHAPTER XXX - [Harris Climbs Mountains for Me]. 331

CHAPTER XXXI - [Alp-scaling by Carriage]. 345

CHAPTER XXXII - [The Jungfrau, the Bride, and the Piano]. 359

CHAPTER XXXIII - [We Climb Far--by Buggy]. 371

CHAPTER XXXIV - [The World's Highest Pig Farm]. 381

CHAPTER XXXV - [Swindling the Coroner]. 395

CHAPTER XXXVI - [The Fiendish Fun of Alp-climbing]. 417

CHAPTER XXXVII - [Our Imposing Column Starts Upward]. 432

CHAPTER XXXVIII - [I Conquer the Gorner Grat]. 448

CHAPTER XXXIX - [We Travel by Glacier]. 465

CHAPTER XL - [Piteous Relics at Chamonix]. 476

CHAPTER XLI - [The Fearful Disaster of 1865]. 489

CHAPTER XLII - [Chillon has a Nice, Roomy Dungeon]. 496

CHAPTER XLIII - [My Poor Sick Friend Disappointed]. 514

CHAPTER XLIV - Hunting The Deceitful Turkey - [I Scale Mont Blanc--by Telescope]  526

CHAPTER XLV - A Catastrophe Which Cost Eleven Lives. 538

CHAPTER XLVI - [Meeting a Hog on a Precipice]. 541

CHAPTER XLVII - [Queer European Manners]. 551

CHAPTER XLVIII - [Beauty of Women--and of Old Masters]. 566

CHAPTER XLIX - [Hanged with a Golden Rope]. 579

CHAPTER L - [Titian Bad and Titian Good]. 593

CHAPTER I A Tramp over Europe--On the

Holsatia--Hamburg--Frankfort-on-the- Main--How it Won its Name--A Lesson

in Political Economy--Neatness in Dress--Rhine Legends--"The Knave

of Bergen" The Famous Ball--The Strange Knight--Dancing with the

Queen--Removal of the Masks--The Disclosure--Wrath of the Emperor--The

Ending

CHAPTER II At Heidelberg--Great Stir at a Hotel--The Portier--Arrival

of the Empress--The Schloss Hotel--Location of Heidelberg--The River

Neckar--New Feature in a Hotel--Heidelberg Castle--View from the

Hotel--A Tramp in the Woods--Meeting a Raven--Can Ravens Talk?--Laughed

at and Vanquished--Language of Animals--Jim Baker--Blue-Jays

CHAPTER III Baker's Blue-Jay Yarn--Jay Language--The Cabin--"Hello, I

reckon I've struck something"--A Knot Hole--Attempt to fill it--A Ton

of Acorns--Friends Called In--A Great Mystery--More Jays called A Blue

Flush--A Discovery--A Rich Joke--One that Couldn't See It

CHAPTER IV Student Life--The Five Corps--The Beet King--A Free

Life--Attending Lectures--An Immense Audience--Industrious

Students--Politeness of the Students--Intercourse with the Professors

Scenes at the Castle Garden--Abundance of Dogs--Symbol of Blighted

Love--How the Ladies Advertise

CHAPTER V The Students' Dueling Ground--The Dueling Room--The Sword

Grinder--Frequency of the Duels--The Duelists--Protection against

Injury--The Surgeon--Arrangements for the Duels--The First

Duel--The First Wound--A Drawn Battle--The Second Duel--Cutting and

Slashing--Interference of the Surgeon

CHAPTER VI The Third Duel--A Sickening Spectacle--Dinner between

Fights--The Last Duel--Fighting in Earnest--Faces and Heads

Mutilated--Great Nerve of the Duelists--Fatal Results not

Infrequent--The World's View of these Fights

CHAPTER VII Corps--laws and Usages--Volunteering to Fight--Coolness

of the Wounded--Wounds Honorable--Newly bandaged Students around

Heidelberg--Scarred Faces Abundant--A Badge of Honor--Prince Bismark

as a Duelist--Statistics--Constant Sword Practice--Color of the

Corps--Corps Etiquette

CHAPTER I - [The Knighted Knave of Bergen]

One day it occurred to me that it had been many years since the world

had been afforded the spectacle of a man adventurous enough to undertake

a journey through Europe on foot. After much thought, I decided that

I was a person fitted to furnish to mankind this spectacle. So I

determined to do it. This was in March, 1878.

I looked about me for the right sort of person to accompany me in the

capacity 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 in

sympathy with me in this. He was as much of an enthusiast in art as

I was, and not less anxious to learn to paint. I desired to learn the

German 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 long

pedestrian trip southward in the soft spring weather, but at the

last moment we changed the program, for private reasons, and took the

express-train.

We made a short halt at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and found it an

interesting city. I would have liked to visit the birthplace of

Gutenburg, but it could not be done, as no memorandum of the site of the

house has been kept. So we spent an hour in the Goethe mansion instead.

The city permits this house to belong to private parties, instead

of gracing and dignifying herself with the honor of possessing and

protecting it.

Frankfort is one of the sixteen cities which have the distinction of

being the place where the following incident occurred. Charlemagne,

while chasing the Saxons (as HE said), or being chased by them (as THEY

said), arrived at the bank of the river at dawn, in a fog. The enemy

were either before him or behind him; but in any case he wanted to get

across, very badly. He would have given anything for a guide, but none

was to be had. Presently he saw a deer, followed by her young, approach

the water. He watched her, judging that she would seek a ford, and he

was right. She waded over, and the army followed. So a great Frankish

victory or defeat was gained or avoided; and in order to commemorate the

episode, Charlemagne commanded a city to be built there, which he named

Frankfort--the ford of the Franks. None of the other cities where this

event happened were named for it. This is good evidence that Frankfort

was the first place it occurred at.

Frankfort has another distinction--it is the birthplace of the German

alphabet; or at least of the German word for alphabet --BUCHSTABEN.

They say that the first movable types were made on birch

sticks--BUCHSTABE--hence the name.

I was taught a lesson in political economy in Frankfort. I had brought

from home a box containing a thousand very cheap cigars. By way of

experiment, I stepped into a little shop in a queer old back street,

took four gaily decorated boxes of wax matches and three cigars, and

laid down a silver piece worth 48 cents. The man gave me 43 cents

change.

In Frankfort everybody wears clean clothes, and I think we noticed that

this strange thing was the case in Hamburg, too, and in the villages

along the road. Even in the narrowest and poorest and most ancient

quarters of Frankfort neat and clean clothes were the rule. The little

children of both sexes were nearly always nice enough to take into a

body's lap. And as for the uniforms of the soldiers, they were newness

and brightness carried to perfection. One could never detect a smirch

or a grain of dust upon them. The street-car conductors and drivers wore

pretty uniforms which seemed to be just out of the bandbox, and their

manners were as fine as their clothes.

In one of the shops I had the luck to stumble upon a book which has

charmed me nearly to death. It is entitled THE LEGENDS OF THE RHINE FROM

BASLE TO ROTTERDAM, by F. J. Kiefer; translated by L. W. Garnham, B.A.

All tourists MENTION the Rhine legends--in that sort of way which

quietly pretends that the mentioner has been familiar with them all his

life, and that the reader cannot possibly be ignorant of them--but no

tourist ever TELLS them. So this little book fed me in a very hungry

place; and I, in my turn, intend to feed my reader, with one or

two little lunches from the same larder. I shall not mar Garnham's

translation by meddling with its English; for the most toothsome thing

about it is its quaint fashion of building English sentences on the

German 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 clanging

music invited to dance, and splendidly appeared the rich toilets and

charms of the ladies, and the festively costumed Princes and Knights.

All seemed pleasure, joy, and roguish gaiety, only one of the numerous

guests had a gloomy exterior; but exactly the black armor in which he

walked about excited general attention, and his tall figure, as well as

the noble propriety of his movements, attracted especially the regards

of 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 to

the Empress; bowed on one knee before her seat, and begged for the favor

of a waltz with the Queen of the festival. And she allowed his request.

With light and graceful steps he danced through the long saloon, with

the sovereign who thought never to have found a more dexterous and

excellent dancer. But also by the grace of his manner, and fine

conversation he knew to win the Queen, and she graciously accorded him

a second dance for which he begged, a third, and a fourth, as well as

others were not refused him. How all regarded the happy dancer, how

many envied him the high favor; how increased curiosity, who the masked

knight could be.

"Also the Emperor became more and more excited with curiosity, and with

great suspense one awaited the hour, when according to mask-law, each

masked guest must make himself known. This moment came, but although all

other unmasked; the secret knight still refused to allow his features

to be seen, till at last the Queen driven by curiosity, and vexed at the

obstinate refusal; commanded him to open his Vizier.

He opened it, and none of the high ladies and knights knew him. But from

the crowded spectators, 2 officials advanced, who recognized the black

dancer, and horror and terror spread in the saloon, as they said who the

supposed knight was. It was the executioner of Bergen. But glowing with

rage, 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, and

said--

"'Indeed I have heavily sinned against all noble guests assembled here,

but most heavily against you my sovereign and my queen. The Queen is

insulted by my haughtiness equal to treason, but no punishment even

blood, will not be able to wash out the disgrace, which you have

suffered by me. Therefore oh King! allow me to propose a remedy, to

efface the shame, and to render it as if not done. Draw your sword and

knight me, then I will throw down my gauntlet, to everyone who dares to

speak disrespectfully of my king.'

"The Emperor was surprised at this bold proposal, however it appeared

the wisest to him; 'You are a knave,' he replied after a moment's

consideration, 'however your advice is good, and displays prudence, as

your offense shows adventurous courage. Well then,' and gave him the

knight-stroke 'so I raise you to nobility, who begged for grace for your

offense now kneels before me, rise as knight; knavish you have acted,

and Knave of Bergen shall you be called henceforth,' and gladly the

Black knight rose; three cheers were given in honor of the Emperor, and

loud cries of joy testified the approbation with which the Queen danced

still 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 in

my room waiting for breakfast to come up, we got a good deal interested

in 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] appeared

at the door in a spick-and-span new blue cloth uniform, decorated with

shining brass buttons, and with bands of gold lace around his cap and

wristbands; and he wore white gloves, too.

He shed an official glance upon the situation, and then began to give

orders. Two women-servants came out with pails and brooms and brushes,

and gave the sidewalk a thorough scrubbing; meanwhile two others

scrubbed the four marble steps which led up to the door; beyond these we

could see some men-servants taking up the carpet of the grand staircase.

This carpet was carried away and the last grain of dust beaten and

banged and swept out of it; then brought back and put down again. The

brass stair-rods received an exhaustive polishing and were returned to

their places. Now a troop of servants brought pots and tubs of blooming

plants and formed them into a beautiful jungle about the door and the

base of the staircase. Other servants adorned all the balconies of the

various stories with flowers and banners; others ascended to the

roof and hoisted a great flag on a staff there. Now came some more

chamber-maids and retouched the sidewalk, and afterward wiped the marble

steps with damp cloths and finished by dusting them off with feather

brushes. Now a broad black carpet was brought out and laid down the

marble steps and out across the sidewalk to the curbstone. The PORTIER

cast his eye along it, and found it was not absolutely straight; he

commanded it to be straightened; the servants made the effort--made

several efforts, in fact--but the PORTIER was not satisfied. He finally

had 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 was

unrolled and stretched from the top of the marble steps to the

curbstone, along the center of the black carpet. This red path cost the

PORTIER more trouble than even the black one had done. But he patiently

fixed and refixed it until it was exactly right and lay precisely in the

middle of the black carpet. In New York these performances would have

gathered a mighty crowd of curious and intensely interested spectators;

but here it only captured an audience of half a dozen little boys who

stood in a row across the pavement, some with their school-knapsacks on

their backs and their hands in their pockets, others with arms full of

bundles, and all absorbed in the show. Occasionally one of them skipped

irreverently 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, and

bareheaded, placed himself on the bottom marble step, abreast the

PORTIER, who stood on the other end of the same steps; six or eight

waiters, gloved, bareheaded, and wearing their whitest linen, their

whitest cravats, and their finest swallow-tails, grouped themselves

about these chiefs, but leaving the carpetway clear. Nobody moved or

spoke any more but only waited.

In a short time the shrill piping of a coming train was heard, and

immediately groups of people began to gather in the street. Two or three

open carriages arrived, and deposited some maids of honor and some male

officials at the hotel. Presently another open carriage brought the

Grand Duke of Baden, a stately man in uniform, who wore the handsome

brass-mounted, steel-spiked helmet of the army on his head. Last came

the Empress of Germany and the Grand Duchess of Baden in a closed

carriage; these passed through the low-bowing groups of servants and

disappeared in the hotel, exhibiting to us only the backs of their

heads, and then the show was over.

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

ship.

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 of

a shepherd's crook; if one looks up it he perceives that it is about

straight, for a mile and a half, then makes a sharp curve to the

right and disappears. This gorge--along whose bottom pours the swift

Neckar--is confined between (or cloven through) a couple of long, steep

ridges, a thousand feet high and densely wooded clear to their summits,

with the exception of one section which has been shaved and put under

cultivation. These ridges are chopped off at the mouth of the gorge

and form two bold and conspicuous headlands, with Heidelberg nestling

between them; from their bases spreads away the vast dim expanse of the

Rhine valley, and into this expanse the Neckar goes wandering in shining

curves and is presently lost to view.

Now if one turns and looks up the gorge once more, he will see the

Schloss Hotel on the right perched on a precipice overlooking the

Neckar--a precipice which is so sumptuously cushioned and draped with

foliage that no glimpse of the rock appears. The building seems very

airily situated. It has the appearance of being on a shelf half-way

up the wooded mountainside; and as it is remote and isolated, and very

white, it makes a strong mark against the lofty leafy rampart at its

back.

This hotel had a feature which was a decided novelty, and one which

might be adopted with advantage by any house which is perched in a

commanding situation. This feature may be described as a series of

glass-enclosed parlors CLINGING TO THE OUTSIDE OF THE HOUSE, one against

each and every bed-chamber and drawing-room. They are like long, narrow,

high-ceiled bird-cages hung against the building. My room was a corner

room, 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 he

looks down it. This last affords the most extensive view, and it is one

of the loveliest that can be imagined, too. Out of a billowy upheaval

of vivid green foliage, a rifle-shot removed, rises the huge ruin

of Heidelberg Castle, [2. See Appendix B] with empty window arches,

ivy-mailed battlements, moldering towers--the Lear of inanimate

nature--deserted, discrowned, beaten by the storms, but royal still,

and beautiful. It is a fine sight to see the evening sunlight suddenly

strike the leafy declivity at the Castle's base and dash up it and

drench it as with a luminous spray, while the adjacent groves are in

deep shadow.

Behind the Castle swells a great dome-shaped hill, forest-clad, and

beyond that a nobler and loftier one. The Castle looks down upon the

compact brown-roofed town; and from the town two picturesque old bridges

span the river. Now the view broadens; through the gateway of the

sentinel headlands you gaze out over the wide Rhine plain, which

stretches away, softly and richly tinted, grows gradually and dreamily

indistinct, and finally melts imperceptibly into the remote horizon.

I have never enjoyed a view which had such a serene and satisfying charm

about it as this one gives.

The first night we were there, we went to bed and to sleep early; but

I awoke at the end of two or three hours, and lay a comfortable while

listening to the soothing patter of the rain against the balcony

windows. I took it to be rain, but it turned out to be only the murmur

of the restless Neckar, tumbling over her dikes and dams far below, in

the gorge. I got up and went into the west balcony and saw a wonderful

sight. Away down on the level under the black mass of the Castle, the

town lay, stretched along the river, its intricate cobweb of streets

jeweled with twinkling lights; there were rows of lights on the bridges;

these flung lances of light upon the water, in the black shadows of the

arches; and away at the extremity of all this fairy spectacle blinked

and glowed a massed multitude of gas-jets which seemed to cover acres of

ground; it was as if all the diamonds in the world had been spread

out there. I did not know before, that a half-mile of sextuple

railway-tracks could be made such an adornment.

One thinks Heidelberg by day--with its surroundings--is the last

possibility of the beautiful; but when he sees Heidelberg by night, a

fallen Milky Way, with that glittering railway constellation pinned to

the border, he requires time to consider upon the verdict.

One never tires of poking about in the dense woods that clothe all

these lofty Neckar hills to their tops. The great deeps of a boundless

forest have a beguiling and impressive charm in any country; but German

legends and fairy tales have given these an added charm. They have

peopled all that region with gnomes, and dwarfs, and all sorts of

mysterious and uncanny creatures. At the time I am writing of, I had

been reading so much of this literature that sometimes I was not sure

but I was beginning to believe in the gnomes and fairies as realities.

One afternoon I got lost in the woods about a mile from the hotel, and

presently fell into a train of dreamy thought about animals which talk,

and kobolds, and enchanted folk, and the rest of the pleasant legendary

stuff; and so, by stimulating my fancy, I finally got to imagining I

glimpsed small flitting shapes here and there down the columned

aisles of the forest. It was a place which was peculiarly meet for the

occasion. It was a pine wood, with so thick and soft a carpet of brown

needles that one's footfall made no more sound than if he were treading

on wool; the tree-trunks were as round and straight and smooth as

pillars, and stood close together; they were bare of branches to a point

about twenty-five feet above-ground, and from there upward so thick with

boughs that not a ray of sunlight could pierce through. The world was

bright with sunshine outside, but a deep and mellow twilight reigned in

there, and also a deep silence so profound that I seemed to hear my own

breathings.

When I had stood ten minutes, thinking and imagining, and getting

my spirit in tune with the place, and in the right mood to enjoy the

supernatural, a raven suddenly uttered a horse croak over my head. It

made me start; and then I was angry because I started. I looked up, and

the creature was sitting on a limb right over me, looking down at me.

I felt something of the same sense of humiliation and injury which

one feels when he finds that a human stranger has been clandestinely

inspecting him in his privacy and mentally commenting upon him. I eyed

the 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 point

of observation, lifted his wings, stuck his head far down below his

shoulders toward me and croaked again--a croak with a distinctly

insulting expression about it. If he had spoken in English he could not

have said any more plainly than he did say in raven, "Well, what do YOU

want here?" I felt as foolish as if I had been caught in some mean act

by 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, with

his shoulders still lifted, his head thrust down between them, and

his keen bright eye fixed on me; then he threw out two or three more

insults, which I could not understand, further than that I knew a

portion of them consisted of language not used in church.

I still made no reply. Now the adversary raised his head and

called. There was an answering croak from a little distance in the

wood--evidently a croak of inquiry. The adversary explained with

enthusiasm, and the other raven dropped everything and came. The two sat

side by side on the limb and discussed me as freely and offensively as

two great naturalists might discuss a new kind of bug. The thing became

more and more embarrassing. They called in another friend. This was too

much. I saw that they had the advantage of me, and so I concluded to get

out of the scrape by walking out of it. They enjoyed my defeat as much

as any low white people could have done. They craned their necks and

laughed at me (for a raven CAN laugh, just like a man), they squalled

insulting remarks after me as long as they could see me. They were

nothing but ravens--I knew that--what they thought of me could be a

matter 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, it

hurts you and humiliates you, and there is no getting around it with

fine reasoning and pretty arguments.

Animals talk to each other, of course. There can be no question about

that; 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 he

told me so himself. He was a middle-aged, simple-hearted miner who had

lived in a lonely corner of California, among the woods and mountains,

a good many years, and had studied the ways of his only neighbors, the

beasts and the birds, until he believed he could accurately translate

any remark which they made. This was Jim Baker. According to Jim Baker,

some animals have only a limited education, and some use only simple

words, and scarcely ever a comparison or a flowery figure; whereas,

certain other animals have a large vocabulary, a fine command of

language and a ready and fluent delivery; consequently these latter talk

a great deal; they like it; they are so conscious of their talent,

and they enjoy "showing off." Baker said, that after long and careful

observation, he had come to the conclusion that the bluejays were the

best talkers he had found among birds and beasts. Said he:

"There's more TO a bluejay than any other creature. He has got more

moods, and more different kinds of feelings than other creatures; and,

mind you, whatever a bluejay feels, he can put into language. And

no mere commonplace language, either, but rattling, out-and-out

book-talk--and bristling with metaphor, too--just bristling! And as for

command 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've

noticed a good deal, and there's no bird, or cow, or anything that uses

as 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 to

pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you'll hear grammar

that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the NOISE

which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's

the sickening grammar they use. Now I've never heard a jay use bad

grammar but very seldom; and when they do, they are as ashamed as a

human; they shut right down and leave.

"You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure--but he's got

feathers on him, and don't belong to no church, perhaps; but otherwise

he is just as much human as you be. And I'll tell you for why. A jay's

gifts, and instincts, and feelings, and interests, cover the whole

ground. A jay hasn't got any more principle than a Congressman. A jay

will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray; and

four times out of five, a jay will go back on his solemnest promise. The

sacredness of an obligation is such a thing which you can't cram into

no bluejay's head. Now, on top of all this, there's another thing; a

jay 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 his

reserve-powers, and where is your cat? Don't talk to ME--I know too much

about this thing; in the one little particular of scolding--just good,

clean, out-and-out scolding--a bluejay can lay over anything, human or

divine. 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 and

discuss, 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. If

a jay ain't human, he better take in his sign, that's all. Now I'm going

to 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 a

little incident happened here. Seven years ago, the last man in this

region 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; no

ceiling--nothing between the rafters and the floor. Well, one Sunday

morning I was sitting out here in front of my cabin, with my cat, taking

the sun, and looking at the blue hills, and listening to the leaves

rustling so lonely in the trees, and thinking of the home away yonder in

the states, that I hadn't heard from in thirteen years, when a bluejay

lit on that house, with an acorn in his mouth, and says, 'Hello, I

reckon I've struck something.' When he spoke, the acorn dropped out of

his mouth and rolled down the roof, of course, but he didn't care; his

mind 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 to

the hole, like a possum looking down a jug; then he glanced up with

his bright eyes, gave a wink or two with his wings--which signifies

gratification, you understand--and says, 'It looks like a hole, it's

located 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 up

perfectly joyful, this time; winks his wings and his tail both, and

says, '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 that

acorn, and fetched it up and dropped it in, and was just tilting his

head back, with the heavenliest smile on his face, when all of a

sudden he was paralyzed into a listening attitude and that smile faded

gradually out of his countenance like breath off'n a razor, and the

queerest look of surprise took its place. Then he says, 'Why, I didn't

hear it fall!' He cocked his eye at the hole again, and took a long

look; raised up and shook his head; stepped around to the other side of

the hole and took another look from that side; shook his head again. He

studied a while, then he just went into the Details--walked round and

round 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 and

scratched the back of his head with his right foot a minute, and finally

says, 'Well, it's too many for ME, that's certain; must be a mighty long

hole; however, I ain't got no time to fool around here, I got to "tend

to business"; I reckon it's all right--chance it, anyway.'

"So he flew off and fetched another acorn and dropped it in, and tried

to 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 he

raised up and sighed, and says, 'Confound it, I don't seem to understand

this thing, no way; however, I'll tackle her again.' He fetched

another acorn, and done his level best to see what become of it, but he

couldn'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 begun

to get mad. He held in for a spell, walking up and down the comb of the

roof and shaking his head and muttering to himself; but his feelings got

the upper hand of him, presently, and he broke loose and cussed himself

black 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 a

minute; then he says, 'Well, you're a long hole, and a deep hole, and

a mighty singular hole altogether--but I've started in to fill you, and

I'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 was

born. He laid into his work like a nigger, and the way he hove acorns

into that hole for about two hours and a half was one of the most

exciting and astonishing spectacles I ever struck. He never stopped to

take a look anymore--he just hove 'em in and went for more. Well, at

last he could hardly flop his wings, he was so tuckered out. He comes

a-dropping down, once more, sweating like an ice-pitcher, dropped his

acorn 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 up

again he was just pale with rage. He says, 'I've shoveled acorns enough

in there to keep the family thirty years, and if I can see a sign of one

of 'em I wish I may land in a museum with a belly full of sawdust in two

minutes!'

"He just had strength enough to crawl up on to the comb and lean his

back agin the chimbly, and then he collected his impressions and

begun to free his mind. I see in a second that what I had mistook for

profanity in the mines was only just the rudiments, as you may say.

"Another jay was going by, and heard him doing his devotions, and stops

to 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 and

look for yourself.' So this fellow went and looked, and comes back and

says, 'How many did you say you put in there?' 'Not any less than

two tons,' says the sufferer. The other jay went and looked again. He

couldn't seem to make it out, so he raised a yell, and three more jays

come. They all examined the hole, they all made the sufferer tell

it over again, then they all discussed it, and got off as many

leather-headed opinions about it as an average crowd of humans could

have done.

"They called in more jays; then more and more, till pretty soon this

whole region 'peared to have a blue flush about it. There must have been

five thousand of them; and such another jawing and disputing and ripping

and cussing, you never heard. Every jay in the whole lot put his eye to

the hole and delivered a more chuckle-headed opinion about the mystery

than the jay that went there before him. They examined the house all

over, too. The door was standing half open, and at last one old jay

happened to go and light on it and look in. Of course, that knocked the

mystery galley-west in a second. There lay the acorns, scattered all

over 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 trying

to fill up a house with acorns!' They all came a-swooping down like a

blue cloud, and as each fellow lit on the door and took a glance, the

whole absurdity of the contract that that first jay had tackled hit him

home and he fell over backward suffocating with laughter, and the next

jay took his place and done the same.

"Well, sir, they roosted around here on the housetop and the trees for

an hour, and guffawed over that thing like human beings. It ain't any

use to tell me a bluejay hasn't got a sense of humor, because I know

better. And memory, too. They brought jays here from all over the United

States to look down that hole, every summer for three years. Other

birds, too. And they could all see the point except an owl that come

from Nova Scotia to visit the Yo Semite, and he took this thing in on

his way back. He said he couldn't see anything funny in it. But then he

was 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 frequent

figure in and about Heidelberg was the student. Most of the students

were Germans, of course, but the representatives of foreign lands

were very numerous. They hailed from every corner of the globe--for

instruction is cheap in Heidelberg, and so is living, too. The

Anglo-American Club, composed of British and American students, had

twenty-five members, and there was still much material left to draw

from.

Nine-tenths of the Heidelberg students wore no badge or uniform;

the other tenth wore caps of various colors, and belonged to social

organizations called "corps." There were five corps, each with a color

of its own; there were white caps, blue caps, and red, yellow, and green

ones. The famous duel-fighting is confined to the "corps" boys. The

"KNEIP" seems to be a specialty of theirs, too. Kneips are held, now and

then, 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, out

of pint-mugs, as fast as possible, and each man keeps his own

count--usually by laying aside a lucifer match for each mug he empties.

The election is soon decided. When the candidates can hold no more, a

count is instituted and the one who has drank the greatest number of

pints is proclaimed king. I was told that the last beer king elected

by the corps--or by his own capabilities--emptied his mug seventy-five

times. No stomach could hold all that quantity at one time, of

course--but there are ways of frequently creating a vacuum, which those

who have been much at sea will understand.

One sees so many students abroad at all hours, that he presently begins

to wonder if they ever have any working-hours. Some of them have, some

of them haven't. Each can choose for himself whether he will work or

play; for German university life is a very free life; it seems to have

no restraints. The student does not live in the college buildings, but

hires his own lodgings, in any locality he prefers, and he takes his

meals when and where he pleases. He goes to bed when it suits him, and

does not get up at all unless he wants to. He is not entered at the

university for any particular length of time; so he is likely to change

about. He passes no examinations upon entering college. He merely pays

a trifling fee of five or ten dollars, receives a card entitling him to

the privileges of the university, and that is the end of it. He is now

ready for business--or play, as he shall prefer. If he elects to

work, he finds a large list of lectures to choose from. He selects the

subjects which he will study, and enters his name for these studies; but

he can skip attendance.

The result of this system is, that lecture-courses upon specialties

of an unusual nature are often delivered to very slim audiences,

while those upon more practical and every-day matters of education are

delivered to very large ones. I heard of one case where, day after day,

the lecturer's audience consisted of three students--and always the

same three. But one day two of them remained away. The lecturer began as

usual--

"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 hard

workers, and make the most of their opportunities; that they have

no surplus means to spend in dissipation, and no time to spare for

frolicking. One lecture follows right on the heels of another, with very

little 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 professors

assist them in the saving of their time by being promptly in their

little boxed-up pulpits when the hours strike, and as promptly out again

when the hour finishes. I entered an empty lecture-room one day just

before the clock struck. The place had simple, unpainted pine desks and

benches for about two hundred persons.

About a minute before the clock struck, a hundred and fifty students

swarmed in, rushed to their seats, immediately spread open their

notebooks and dipped their pens in ink. When the clock began to strike,

a burly professor entered, was received with a round of applause, moved

swiftly down the center aisle, said "Gentlemen," and began to talk as he

climbed his pulpit steps; and by the time he had arrived in his box and

faced his audience, his lecture was well under way and all the pens were

going. He had no notes, he talked with prodigious rapidity and

energy for an hour--then the students began to remind him in certain

well-understood ways that his time was up; he seized his hat, still

talking, proceeded swiftly down his pulpit steps, got out the last word

of his discourse as he struck the floor; everybody rose respectfully,

and he swept rapidly down the aisle and disappeared. An instant rush for

some other lecture-room followed, and in a minute I was alone with the

empty benches once more.

Yes, without doubt, idle students are not the rule. Out of eight hundred

in the town, I knew the faces of only about fifty; but these I saw

everywhere, and daily. They walked about the streets and the wooded

hills, they drove in cabs, they boated on the river, they sipped beer

and coffee, afternoons, in the Schloss gardens. A good many of them wore

colored 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 a

gentleman passed whom one of them knew and saluted, they all rose

to their feet and took off their caps. The members of a corps always

received a fellow-member in this way, too; but they paid no attention

to members of other corps; they did not seem to see them. This was not

a discourtesy; it was only a part of the elaborate and rigid corps

etiquette.

There seems to be no chilly distance existing between the German

students and the professor; but, on the contrary, a companionable

intercourse, the opposite of chilliness and reserve. When the professor

enters a beer-hall in the evening where students are gathered together,

these rise up and take off their caps, and invite the old gentleman to

sit with them and partake. He accepts, and the pleasant talk and the

beer flow for an hour or two, and by and by the professor, properly

charged and comfortable, gives a cordial good night, while the students

stand bowing and uncovered; and then he moves on his happy way homeward

with all his vast cargo of learning afloat in his hold. Nobody finds

fault 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 the

corps steward or head servant; then there are other dogs, owned by

individuals.

On a summer afternoon in the Castle gardens, I have seen six students

march solemnly into the grounds, in single file, each carrying a bright

Chinese parasol and leading a prodigious dog by a string. It was a very

imposing spectacle. Sometimes there would be as many dogs around the

pavilion as students; and of all breeds and of all degrees of beauty and

ugliness. These dogs had a rather dry time of it; for they were tied

to the benches and had no amusement for an hour or two at a time except

what they could get out of pawing at the gnats, or trying to sleep and

not succeeding. However, they got a lump of sugar occasionally--they

were fond of that.

It seemed right and proper that students should indulge in dogs; but

everybody else had them, too--old men and young ones, old women and

nice young ladies. If there is one spectacle that is unpleasanter than

another, it is that of an elegantly dressed young lady towing a dog by a

string. It is said to be the sign and symbol of blighted love. It seems

to me that some other way of advertising it might be devised, which

would be just as conspicuous and yet not so trying to the proprieties.

It would be a mistake to suppose that the easy-going pleasure-seeking

student carries an empty head. Just the contrary. He has spent nine

years in the gymnasium, under a system which allowed him no freedom, but

vigorously compelled him to work like a slave. Consequently, he has left

the gymnasium with an education which is so extensive and complete, that

the most a university can do for it is to perfect some of its profounder

specialties. It is said that when a pupil leaves the gymnasium, he not

only has a comprehensive education, but he KNOWS what he knows--it is

not befogged with uncertainty, it is burnt into him so that it will

stay. For instance, he does not merely read and write Greek, but speaks

it; 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 mansard

roof on their whole general education; but the German student already

has his mansard roof, so he goes there to add a steeple in the nature of

some specialty, such as a particular branch of law, or diseases of the

eye, or special study of the ancient Gothic tongues. So this German

attends only the lectures which belong to the chosen branch, and drinks

his beer and tows his dog around and has a general good time the rest of

the day. He has been in rigid bondage so long that the large liberty

of the university life is just what he needs and likes and thoroughly

appreciates; and as it cannot last forever, he makes the most of it

while it does last, and so lays up a good rest against the day that must

see him put on the chains once more and enter the slavery of official or

professional life.

CHAPTER V - At the Students' Dueling-Ground - [Dueling by Wholesale]

One day in the interest of science my agent obtained permission to bring

me to the students' dueling-place. We crossed the river and drove up

the bank a few hundred yards, then turned to the left, entered a narrow

alley, followed it a hundred yards and arrived at a two-story public

house; we were acquainted with its outside aspect, for it was visible

from the hotel. We went upstairs and passed into a large whitewashed

apartment which was perhaps fifty feet long by thirty feet wide and

twenty or twenty-five high. It was a well-lighted place. There was no

carpet. Across one end and down both sides of the room extended a row of

tables, and at these tables some fifty or seventy-five students [1. See

Appendix C] were sitting.

Some of them were sipping wine, others were playing cards, others chess,

other groups were chatting together, and many were smoking cigarettes

while they waited for the coming duels. Nearly all of them wore colored

caps; there were white caps, green caps, blue caps, red caps, and

bright-yellow ones; so, all the five corps were present in strong

force. In the windows at the vacant end of the room stood six or eight,

narrow-bladed swords with large protecting guards for the hand, and

outside was a man at work sharpening others on a grindstone.

He understood his business; for when a sword left his hand one could

shave himself with it.

It was observable that the young gentlemen neither bowed to nor spoke

with students whose caps differed in color from their own. This did not

mean hostility, but only an armed neutrality. It was considered that

a person could strike harder in the duel, and with a more earnest

interest, if he had never been in a condition of comradeship with his

antagonist; therefore, comradeship between the corps was not permitted.

At intervals the presidents of the five corps have a cold official

intercourse with each other, but nothing further. For example, when the

regular dueling-day of one of the corps approaches, its president calls

for volunteers from among the membership to offer battle; three or more

respond--but there must not be less than three; the president lays their

names before the other presidents, with the request that they furnish

antagonists for these challengers from among their corps. This is

promptly done. It chanced that the present occasion was the battle-day

of the Red Cap Corps. They were the challengers, and certain caps of

other colors had volunteered to meet them. The students fight duels in

the room which I have described, TWO DAYS IN EVERY WEEK DURING SEVEN

AND A HALF OR EIGHT MONTHS IN EVERY YEAR. This custom had continued in

Germany two hundred and fifty years.

To return to my narrative. A student in a white cap met us and

introduced us to six or eight friends of his who also wore white caps,

and while we stood conversing, two strange-looking figures were led in

from another room. They were students panoplied for the duel. They were

bareheaded; their eyes were protected by iron goggles which projected an

inch or more, the leather straps of which bound their ears flat against

their heads were wound around and around with thick wrappings which

a sword could not cut through; from chin to ankle they were padded

thoroughly against injury; their arms were bandaged and rebandaged,

layer upon layer, until they looked like solid black logs. These weird

apparitions had been handsome youths, clad in fashionable attire,

fifteen minutes before, but now they did not resemble any beings one

ever sees unless in nightmares. They strode along, with their arms

projecting straight out from their bodies; they did not hold them out

themselves, but fellow-students walked beside them and gave the needed

support.

There was a rush for the vacant end of the room, now, and we followed

and got good places. The combatants were placed face to face, each with

several members of his own corps about him to assist; two seconds, well

padded, and with swords in their hands, took their stations; a student

belonging to neither of the opposing corps placed himself in a good

position to umpire the combat; another student stood by with a watch and

a memorandum-book to keep record of the time and the number and nature

of the wounds; a gray-haired surgeon was present with his lint, his

bandages, and his instruments.

After a moment's pause the duelists saluted the umpire respectfully,

then one after another the several officials stepped forward, gracefully

removed their caps and saluted him also, and returned to their places.

Everything was ready now; students stood crowded together in the

foreground, and others stood behind them on chairs and tables. Every

face was turned toward the center of attraction.

The combatants were watching each other with alert eyes; a perfect

stillness, a breathless interest reigned. I felt that I was going to

see some wary work. But not so. The instant the word was given, the two

apparitions sprang forward and began to rain blows down upon each other

with such lightning rapidity that I could not quite tell whether I saw

the swords or only flashes they made in the air; the rattling din of

these blows as they struck steel or paddings was something wonderfully

stirring, and they were struck with such terrific force that I could not

understand why the opposing sword was not beaten down under the assault.

Presently, in the midst of the sword-flashes, I saw a handful of hair

skip into the air as if it had lain loose on the victim's head and a

breath of wind had puffed it suddenly away.

The seconds cried "Halt!" and knocked up the combatants' swords with

their own. The duelists sat down; a student official stepped forward,

examined the wounded head and touched the place with a sponge once or

twice; the surgeon came and turned back the hair from the wound--and

revealed a crimson gash two or three inches long, and proceeded to bind

an oval piece of leather and a bunch of lint over it; the tally-keeper

stepped up and tallied one for the opposition in his book.

Then the duelists took position again; a small stream of blood was

flowing down the side of the injured man's head, and over his shoulder

and down his body to the floor, but he did not seem to mind this. The

word was given, and they plunged at each other as fiercely as before;

once more the blows rained and rattled and flashed; every few moments

the quick-eyed seconds would notice that a sword was bent--then they

called "Halt!" struck up the contending weapons, and an assisting

student straightened the bent one.

The wonderful turmoil went on--presently a bright spark sprung from

a blade, and that blade broken in several pieces, sent one of its

fragments flying to the ceiling. A new sword was provided and the fight

proceeded. The exercise was tremendous, of course, and in time the

fighters began to show great fatigue. They were allowed to rest a

moment, every little while; they got other rests by wounding each other,

for then they could sit down while the doctor applied the lint and

bandages. The law is that the battle must continue fifteen minutes if

the men can hold out; and as the pauses do not count, this duel was

protracted to twenty or thirty minutes, I judged. At last it was decided

that the men were too much wearied to do battle longer. They were led

away drenched with crimson from head to foot. That was a good fight, but

it could not count, partly because it did not last the lawful fifteen

minutes (of actual fighting), and partly because neither man was

disabled by his wound. It was a drawn battle, and corps law requires

that drawn battles shall be refought as soon as the adversaries are well

of their hurts.

During the conflict, I had talked a little, now and then, with a young

gentleman of the White Cap Corps, and he had mentioned that he was to

fight next--and had also pointed out his challenger, a young gentleman

who was leaning against the opposite wall smoking a cigarette and

restfully observing the duel then in progress.

My acquaintanceship with a party to the coming contest had the effect of

giving me a kind of personal interest in it; I naturally wished he might

win, and it was the reverse of pleasant to learn that he probably would

not, because, although he was a notable swordsman, the challenger was

held to be his superior.

The duel presently began and in the same furious way which had marked

the previous one. I stood close by, but could not tell which blows told

and which did not, they fell and vanished so like flashes of light. They

all seemed to tell; the swords always bent over the opponents' heads,

from the forehead back over the crown, and seemed to touch, all the

way; but it was not so--a protecting blade, invisible to me, was always

interposed between. At the end of ten seconds each man had struck twelve

or 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 one

was brought. Early in the next round the White Corps student got an ugly

wound on the side of his head and gave his opponent one like it. In the

third round the latter received another bad wound in the head, and the

former had his under-lip divided. After that, the White Corps student

gave many severe wounds, but got none of the consequence in return.

At the end of five minutes from the beginning of the duel the surgeon

stopped it; the challenging party had suffered such injuries that any

addition to them might be dangerous. These injuries were a fearful

spectacle, but are better left undescribed. So, against expectation, my

acquaintance was the victor.

CHAPTER VI - [A Sport that Sometimes Kills]

The third duel was brief and bloody. The surgeon stopped it when he saw

that one of the men had received such bad wounds that he could not fight

longer without endangering his life.

The fourth duel was a tremendous encounter; but at the end of five or

six minutes the surgeon interfered once more: another man so severely

hurt as to render it unsafe to add to his harms. I watched this

engagement as I watched the others--with rapt interest and strong

excitement, and with a shrink and a shudder for every blow that laid

open a cheek or a forehead; and a conscious paling of my face when I

occasionally saw a wound of a yet more shocking nature inflicted.

My eyes were upon the loser of this duel when he got his last and

vanquishing wound--it was in his face and it carried away his--but no

matter, I must not enter into details. I had but a glance, and then

turned quickly, but I would not have been looking at all if I had known

what was coming. No, that is probably not true; one thinks he would not

look if he knew what was coming, but the interest and the excitement are

so powerful that they would doubtless conquer all other feelings; and

so, under the fierce exhilaration of the clashing steel, he would yield

and look after all. Sometimes spectators of these duels faint--and it

does seem a very reasonable thing to do, too.

Both parties to this fourth duel were badly hurt so much that the

surgeon was at work upon them nearly or quite an hour--a fact which is

suggestive. But this waiting interval was not wasted in idleness by

the assembled students. It was past noon, therefore they ordered their

landlord, downstairs, to send up hot beefsteaks, chickens, and such

things, and these they ate, sitting comfortable at the several tables,

whilst they chatted, disputed and laughed. The door to the surgeon's

room stood open, meantime, but the cutting, sewing, splicing, and

bandaging going on in there in plain view did not seem to disturb

anyone's appetite. I went in and saw the surgeon labor awhile, but could

not enjoy; it was much less trying to see the wounds given and received

than to see them mended; the stir and turmoil, and the music of the

steel, were wanting here--one's nerves were wrung by this grisly

spectacle, whilst the duel's compensating pleasurable thrill was

lacking.

Finally the doctor finished, and the men who were to fight the closing

battle 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, but

a "satisfaction" affair. These two students had quarreled, and were here

to settle it. They did not belong to any of the corps, but they were

furnished with weapons and armor, and permitted to fight here by the

five corps as a courtesy. Evidently these two young men were unfamiliar

with the dueling ceremonies, though they were not unfamiliar with the

sword. When they were placed in position they thought it was time

to begin--and then did begin, too, and with a most impetuous energy,

without waiting for anybody to give the word. This vastly amused the

spectators, and even broke down their studied and courtly gravity and

surprised them into laughter. Of course the seconds struck up the swords

and started the duel over again. At the word, the deluge of blows began,

but before long the surgeon once more interfered--for the only reason

which ever permits him to interfere--and the day's war was over. It was

now two in the afternoon, and I had been present since half past nine in

the 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 I

arrived. In it one of the men received many injuries, while the other

one escaped without a scratch.

I had seen the heads and faces of ten youths gashed in every direction

by the keen two-edged blades, and yet had not seen a victim wince, nor

heard a moan, or detected any fleeting expression which confessed the

sharp pain the hurts were inflicting. This was good fortitude, indeed.

Such endurance is to be expected in savages and prize-fighters, for they

are born and educated to it; but to find it in such perfection in these

gently bred and kindly natured young fellows is matter for surprise.

It was not merely under the excitement of the sword-play that this

fortitude was shown; it was shown in the surgeon's room where an

uninspiring quiet reigned, and where there was no audience. The doctor's

manipulations brought out neither grimaces nor moans. And in the fights

it was observable that these lads hacked and slashed with the same

tremendous spirit, after they were covered with streaming wounds, which

they had shown in the beginning.

The world in general looks upon the college duels as very farcical

affairs: 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 covered

up with armor that he cannot be hurt. But it is not so; his eyes and

ears are protected, but the rest of his face and head are bare. He

can not only be badly wounded, but his life is in danger; and he would

sometimes lose it but for the interference of the surgeon. It is

not intended that his life shall be endangered. Fatal accidents are

possible, however. For instance, the student's sword may break, and the

end of it fly up behind his antagonist's ear and cut an artery which

could not be reached if the sword remained whole. This has happened,

sometimes, and death has resulted on the spot. Formerly the student's

armpits were not protected--and at that time the swords were pointed,

whereas they are blunt, now; so an artery in the armpit was sometimes

cut, and death followed. Then in the days of sharp-pointed swords, a

spectator was an occasional victim--the end of a broken sword flew five

or ten feet and buried itself in his neck or his heart, and death ensued

instantly. The student duels in Germany occasion two or three deaths

every year, now, but this arises only from the carelessness of the

wounded men; they eat or drink imprudently, or commit excesses in the

way of overexertion; inflammation sets in and gets such a headway that

it cannot be arrested. Indeed, there is blood and pain and danger

enough about the college duel to entitle it to a considerable degree of

respect.

All the customs, all the laws, all the details, pertaining to the

student duel are quaint and naive. The grave, precise, and courtly

ceremony with which the thing is conducted, invests it with a sort of

antique charm.

This dignity and these knightly graces suggest the tournament, not the

prize-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 he

chooses, but never back of it. If he steps back of it, or even leans

back, it is considered that he did it to avoid a blow or contrive an

advantage; so he is dismissed from his corps in disgrace. It would seem

natural to step from under a descending sword unconsciously, and against

one's will and intent--yet this unconsciousness is not allowed. Again:

if under the sudden anguish of a wound the receiver of it makes a

grimace, he falls some degrees in the estimation of his fellows; his

corps are ashamed of him: they call him "hare foot," which is the German

equivalent for chicken-hearted.

CHAPTER VII - [How Bismark Fought]

In addition to the corps laws, there are some corps usages which have

the force of laws.

Perhaps the president of a corps notices that one of the membership who

is no longer an exempt--that is a freshman--has remained a sophomore

some little time without volunteering to fight; some day, the president,

instead of calling for volunteers, will APPOINT this sophomore

to measure swords with a student of another corps; he is free to

decline--everybody says so--there is no compulsion. This is all

true--but I have not heard of any student who DID decline; to decline

and still remain in the corps would make him unpleasantly conspicuous,

and properly so, since he knew, when he joined, that his main

business, as a member, would be to fight. No, there is no law against

declining--except the law of custom, which is confessedly stronger than

written law, everywhere.

The ten men whose duels I had witnessed did not go away when their hurts

were dressed, as I had supposed they would, but came back, one after

another, as soon as they were free of the surgeon, and mingled with the

assemblage in the dueling-room. The white-cap student who won the second

fight witnessed the remaining three, and talked with us during the

intermissions. He could not talk very well, because his opponent's sword

had cut his under-lip in two, and then the surgeon had sewed it together

and overlaid it with a profusion of white plaster patches; neither could

he eat easily, still he contrived to accomplish a slow and troublesome

luncheon while the last duel was preparing. The man who was the worst

hurt of all played chess while waiting to see this engagement. A good

part of his face was covered with patches and bandages, and all the rest

of his head was covered and concealed by them.

It is said that the student likes to appear on the street and in other

public places in this kind of array, and that this predilection often

keeps him out when exposure to rain or sun is a positive danger for

him. Newly bandaged students are a very common spectacle in the public

gardens of Heidelberg. It is also said that the student is glad to

get wounds in the face, because the scars they leave will show so well

there; and it is also said that these face wounds are so prized that

youths have even been known to pull them apart from time to time and

put red wine in them to make them heal badly and leave as ugly a scar

as possible. It does not look reasonable, but it is roundly asserted

and maintained, nevertheless; I am sure of one thing--scars are plenty

enough in Germany, among the young men; and very grim ones they are,

too. They crisscross the face in angry red welts, and are permanent and

ineffaceable.

Some of these scars are of a very strange and dreadful aspect; and the

effect is striking when several such accent the milder ones, which form

a city map on a man's face; they suggest the "burned district" then. We

had often noticed that many of the students wore a colored silk band

or ribbon diagonally across their breasts. It transpired that this

signifies that the wearer has fought three duels in which a decision

was reached--duels in which he either whipped or was whipped--for drawn

battles do not count. [1] After a student has received his ribbon, he

is "free"; he can cease from fighting, without reproach--except some one

insult him; his president cannot appoint him to fight; he can volunteer

if he wants to, or remain quiescent if he prefers to do so. Statistics

show that he does NOT prefer to remain quiescent. They show that the

duel has a singular fascination about it somewhere, for these free

men, so far from resting upon the privilege of the badge, are always

volunteering. A corps student told me it was of record that Prince

Bismarck fought thirty-two of these duels in a single summer term when

he was in college. So he fought twenty-nine after his badge had given

him the right to retire from the field.

1. FROM MY DIARY.--Dined in a hotel a few miles up the Neckar, in a room

whose walls were hung all over with framed portrait-groups of the Five

Corps; some were recent, but many antedated photography, and were

pictured in lithography--the dates ranged back to forty or fifty years

ago. Nearly every individual wore the ribbon across his breast. In one

portrait-group representing (as each of these pictures did) an entire

Corps, I took pains to count the ribbons: there were twenty-seven

members, 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 that

there must be three duels on each of these days; there are generally

more, 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 a

week--four for each of the two days--is too low an average to draw

a calculation from, but I will reckon from that basis, preferring an

understatement to an overstatement of the case. This requires about four

hundred and eighty or five hundred duelists a year--for in summer the

college term is about three and a half months, and in winter it is four

months and sometimes longer. Of the seven hundred and fifty students in

the university at the time I am writing of, only eighty belonged to the

five corps, and it is only these corps that do the dueling; occasionally

other students borrow the arms and battleground of the five corps in

order to settle a quarrel, but this does not happen every dueling-day.

[2] Consequently eighty youths furnish the material for some two hundred

and fifty duels a year. This average gives six fights a year to each

of the eighty. This large work could not be accomplished if the

badge-holders stood upon their privilege and ceased to volunteer.

2. They have to borrow the arms because they could not get them

elsewhere or otherwise. As I understand it, the public authorities, all

over Germany, allow the five Corps to keep swords, but DO NOT ALLOW THEM

TO USE THEM. This is law is rigid; it is only the execution of it that

is lax.

Of course, where there is so much fighting, the students make it a point

to keep themselves in constant practice with the foil. One often sees

them, at the tables in the Castle grounds, using their whips or canes to

illustrate some new sword trick which they have heard about; and between

the duels, on the day whose history I have been writing, the swords were

not always idle; every now and then we heard a succession of the keen

hissing sounds which the sword makes when it is being put through its

paces in the air, and this informed us that a student was practicing.

Necessarily, this unceasing attention to the art develops an expert

occasionally. He becomes famous in his own university, his renown

spreads to other universities. He is invited to Goettingen, to fight

with a Goettingen expert; if he is victorious, he will be invited

to other colleges, or those colleges will send their experts to him.

Americans and Englishmen often join one or another of the five corps. A

year or two ago, the principal Heidelberg expert was a big Kentuckian;

he was invited to the various universities and left a wake of victory

behind him all about Germany; but at last a little student in Strasburg

defeated him. There was formerly a student in Heidelberg who had picked

up somewhere and mastered a peculiar trick of cutting up under instead

of cleaving down from above. While the trick lasted he won in sixteen

successive duels in his university; but by that time observers had

discovered what his charm was, and how to break it, therefore his

championship ceased.

A rule which forbids social intercourse between members of different

corps is strict. In the dueling-house, in the parks, on the street,

and anywhere and everywhere that the students go, caps of a color group

themselves together. If all the tables in a public garden were crowded

but one, and that one had two red-cap students at it and ten vacant

places, the yellow-caps, the blue-caps, the white caps, and the green

caps, seeking seats, would go by that table and not seem to see it, nor

seem to be aware that there was such a table in the grounds. The student

by whose courtesy we had been enabled to visit the dueling-place, wore

the white cap--Prussian Corps. He introduced us to many white caps, but

to none of another color. The corps etiquette extended even to us, who

were strangers, and required us to group with the white corps only, and

speak only with the white corps, while we were their guests, and keep

aloof from the caps of the other colors. Once I wished to examine some

of the swords, but an American student said, "It would not be quite

polite; these now in the windows all have red hilts or blue; they will

bring in some with white hilts presently, and those you can handle

freely." When a sword was broken in the first duel, I wanted a piece

of it; but its hilt was the wrong color, so it was considered best and

politest to await a properer season.

It was brought to me after the room was cleared, and I will now make

a "life-size" sketch of it by tracing a line around it with my pen, to

show the width of the weapon. [Figure 1] The length of these swords is

about 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. However

brilliant a contest or a victory might be, no sign or sound betrayed

that any one was moved. A dignified gravity and repression were

maintained at all times.

When the dueling was finished and we were ready to go, the gentlemen of

the Prussian Corps to whom we had been introduced took off their caps

in the courteous German way, and also shook hands; their brethren of the

same order took off their caps and bowed, but without shaking hands; the

gentlemen of the other corps treated us just as they would have treated

white caps--they fell apart, apparently unconsciously, and left us an

unobstructed 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 the

etiquette of their order and ignored our presence.

[How strangely are comedy and tragedy blended in this life! I had not

been home a full half-hour, after witnessing those playful sham-duels,

when circumstances made it necessary for me to get ready immediately to

assist personally at a real one--a duel with no effeminate limitation in

the matter of results, but a battle to the death. An account of it, in

the 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 the

French Assembly--Calmness of M Gambetta--I Volunteer as Second--Drawing

up a Will--The Challenge and its Acceptance--Difficulty in Selection

of Weapons--Deciding on Distance--M. Gambetta's Firmness--Arranging

Details--Hiring Hearses--How it was Kept from the Press--March to the

Field--The Post of Danger--The Duel--The Result--General Rejoicings--The

only One Hurt--A Firm Resolution

CHAPTER IX At the Theatre--German Ideal--At the Opera--The

Orchestra--Howlings and Wailings--A Curious Play--One Season of

Rest--The Wedding Chorus--Germans fond of the Opera--Funerals Needed

--A Private Party--What I Overheard--A Gentle Girl--A

Contribution--box--Unpleasantly Conspicuous

CHAPTER X Four Hours with Wagner--A Wonderful Singer, Once--" Only a

Shriek"--An Ancient Vocalist--"He Only Cry"--Emotional Germans--A

Wise Custom--Late Comers Rebuked--Heard to the Last--No Interruptions

Allowed--A Royal Audience--An Eccentric King--Real Rain and More of

It--Immense Success--"Encore! Encore!"--Magnanimity of the King

CHAPTER XI Lessons in Art--My Great Picture of Heidelberg Castle--Its

Effect in the Exhibition--Mistaken for a Turner--A Studio--Waiting

for Orders--A Tramp Decided On--The Start for Heilbronn--Our Walking

Dress--"Pleasant march to you"--We Take the Rail--German People on

Board--Not Understood--Speak only German and English--Wimpfen--A Funny

Tower--Dinner in the Garden--Vigorous Tramping--Ride in a Peasant's

Cart--A Famous Room

CHAPTER XII The Rathhaus--An Old Robber Knight, Gotz Von

Berlichingen--His Famous Deeds--The Square Tower--A Curious old

Church--A Gay Turn--out--A Legend--The Wives' Treasures--A Model

Waiter--A Miracle Performed--An Old Town--The Worn Stones

CHAPTER XIII Early to Bed--Lonesome--Nervous Excitement--The Room We

Occupied--Disturbed by a Mouse--Grow Desperate--The Old Remedy--A Shoe

Thrown--Result--Hopelessly Awake--An Attempt to Dress--A Cruise in the

Dark--Crawling on the Floor--A General Smash-up--Forty-seven Miles'

Travel

CHAPTER XIV A Famous Turn--out--Raftsmen on the Neckar--The Log

Rafts--The Neckar--A Sudden Idea--To Heidelberg on a Raft--Chartering

a Raft--Gloomy Feelings and Conversation--Delicious Journeying--View of

the 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, it

is in reality one of the most dangerous institutions of our day. Since

it is always fought in the open air, the combatants are nearly sure

to catch cold. M. Paul de Cassagnac, the most inveterate of the French

duelists, had suffered so often in this way that he is at last a

confirmed invalid; and the best physician in Paris has expressed

the opinion that if he goes on dueling for fifteen or twenty years

more--unless he forms the habit of fighting in a comfortable room where

damps and draughts cannot intrude--he will eventually endanger his life.

This ought to moderate the talk of those people who are so stubborn

in maintaining that the French duel is the most health-giving of

recreations because of the open-air exercise it affords. And it

ought also to moderate that foolish talk about French duelists and

socialist-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 late

fiery outbreak between M. Gambetta and M. Fourtou in the French

Assembly, I knew that trouble must follow. I knew it because a long

personal friendship with M. Gambetta revealed to me the desperate and

implacable nature of the man. Vast as are his physical proportions,

I knew that the thirst for revenge would penetrate to the remotest

frontiers of his person.

I did not wait for him to call on me, but went at once to him. As I had

expected, I found the brave fellow steeped in a profound French calm.

I say French calm, because French calmness and English calmness have

points 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 his

foot; grinding a constant grist of curses through his set teeth; and

halting every little while to deposit another handful of his hair on the

pile which he had been building of it on the table.

He threw his arms around my neck, bent me over his stomach to his

breast, kissed me on both cheeks, hugged me four or five times, and

then placed me in his own arm-chair. As soon as I had got well again, we

began 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, so

that I might be shielded from obloquy in my country, in case of fatal

results. He winced here, probably at the suggestion that dueling was not

regarded 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 stuck

to my point. I said I had never heard of a man in his right mind going

out to fight a duel without first making his will. He said he had never

heard of a man in his right mind doing anything of the kind. When he had

finished 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 good

speech for a consumptive, but not suited to the exigencies of the field

of honor. We wrangled over a good many ante-mortem outbursts, but I

finally got him to cut his obituary down to this, which he copied into

his 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 relevancy

was a matter of no consequence in last words, what you wanted was

thrill.

The next thing in order was the choice of weapons. My principal said he

was not feeling well, and would leave that and the other details of the

proposed meeting to me. Therefore I wrote the following note and carried

it to M. Fourtou's friend:

Sir: M. Gambetta accepts M. Fourtou's challenge, and authorizes me to

propose Plessis-Piquet as the place of meeting; tomorrow morning at

daybreak 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 a

meeting 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 explain

it away. He said he had spoken jestingly. Then he added that he and his

principal would enjoy axes, and indeed prefer them, but such weapons

were 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 it

occurred to me that Gatling-guns at fifteen paces would be a likely way

to get a verdict on the field of honor. So I framed this idea into a

proposition.

But it was not accepted. The code was in the way again. I proposed

rifles; then double-barreled shotguns; then Colt's navy revolvers. These

being all rejected, I reflected awhile, and sarcastically suggested

brickbats at three-quarters of a mile. I always hate to fool away a

humorous thing on a person who has no perception of humor; and it filled

me with bitterness when this man went soberly away to submit the last

proposition to his principal.

He came back presently and said his principal was charmed with the idea

of brickbats at three-quarters of a mile, but must decline on account of

the danger to disinterested parties passing between them. Then I said:

"Well, I am at the end of my string, now. Perhaps YOU would be good

enough to suggest a weapon? Perhaps you have even had one in your mind

all 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 had

plenty of them--muttering all the while, "Now, what could I have done

with them?"

At last he was successful. He fished out of his vest pocket a couple

of little things which I carried to the light and ascertained to be

pistols. They were single-barreled and silver-mounted, and very dainty

and pretty. I was not able to speak for emotion. I silently hung one of

them on my watch-chain, and returned the other. My companion in crime

now unrolled a postage-stamp containing several cartridges, and gave me

one of them. I asked if he meant to signify by this that our men were

to be allowed but one shot apiece. He replied that the French code

permitted no more. I then begged him to go and suggest a distance, for

my mind was growing weak and confused under the strain which had been

put upon it. He named sixty-five yards. I nearly lost my patience. I

said:

"Sixty-five yards, with these instruments? Squirt-guns would be deadlier

at fifty. Consider, my friend, you and I are banded together to destroy

life, not make it eternal."

But with all my persuasions, all my arguments, I was only able to

get him to reduce the distance to thirty-five yards; and even this

concession he made with reluctance, and said with a sigh, "I wash my

hands of this slaughter; on your head be it."

There was nothing for me but to go home to my old lion-heart and tell my

humiliating story. When I entered, M. Gambetta was laying his last lock

of 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. He

breathed thick and heavily for a moment or two, so tumultuous were his

feelings; then he hoarsely whispered:

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

"This!" and I displayed that silver-mounted thing. He cast but one

glance 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 my

nerves. But away with weakness! I will confront my fate like a man and a

Frenchman."

He rose to his feet, and assumed an attitude which for sublimity has

never 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 poured

water down his back. He presently came to, and said:

"Thirty-five yards--without a rest? But why ask? Since murder was that

man's intention, why should he palter with small details? But mark you

one thing: in my fall the world shall see how the chivalry of France

meets death."

After a long silence he asked:

"Was nothing said about that man's family standing up with him, as

an offset to my bulk? But no matter; I would not stoop to make such

a suggestion; if he is not noble enough to suggest it himself, he is

welcome to this advantage, which no honorable man would take."

He now sank into a sort of stupor of reflection, which lasted some

minutes; 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 an

hour."

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

audience?"

"It is no time to bandy words. I am astonished that M. Fourtou should

ever have agreed to so strange an innovation. Go at once and require a

later hour."

I ran downstairs, threw open the front door, and almost plunged into the

arms of M. Fourtou's second. He said:

"I have the honor to say that my principal strenuously objects to the

hour 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 service

of 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 a

person behind him, and said, "You hear, M. Noir, the hour is altered to

half past nine." Whereupon M. Noir bowed, expressed his thanks, and went

away. My accomplice continued:

"If agreeable to you, your chief surgeons and ours shall proceed to the

field in the same carriage as is customary."

"It is entirely agreeable to me, and I am obliged to you for mentioning

the surgeons, for I am afraid I should not have thought of them. How

many 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 consulting

surgeons, from among the highest in the profession. These will come in

their own private carriages. Have you engaged a hearse?"

"Bless my stupidity, I never thought of it! I will attend to it right

away. I must seem very ignorant to you; but you must try to overlook

that, because I have never had any experience of such a swell duel as

this before. I have had a good deal to do with duels on the Pacific

coast, but I see now that they were crude affairs. A hearse--sho! we

used to leave the elected lying around loose, and let anybody cord

them up and cart them off that wanted to. Have you anything further to

suggest?"

"Nothing, except that the head undertakers shall ride together, as is

usual. The subordinates and mutes will go on foot, as is also usual. I

will see you at eight o'clock in the morning, and we will then arrange

the 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 the

engagement 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 moment

deem 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 the

other details, and drop this one from your list. The bloody-minded

Fourtou 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 other

second has informed M. Noir."

"H'm! I might have known it. It is just like that Fourtou, who always

wants to make a display."

At half past nine in the morning the procession approached the field of

Plessis-Piquet in the following order: first came our carriage--nobody

in it but M. Gambetta and myself; then a carriage containing M. Fourtou

and his second; then a carriage containing two poet-orators who did not

believe in God, and these had MS. funeral orations projecting from their

breast pockets; then a carriage containing the head surgeons and their

cases of instruments; then eight private carriages containing consulting

surgeons; then a hack containing a coroner; then the two hearses; then a

carriage containing the head undertakers; then a train of assistants

and mutes on foot; and after these came plodding through the fog a long

procession of camp followers, police, and citizens generally. It was a

noble turnout, and would have made a fine display if we had had thinner

weather.

There was no conversation. I spoke several times to my principal, but

I judge he was not aware of it, for he always referred to his note-book

and muttered absently, "I die that France might live."

Arrived on the field, my fellow-second and I paced off the thirty-five

yards, and then drew lots for choice of position. This latter was but

an ornamental ceremony, for all the choices were alike in such weather.

These preliminaries being ended, I went to my principal and asked him

if he was ready. He spread himself out to his full width, and said in a

stern voice, "Ready! Let the batteries be charged."

The loading process was done in the presence of duly constituted

witnesses. We considered it best to perform this delicate service with

the assistance of a lantern, on account of the state of the weather. We

now placed our men.

At this point the police noticed that the public had massed themselves

together on the right and left of the field; they therefore begged a

delay, 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 behind

the duelists, we were once more ready. The weather growing still more

opaque, it was agreed between myself and the other second that before

giving the fatal signal we should each deliver a loud whoop to enable

the combatants to ascertain each other's whereabouts.

I now returned to my principal, and was distressed to observe that he

had lost a good deal of his spirit. I tried my best to hearten him. I

said, "Indeed, sir, things are not as bad as they seem. Considering

the character of the weapons, the limited number of shots allowed, the

generous distance, the impenetrable solidity of the fog, and the added

fact that one of the combatants is one-eyed and the other cross-eyed and

near-sighted, it seems to me that this conflict need not necessarily be

fatal. There are chances that both of you may survive. Therefore, cheer

up; do not be downhearted."

This speech had so good an effect that my principal immediately

stretched forth his hand and said, "I am myself again; give me the

weapon."

I laid it, all lonely and forlorn, in the center of the vast solitude

of his palm. He gazed at it and shuddered. And still mournfully

contemplating 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 presently

said, "Let the tragedy begin. Stand at my back; do not desert me in this

solemn hour, my friend."

I gave him my promise. I now assisted him to point his pistol toward the

spot where I judged his adversary to be standing, and cautioned him to

listen 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, and

I immediately shouted:

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

Two little sounds like SPIT! SPIT! broke upon my ear, and in the same

instant I was crushed to the earth under a mountain of flesh. Bruised

as I was, I was still able to catch a faint accent from above, to this

effect:

"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, and

applied their microscopes to the whole area of M. Gambetta's person,

with the happy result of finding nothing in the nature of a wound. Then

a scene ensued which was in every way gratifying and inspiriting.

The two gladiators fell upon each other's neck, with floods of proud and

happy tears; that other second embraced me; the surgeons, the

orators, the undertakers, the police, everybody embraced, everybody

congratulated, everybody cried, and the whole atmosphere was filled with

praise and with joy unspeakable.

It seems to me then that I would rather be a hero of a French duel than

a crowned and sceptered monarch.

When the commotion had somewhat subsided, the body of surgeons held a

consultation, and after a good deal of debate decided that with proper

care and nursing there was reason to believe that I would survive my

injuries. My internal hurts were deemed the most serious, since it was

apparent that a broken rib had penetrated my left lung, and that many of

my organs had been pressed out so far to one side or the other of where

they belonged, that it was doubtful if they would ever learn to perform

their functions in such remote and unaccustomed localities. They then

set my left arm in two places, pulled my right hip into its socket

again, and re-elevated my nose. I was an object of great interest,

and even admiration; and many sincere and warm-hearted persons had

themselves introduced to me, and said they were proud to know the only

man 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 most

conspicuous figure in that great spectacle, and deposited at the

hospital.

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 the

age.

I have no complaints to make against any one. I acted for myself, and I

can stand the consequences.

Without boasting, I think I may say I am not afraid to stand before a

modern French duelist, but as long as I keep in my right mind I will

never 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 whole

hours and never understood anything but the thunder and lightning; and

even that was reversed to suit German ideas, for the thunder came first

and the lightning followed after.

The behavior of the audience was perfect. There were no rustlings, or

whisperings, or other little disturbances; each act was listened to in

silence, and the applauding was done after the curtain was down. The

doors opened at half past four, the play began promptly at half past

five, and within two minutes afterward all who were coming were in their

seats, and quiet reigned. A German gentleman in the train had said that

a Shakespearian play was an appreciated treat in Germany and that

we should find the house filled. It was true; all the six tiers were

filled, and remained so to the end--which suggested that it is not only

balcony people who like Shakespeare in Germany, but those of the pit and

gallery, too.

Another time, we went to Mannheim and attended a shivaree--otherwise an

opera--the one called "Lohengrin." The banging and slamming and booming

and crashing were something beyond belief. The racking and pitiless pain

of it remains stored up in my memory alongside the memory of the time

that I had my teeth fixed.

There were circumstances which made it necessary for me to stay through

the four hours to the end, and I stayed; but the recollection of that

long, dragging, relentless season of suffering is indestructible. To

have 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 two

sexes, and this compelled repression; yet at times the pain was so

exquisite that I could hardly keep the tears back.

At those times, as the howlings and wailings and shrieking of the

singers, and the ragings and roarings and explosions of the vast

orchestra rose higher and higher, and wilder and wilder, and fiercer and

fiercer, I could have cried if I had been alone. Those strangers would

not have been surprised to see a man do such a thing who was being

gradually skinned, but they would have marveled at it here, and made

remarks about it no doubt, whereas there was nothing in the present case

which was an advantage over being skinned.

There was a wait of half an hour at the end of the first act, and I

could have gone out and rested during that time, but I could not trust

myself to do it, for I felt that I should desert to stay out. There was

another wait of half an hour toward nine o'clock, but I had gone through

so much by that time that I had no spirit left, and so had no desire but

to be let alone.

I do not wish to suggest that the rest of the people there were like

me, for, indeed, they were not. Whether it was that they naturally

liked that noise, or whether it was that they had learned to like it

by getting used to it, I did not at the time know; but they did like

it--this was plain enough. While it was going on they sat and looked as

rapt and grateful as cats do when one strokes their backs; and whenever

the curtain fell they rose to their feet, in one solid mighty multitude,

and the air was snowed thick with waving handkerchiefs, and hurricanes

of applause swept the place. This was not comprehensible to me. Of

course, there were many people there who were not under compulsion to

stay; yet the tiers were as full at the close as they had been at the

beginning. This showed that the people liked it.

It was a curious sort of a play. In the manner of costumes and scenery

it was fine and showy enough; but there was not much action. That is

to say, there was not much really done, it was only talked about; and

always violently. It was what one might call a narrative play. Everybody

had a narrative and a grievance, and none were reasonable about it, but

all in an offensive and ungovernable state. There was little of that

sort of customary thing where the tenor and the soprano stand down by

the footlights, warbling, with blended voices, and keep holding out

their arms toward each other and drawing them back and spreading both

hands over first one breast and then the other with a shake and a

pressure--no, it was every rioter for himself and no blending. Each sang

his indictive narrative in turn, accompanied by the whole orchestra of

sixty instruments, and when this had continued for some time, and one

was hoping they might come to an understanding and modify the noise, a

great chorus composed entirely of maniacs would suddenly break forth,

and then during two minutes, and sometimes three, I lived over again all

that I suffered the time the orphan asylum burned down.

We only had one brief little season of heaven and heaven's sweet ecstasy

and peace during all this long and diligent and acrimonious reproduction

of the other place. This was while a gorgeous procession of people

marched around and around, in the third act, and sang the Wedding

Chorus. To my untutored ear that was music--almost divine music. While

my seared soul was steeped in the healing balm of those gracious sounds,

it seemed to me that I could almost resuffer the torments which had

gone before, in order to be so healed again. There is where the deep

ingenuity of the operatic idea is betrayed. It deals so largely in pain

that its scattered delights are prodigiously augmented by the contrasts.

A pretty air in an opera is prettier there than it could be anywhere

else, I suppose, just as an honest man in politics shines more than he

would elsewhere.

I have since found out that there is nothing the Germans like so much as

an opera. They like it, not in a mild and moderate way, but with their

whole hearts. This is a legitimate result of habit and education. Our

nation will like the opera, too, by and by, no doubt. One in fifty of

those who attend our operas likes it already, perhaps, but I think a

good many of the other forty-nine go in order to learn to like it, and

the rest in order to be able to talk knowingly about it. The latter

usually hum the airs while they are being sung, so that their neighbors

may perceive that they have been to operas before. The funerals of these

do not occur often enough.

A gentle, old-maidish person and a sweet young girl of seventeen sat

right in front of us that night at the Mannheim opera. These people

talked, between the acts, and I understood them, though I understood

nothing that was uttered on the distant stage. At first they were

guarded in their talk, but after they had heard my agent and me

conversing in English they dropped their reserve and I picked up many

of their little confidences; no, I mean many of HER little

confidences--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 was

absorbed in her own thoughts, her own young-girl dreams, and found a

dearer pleasure in silence. But she was not dreaming sleepy dreams--no,

she was awake, alive, alert, she could not sit still a moment. She was

an enchanting study. Her gown was of a soft white silky stuff that clung

to her round young figure like a fish's skin, and it was rippled over

with the gracefulest little fringy films of lace; she had deep, tender

eyes, with long, curved lashes; and she had peachy cheeks, and a

dimpled chin, and such a dear little rosebud of a mouth; and she was so

dovelike, so pure, and so gracious, so sweet and so bewitching. For long

hours I did mightily wish she would speak. And at last she did; the red

lips parted, and out leaps her thought--and with such a guileless and

pretty enthusiasm, too: "Auntie, I just KNOW I've got five hundred fleas

on me!"

That was probably over the average. Yes, it must have been very much

over the average. The average at that time in the Grand Duchy of Baden

was forty-five to a young person (when alone), according to the official

estimate of the home secretary for that year; the average for older

people was shifty and indeterminable, for whenever a wholesome young

girl came into the presence of her elders she immediately lowered their

average and raised her own. She became a sort of contribution-box.

This dear young thing in the theater had been sitting there

unconsciously taking up a collection. Many a skinny old being in our

neighborhood was the happier and the restfuler for her coming.

In that large audience, that night, there were eight very conspicuous

people. These were ladies who had their hats or bonnets on. What a

blessed thing it would be if a lady could make herself conspicuous in

our 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 in

Mannheim this rule was not enforced because the audiences were largely

made up of people from a distance, and among these were always a few

timid ladies who were afraid that if they had to go into an anteroom to

get 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 risk

and took the chances, preferring the loss of a train to a breach of good

manners and the discomfort of being unpleasantly conspicuous during a

stretch 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, whether

one be conspicuous or not, yet some of Wagner's operas bang along for

six 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 a

person could not like Wagner's music at first, but must go through the

deliberate process of learning to like it--then he would have his sure

reward; for when he had learned to like it he would hunger for it and

never be able to get enough of it. She said that six hours of Wagner was

by no means too much. She said that this composer had made a complete

revolution in music and was burying the old masters one by one. And

she said that Wagner's operas differed from all others in one notable

respect, and that was that they were not merely spotted with music here

and there, but were ALL music, from the first strain to the last. This

surprised me. I said I had attended one of his insurrections, and found

hardly ANY music in it except the Wedding Chorus. She said "Lohengrin"

was noisier than Wagner's other operas, but that if I would keep on

going to see it I would find by and by that it was all music, and

therefore would then enjoy it. I COULD have said, "But would you advise

a person to deliberately practice having a toothache in the pit of his

stomach for a couple of years in order that he might then come to enjoy

it?" But I reserved that remark.

This lady was full of the praises of the head-tenor who had performed in

a Wagner opera the night before, and went on to enlarge upon his old and

prodigious fame, and how many honors had been lavished upon him by the

princely houses of Germany. Here was another surprise. I had attended

that very opera, in the person of my agent, and had made close and

accurate observations. So I said:

"Why, madam, MY experience warrants me in stating that that tenor's

voice 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 many

years 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 theater

will not hold the people. JAWOHL BEI GOTT! his voice is WUNDERSCHOEN in

that past time."

I said she was discovering to me a kindly trait in the Germans which

was worth emulating. I said that over the water we were not quite so

generous; that with us, when a singer had lost his voice and a jumper

had lost his legs, these parties ceased to draw. I said I had been to

the opera in Hanover, once, and in Mannheim once, and in Munich

(through my authorized agent) once, and this large experience had nearly

persuaded me that the Germans PREFERRED singers who couldn't sing. This

was not such a very extravagant speech, either, for that burly Mannheim

tenor's praises had been the talk of all Heidelberg for a week before

his performance took place--yet his voice was like the distressing noise

which a nail makes when you screech it across a window-pane. I said so

to Heidelberg friends the next day, and they said, in the calmest and

simplest way, that that was very true, but that in earlier times his

voice HAD been wonderfully fine. And the tenor in Hanover was just

another example of this sort. The English-speaking German gentleman who

went with me to the opera there was brimming with enthusiasm over that

tenor. He said:

"ACH GOTT! a great man! You shall see him. He is so celebrate in all

Germany--and he has a pension, yes, from the government. He not obliged

to sing now, only twice every year; but if he not sing twice each year

they take him his pension away."

Very well, we went. When the renowned old tenor appeared, I got a nudge

and an excited whisper:

"Now you see him!"

But the "celebrate" was an astonishing disappointment to me. If he

had been behind a screen I should have supposed they were performing a

surgical operation on him. I looked at my friend--to my great surprise

he seemed intoxicated with pleasure, his eyes were dancing with eager

delight. When the curtain at last fell, he burst into the stormiest

applause, and kept it up--as did the whole house--until the afflictive

tenor had come three times before the curtain to make his bow. While the

glowing enthusiast was swabbing the perspiration from his face, I said:

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

sing?"

"Him? NO! GOTT IM HIMMEL, ABER, how he has been able to sing twenty-five

years ago?" [Then pensively.] "ACH, no, NOW he not sing any more, he

only cry. When he think he sing, now, he not sing at all, no, he only

make 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 are

warm-hearted, emotional, impulsive, enthusiastic, their tears come at

the mildest touch, and it is not hard to move them to laughter. They are

the very children of impulse. We are cold and self-contained, compared

to 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 love

escapes the application of a petting diminutive--neither the house, nor

the 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 wise

custom. The moment the curtain went up, the light in the body of the

house 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 scene

shifted; if there was nothing to be done but slide a forest out of the

way and expose a temple beyond, one did not see that forest split itself

in the middle and go shrieking away, with the accompanying disenchanting

spectacle of the hands and heels of the impelling impulse--no, the

curtain was always dropped for an instant--one heard not the least

movement behind it--but when it went up, the next instant, the forest

was gone. Even when the stage was being entirely reset, one heard no

noise. During the whole time that "King Lear" was playing the curtain

was never down two minutes at any one time. The orchestra played until

the curtain was ready to go up for the first time, then they departed

for the evening. Where the stage waits never reach two minutes there is

no occasion for music. I had never seen this two-minute business between

acts but once before, and that was when the "Shaughraun" was played at

Wallack'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 instantly

all movement in the body of the house ceased--nobody was standing, or

walking up the aisles, or fumbling with a seat, the stream of incomers

had suddenly dried up at its source. I listened undisturbed to a piece

of music that was fifteen minutes long--always expecting some tardy

ticket-holders to come crowding past my knees, and being continuously

and pleasantly disappointed--but when the last note was struck, here

came the stream again. You see, they had made those late comers wait in

the comfortable waiting-parlor from the time the music had begun until

it was ended.

It was the first time I had ever seen this sort of criminals denied the

privilege of destroying the comfort of a house full of their betters.

Some of these were pretty fine birds, but no matter, they had to tarry

outside in the long parlor under the inspection of a double rank of

liveried footmen and waiting-maids who supported the two walls with

their backs and held the wraps and traps of their masters and mistresses

on their arms.

We had no footmen to hold our things, and it was not permissible to take

them into the concert-room; but there were some men and women to take

charge of them for us. They gave us checks for them and charged a fixed

price, payable in advance--five cents.

In Germany they always hear one thing at an opera which has never yet

been heard in America, perhaps--I mean the closing strain of a fine solo

or duet. We always smash into it with an earthquake of applause. The

result is that we rob ourselves of the sweetest part of the treat; we

get 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 be

better 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 passion

before a cold still audience. I should think he would feel foolish. It

is a pain to me to this day, to remember how that old German Lear raged

and wept and howled around the stage, with never a response from that

hushed house, never a single outburst till the act was ended. To

me there was something unspeakably uncomfortable in the solemn dead

silences that always followed this old person's tremendous outpourings

of his feelings. I could not help putting myself in his place--I thought

I knew how sick and flat he felt during those silences, because I

remembered a case which came under my observation once, and which--but I

will tell the incident:

One evening on board a Mississippi steamboat, a boy of ten years lay

asleep in a berth--a long, slim-legged boy, he was, encased in quite

a short shirt; it was the first time he had ever made a trip on a

steamboat, and so he was troubled, and scared, and had gone to bed

with his head filled with impending snaggings, and explosions, and

conflagrations, and sudden death. About ten o'clock some twenty ladies

were sitting around about the ladies' saloon, quietly reading, sewing,

embroidering, and so on, and among them sat a sweet, benignant old dame

with round spectacles on her nose and her busy knitting-needles in her

hands. Now all of a sudden, into the midst of this peaceful scene burst

that slim-shanked boy in the brief shirt, wild-eyed, erect-haired, and

shouting, "Fire, fire! JUMP AND RUN, THE BOAT'S AFIRE AND THERE AIN'T A

MINUTE TO LOSE!" All those ladies looked sweetly up and smiled, nobody

stirred, the old lady pulled her spectacles down, looked over them, and

said, gently:

"But you mustn't catch cold, child. Run and put on your breastpin, and

then 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--and

here everybody sat and smiled a mocking smile, and an old woman made fun

of his bugbear. I turned and crept away--for I was that boy--and never

even cared to discover whether I had dreamed the fire or actually seen

it.

I am told that in a German concert or opera, they hardly ever encore

a song; that though they may be dying to hear it again, their good

breeding usually preserves them against requiring the repetition.

Kings may encore; that is quite another matter; it delights everybody to

see that the King is pleased; and as to the actor encored, his pride and

gratification are simply boundless. Still, there are circumstances in

which even a royal encore--

But it is better to illustrate. The King of Bavaria is a poet, and has a

poet's eccentricities--with the advantage over all other poets of being

able to gratify them, no matter what form they may take. He is fond

of opera, but not fond of sitting in the presence of an audience;

therefore, it has sometimes occurred, in Munich, that when an opera has

been 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 players

would begin at the beginning and do the entire opera over again with

only that one individual in the vast solemn theater for audience. Once

he took an odd freak into his head. High up and out of sight, over

the prodigious stage of the court theater is a maze of interlacing

water-pipes, so pierced that in case of fire, innumerable little

thread-like streams of water can be caused to descend; and in case

of need, this discharge can be augmented to a pouring flood. American

managers 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 mimic

thunder began to mutter, the mimic wind began to wail and sough, and

the mimic rain to patter. The King's interest rose higher and higher; it

developed into enthusiasm. He cried out:

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

water!"

The manager pleaded for a reversal of the command; said it would ruin

the 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 lances

to the mimic flower-beds and gravel walks of the stage. The richly

dressed actresses and actors tripped about singing bravely and

pretending not to mind it. The King was delighted--his enthusiasm grew

higher. He cried out:

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

The thunder boomed, the lightning glared, the storm-winds raged, the

deluge poured down. The mimic royalty on the stage, with their soaked

satins clinging to their bodies, slopped about ankle-deep in water,

warbling their sweetest and best, the fiddlers under the eaves of the

stage sawed away for dear life, with the cold overflow spouting down the

backs of their necks, and the dry and happy King sat in his lofty box

and wore his gloves to ribbons applauding.

"More yet!" cried the King; "more yet--let loose all the thunder, turn

on all the water! I will hang the man that raises an umbrella!"

When this most tremendous and effective storm that had ever been

produced in any theater was at last over, the King's approbation was

measureless. He cried:

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

But the manager succeeded in persuading him to recall the encore, and

said the company would feel sufficiently rewarded and complimented

in the mere fact that the encore was desired by his Majesty, without

fatiguing him with a repetition to gratify their own vanity.

During the remainder of the act the lucky performers were those whose

parts required changes of dress; the others were a soaked, bedraggled,

and uncomfortable lot, but in the last degree picturesque. The stage

scenery was ruined, trap-doors were so swollen that they wouldn't work

for a week afterward, the fine costumes were spoiled, and no end of

minor damages were done by that remarkable storm.

It was a royal idea--that storm--and royally carried out. But observe

the moderation of the King; he did not insist upon his encore. If he had

been a gladsome, unreflecting American opera-audience, he probably would

have had his storm repeated and repeated until he drowned all those

people.

CHAPTER XI - [I Paint a "Turner"]

The summer days passed pleasantly in Heidelberg. We had a skilled

trainer, and under his instructions we were getting our legs in the

right condition for the contemplated pedestrian tours; we were well

satisfied with the progress which we had made in the German language,

[1. See Appendix D for information concerning this fearful tongue.] and

more than satisfied with what we had accomplished in art. We had had the

best 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 two

specialties--battle-pieces and shipwrecks. Whatever I am in Art I owe to

these 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 it

was conspicuous. They said there was a marked individuality about my

style--insomuch that if I ever painted the commonest type of a dog, I

should be sure to throw a something into the aspect of that dog which

would 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; I

was afraid that my masters' partiality for me, and pride in me, biased

their judgment. So I resolved to make a test. Privately, and unknown to

any one, I painted my great picture, "Heidelberg Castle Illuminated"--my

first really important work in oils--and had it hung up in the midst

of a wilderness of oil-pictures in the Art Exhibition, with no name

attached to it. To my great gratification it was instantly recognized

as mine. All the town flocked to see it, and people even came from

neighboring localities to visit it. It made more stir than any other

work in the Exhibition. But the most gratifying thing of all was, that

chance strangers, passing through, who had not heard of my picture, were

not only drawn to it, as by a lodestone, the moment they entered the

gallery, but always took it for a "Turner."

Apparently nobody had ever done that. There were ruined castles on the

overhanging cliffs and crags all the way; these were said to have their

legends, like those on the Rhine, and what was better still, they had

never been in print. There was nothing in the books about that lovely

region; it had been neglected by the tourist, it was virgin soil for the

literary pioneer.

Meantime the knapsacks, the rough walking-suits and the stout

walking-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 one

evening and bade good-by to our friends, and afterward had a little

farewell banquet at the hotel. We got to bed early, for we wanted to

make 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 took

a hearty breakfast, then plunged down through the leafy arcades of the

Castle grounds, toward the town. What a glorious summer morning it was,

and how the flowers did pour out their fragrance, and how the birds did

sing! 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; gray

knapsacks; blue army shirts; blue overalls; leathern gaiters buttoned

tight 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 over

his shoulder, and carried an alpenstock in one hand and a sun-umbrella

in the other. Around our hats were wound many folds of soft white

muslin, with the ends hanging and flapping down our backs--an idea

brought from the Orient and used by tourists all over Europe. Harris

carried the little watch-like machine called a "pedometer," whose

office 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 "Pleasant

march to you!"

When we got downtown I found that we could go by rail to within five

miles of Heilbronn. The train was just starting, so we jumped aboard and

went tearing away in splendid spirits. It was agreed all around that we

had done wisely, because it would be just as enjoyable to walk DOWN the

Neckar as up it, and it could not be needful to walk both ways. There

were some nice German people in our compartment. I got to talking some

pretty private matters presently, and Harris became nervous; so he

nudged 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 a

German in that party who did not understand English perfectly. It is

curious how widespread our language is in Germany. After a while some of

those folks got out and a German gentleman and his two young daughters

got in. I spoke in German of one of the latter several times, but

without result. Finally she said:

"ICH VERSTEHE NUR DEUTCH UND ENGLISHE,"--or words to that effect. That

is, "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 our

customs; especially the alpenstocks, for they had not seen any before.

They said that the Neckar road was perfectly level, so we must be going

to Switzerland or some other rugged country; and asked us if we did not

find the walking pretty fatiguing in such warm weather. But we said no.

We reached Wimpfen--I think it was Wimpfen--in about three hours, and

got out, not the least tired; found a good hotel and ordered beer and

dinner--then took a stroll through the venerable old village. It was

very picturesque and tumble-down, and dirty and interesting. It had

queer houses five hundred years old in it, and a military tower 115 feet

high, which had stood there more than ten centuries. I made a little

sketch 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 more

windows 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. The

man on top, looking at the view, is apparently too large, but I found

he could not be made smaller, conveniently. I wanted him there, and I

wanted him visible, so I thought out a way to manage it; I composed the

picture from two points of view; the spectator is to observe the man

from bout where that flag is, and he must observe the tower itself from

the ground. This harmonizes the seeming discrepancy. [Figure 2]

Near an old cathedral, under a shed, were three crosses of stone--moldy

and damaged things, bearing life-size stone figures. The two thieves

were dressed in the fanciful court costumes of the middle of the

sixteenth century, while the Saviour was nude, with the exception of a

cloth around the loins.

We had dinner under the green trees in a garden belonging to the hotel

and overlooking the Neckar; then, after a smoke, we went to bed. We had

a refreshing nap, then got up about three in the afternoon and put

on our panoply. As we tramped gaily out at the gate of the town, we

overtook a peasant's cart, partly laden with odds and ends of cabbages

and similar vegetable rubbish, and drawn by a small cow and a smaller

donkey yoked together. It was a pretty slow concern, but it got us into

Heilbronn before dark--five miles, or possibly it was seven.

We stopped at the very same inn which the famous old robber-knight

and rough fighter Goetz von Berlichingen, abode in after he got out of

captivity in the Square Tower of Heilbronn between three hundred and

fifty and four hundred years ago. Harris and I occupied the same room

which he had occupied and the same paper had not quite peeled off the

walls yet. The furniture was quaint old carved stuff, full four hundred

years old, and some of the smells were over a thousand. There was a hook

in the wall, which the landlord said the terrific old Goetz used to hang

his iron hand on when he took it off to go to bed. This room was very

large--it might be called immense--and it was on the first floor; which

means it was in the second story, for in Europe the houses are so

high that they do not count the first story, else they would get tired

climbing before they got to the top. The wallpaper was a fiery red, with

huge gold figures in it, well smirched by time, and it covered all the

doors. These doors fitted so snugly and continued the figures of the

paper so unbrokenly, that when they were closed one had to go feeling

and searching along the wall to find them. There was a stove in the

corner--one of those tall, square, stately white porcelain things that

looks like a monument and keeps you thinking of death when you ought to

be enjoying your travels. The windows looked out on a little alley, and

over that into a stable and some poultry and pig yards in the rear of

some tenement-houses. There were the customary two beds in the room,

one in one end, the other in the other, about an old-fashioned

brass-mounted, single-barreled pistol-shot apart. They were fully

as narrow as the usual German bed, too, and had the German bed's

ineradicable habit of spilling the blankets on the floor every time you

forgot 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 we

all went out to see the renowned clock on the front of the municipal

buildings.

CHAPTER XII - [What the Wives Saved]

The RATHHAUS, or municipal building, is of the quaintest and most

picturesque Middle-Age architecture. It has a massive portico and steps,

before it, heavily balustraded, and adorned with life-sized rusty iron

knights in complete armor. The clock-face on the front of the building

is very large and of curious pattern. Ordinarily, a gilded angel

strikes the hour on a big bell with a hammer; as the striking ceases, a

life-sized figure of Time raises its hour-glass and turns it; two golden

rams advance and butt each other; a gilded cock lifts its wings; but the

main features are two great angels, who stand on each side of the dial

with long horns at their lips; it was said that they blew melodious

blasts on these horns every hour--but they did not do it for us. We were

told, 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 telling

who killed them and how many hundred years ago it was done. One room in

the building was devoted to the preservation of ancient archives. There

they 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 and

subscribed by Goetz von Berlichingen in Heilbronn in 1519 just after his

release from the Square Tower.

This fine old robber-knight was a devoutly and sincerely religious

man, hospitable, charitable to the poor, fearless in fight, active,

enterprising, and possessed of a large and generous nature. He had in

him a quality of being able to overlook moderate injuries, and being

able to forgive and forget mortal ones as soon as he had soundly

trounced the authors of them. He was prompt to take up any poor devil's

quarrel 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 on

the highway and rob rich wayfarers; and other times he would swoop down

from his high castle on the hills of the Neckar and capture passing

cargoes of merchandise. In his memoirs he piously thanks the Giver of

all Good for remembering him in his needs and delivering sundry such

cargoes into his hands at times when only special providences could have

relieved 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-three

years old, his right hand was shot away, but he was so interested in the

fight that he did not observe it for a while. He said that the iron hand

which was made for him afterward, and which he wore for more than half a

century, was nearly as clever a member as the fleshy one had been. I was

glad to get a facsimile of the letter written by this fine old German

Robin Hood, though I was not able to read it. He was a better artist

with his sword than with his pen.

We went down by the river and saw the Square Tower. It was a very

venerable structure, very strong, and very ornamental. There was no

opening near the ground. They had to use a ladder to get into it, no

doubt.

We visited the principal church, also--a curious old structure, with a

towerlike spire adorned with all sorts of grotesque images. The inner

walls of the church were placarded with large mural tablets of copper,

bearing engraved inscriptions celebrating the merits of old Heilbronn

worthies of two or three centuries ago, and also bearing rudely painted

effigies of themselves and their families tricked out in the queer

costumes of those days. The head of the family sat in the foreground,

and beyond him extended a sharply receding and diminishing row of

sons; facing him sat his wife, and beyond her extended a low row of

diminishing daughters. The family was usually large, but the perspective

bad.

Then we hired the hack and the horse which Goetz von Berlichingen used

to use, and drove several miles into the country to visit the place

called WEIBERTREU--Wife's Fidelity I suppose it means. It was a feudal

castle of the Middle Ages. When we reached its neighborhood we found

it was beautifully situated, but on top of a mound, or hill, round and

tolerably steep, and about two hundred feet high. Therefore, as the sun

was 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 a

fence and rested. The place has no interest except that which is lent it

by its legend, which is a very pretty one--to this effect:

THE LEGEND

In the Middle Ages, a couple of young dukes, brothers, took opposite

sides in one of the wars, the one fighting for the Emperor, the other

against him. One of them owned the castle and village on top of the

mound which I have been speaking of, and in his absence his brother

came with his knights and soldiers and began a siege. It was a long and

tedious 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 and

by surrendered, and begged for charitable terms. But the beleaguering

prince was so incensed against them for their long resistance that he

said he would spare none but the women and children--all men should be

put to the sword without exception, and all their goods destroyed. Then

the women came and fell on their knees and begged for the lives of their

husbands.

"No," said the prince, "not a man of them shall escape alive; you

yourselves shall go with your children into houseless and friendless

banishment; 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 most

valuable property as she is able to carry."

Very well, presently the gates swung open and out filed those women

carrying their HUSBANDS on their shoulders. The besiegers, furious at

the trick, rushed forward to slaughter the men, but the Duke stepped

between 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 for

us in its white drapery, and the head waiter and his first assistant, in

swallow-tails and white cravats, brought in the soup and the hot plates

at once.

Mr. X had ordered the dinner, and when the wine came on, he picked up

a bottle, glanced at the label, and then turned to the grave, the

melancholy, the sepulchral head waiter and said it was not the sort of

wine he had asked for. The head waiter picked up the bottle, cast his

undertaker-eye on it and said:

"It is true; I beg pardon." Then he turned on his subordinate and calmly

said, "Bring another label."

At the same time he slid the present label off with his hand and laid it

aside; it had been newly put on, its paste was still wet. When the new

label came, he put it on; our French wine being now turned into German

wine, according to desire, the head waiter went blandly about his other

duties, as if the working of this sort of miracle was a common and easy

thing to him.

Mr. X said he had not known, before, that there were people honest

enough to do this miracle in public, but he was aware that thousands

upon thousands of labels were imported into America from Europe every

year, to enable dealers to furnish to their customers in a quiet and

inexpensive way all the different kinds of foreign wines they might

require.

We took a turn around the town, after dinner, and found it fully as

interesting in the moonlight as it had been in the daytime. The streets

were narrow and roughly paved, and there was not a sidewalk or a

street-lamp anywhere. The dwellings were centuries old, and vast enough

for hotels. They widened all the way up; the stories projected further

and further forward and aside as they ascended, and the long rows

of lighted windows, filled with little bits of panes, curtained with

figured white muslin and adorned outside with boxes of flowers, made a

pretty effect.

The moon was bright, and the light and shadow very strong; and nothing

could be more picturesque than those curving streets, with their rows

of huge high gables leaning far over toward each other in a friendly

gossiping way, and the crowds below drifting through the alternating

blots of gloom and mellow bars of moonlight. Nearly everybody was

abroad, chatting, singing, romping, or massed in lazy comfortable

attitudes in the doorways.

In one place there was a public building which was fenced about with a

thick, rusty chain, which sagged from post to post in a succession of

low swings. The pavement, here, was made of heavy blocks of stone. In

the glare of the moon a party of barefooted children were swinging on

those chains and having a noisy good time. They were not the first ones

who have done that; even their great-great-grandfathers had not been the

first to do it when they were children. The strokes of the bare feet

had worn grooves inches deep in the stone flags; it had taken many

generations 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 so

vivid a sense of the old age of Heilbronn as those footworn grooves in

the paving-stones.

CHAPTER XIII - [My Long Crawl in the Dark]

When we got back to the hotel I wound and set the pedometer and put

it in my pocket, for I was to carry it next day and keep record of the

miles we made. The work which we had given the instrument to do during

the 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 tramp

homeward 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 indefinable

something about it which is not exactly an insult, and yet is an

insolence; and one which is hard to bear, too. I lay there fretting

over this injury, and trying to go to sleep; but the harder I tried, the

wider awake I grew. I got to feeling very lonely in the dark, with no

company but an undigested dinner. My mind got a start by and by, and

began to consider the beginning of every subject which has ever been

thought of; but it never went further than the beginning; it was touch

and go; it fled from topic to topic with a frantic speed. At the end of

an 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 head

against the nervous excitement; while imagining myself wide awake, I

would really doze into momentary unconsciousness, and come suddenly out

of it with a physical jerk which nearly wrenched my joints apart--the

delusion of the instant being that I was tumbling backward over a

precipice. After I had fallen over eight or nine precipices and thus

found out that one half of my brain had been asleep eight or nine times

without the wide-awake, hard-working other half suspecting it, the

periodical unconsciousnesses began to extend their spell gradually over

more of my brain-territory, and at last I sank into a drowse which grew

deeper and deeper and was doubtless just on the very point of being a

solid, blessed dreamless stupor, when--what was that?

My dulled faculties dragged themselves partly back to life and took a

receptive attitude. Now out of an immense, a limitless distance, came

a something which grew and grew, and approached, and presently was

recognizable 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 muffled

rasping and grinding of distant machinery? No, it came still nearer; was

it 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 merely

a mouse gnawing the woodwork. So I had held my breath all that time for

such a trifle.

Well, what was done could not be helped; I would go to sleep at once and

make up the lost time. That was a thoughtless thought. Without intending

it--hardly knowing it--I fell to listening intently to that sound, and

even unconsciously counting the strokes of the mouse's nutmeg-grater.

Presently I was deriving exquisite suffering from this employment, yet

maybe I could have endured it if the mouse had attended steadily to

his work; but he did not do that; he stopped every now and then, and I

suffered more while waiting and listening for him to begin again than

I did while he was gnawing. Along at first I was mentally offering a

reward of five--six--seven--ten--dollars for that mouse; but toward

the last I was offering rewards which were entirely beyond my means. I

close-reefed my ears--that is to say, I bent the flaps of them down

and furled them into five or six folds, and pressed them against the

hearing-orifice--but it did no good: the faculty was so sharpened

by nervous excitement that it was become a microphone and could hear

through the overlays without trouble.

My anger grew to a frenzy. I finally did what all persons before me have

done, clear back to Adam,--resolved to throw something. I reached down

and got my walking-shoes, then sat up in bed and listened, in order to

exactly locate the noise. But I couldn't do it; it was as unlocatable as

a cricket's noise; and where one thinks that that is, is always the very

place where it isn't. So I presently hurled a shoe at random, and with

a vicious vigor. It struck the wall over Harris's head and fell down on

him; I had not imagined I could throw so far. It woke Harris, and I was

glad of it until I found he was not angry; then I was sorry. He soon

went to sleep again, which pleased me; but straightway the mouse began

again, which roused my temper once more. I did not want to wake Harris

a second time, but the gnawing continued until I was compelled to throw

the other shoe.

This time I broke a mirror--there were two in the room--I got the

largest one, of course. Harris woke again, but did not complain, and

I was sorrier than ever. I resolved that I would suffer all possible

torture before I would disturb him a third time.

The mouse eventually retired, and by and by I was sinking to sleep, when

a clock began to strike; I counted till it was done, and was about to

drowse again when another clock began; I counted; then the two great

RATHHAUS clock angels began to send forth soft, rich, melodious blasts

from 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 dropped

off for the moment, a new noise woke me. Each time I woke I missed my

coverlet, and had to reach down to the floor and get it again.

At last all sleepiness forsook me. I recognized the fact that I was

hopelessly and permanently wide awake. Wide awake, and feverish and

thirsty. When I had lain tossing there as long as I could endure it, it

occurred to me that it would be a good idea to dress and go out in the

great square and take a refreshing wash in the fountain, and smoke and

reflect there until the remnant of the night was gone.

I believed I could dress in the dark without waking Harris. I had

banished my shoes after the mouse, but my slippers would do for a summer

night. So I rose softly, and gradually got on everything--down to one

sock. I couldn't seem to get on the track of that sock, any way I could

fix it. But I had to have it; so I went down on my hands and knees, with

one slipper on and the other in my hand, and began to paw gently around

and rake the floor, but with no success. I enlarged my circle, and went

on pawing and raking. With every pressure of my knee, how the floor

creaked! and every time I chanced to rake against any article, it seemed

to give out thirty-five or thirty-six times more noise than it would

have done in the daytime. In those cases I always stopped and held

my breath till I was sure Harris had not awakened--then I crept along

again. I moved on and on, but I could not find the sock; I could not

seem to find anything but furniture. I could not remember that there was

much furniture in the room when I went to bed, but the place was alive

with it now --especially chairs--chairs everywhere--had a couple of

families moved in, in the mean time? And I never could seem to GLANCE on

one 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, I

fell to making vicious comments under my breath.

Finally, with a venomous access of irritation, I said I would leave

without the sock; so I rose up and made straight for the door--as I

supposed--and suddenly confronted my dim spectral image in the unbroken

mirror. It startled the breath out of me, for an instant; it also showed

me that I was lost, and had no sort of idea where I was. When I realized

this, I was so angry that I had to sit down on the floor and take hold

of something to keep from lifting the roof off with an explosion of

opinion. If there had been only one mirror, it might possibly have

helped to locate me; but there were two, and two were as bad as a

thousand; besides, these were on opposite sides of the room. I could see

the dim blur of the windows, but in my turned-around condition they were

exactly where they ought not to be, and so they only confused me instead

of helping me.

I started to get up, and knocked down an umbrella; it made a noise

like 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 the

umbrella slowly and carefully on end against the wall, but as soon as

I took my hand away, its heel slipped from under it, and down it came

again with another bang. I shrunk together and listened a moment in

silent fury--no harm done, everything quiet. With the most painstaking

care 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 solemn

and awful there in that lonely, vast room, I do believe I should have

said something then which could not be put into a Sunday-school book

without injuring the sale of it. If my reasoning powers had not been

already sapped dry by my harassments, I would have known better than to

try to set an umbrella on end on one of those glassy German floors in

the dark; it can't be done in the daytime without four failures to one

success. I had one comfort, though--Harris was yet still and silent--he

had not stirred.

The umbrella could not locate me--there were four standing around the

room, and all alike. I thought I would feel along the wall and find the

door in that way. I rose up and began this operation, but raked down

a picture. It was not a large one, but it made noise enough for a

panorama. Harris gave out no sound, but I felt that if I experimented

any further with the pictures I should be sure to wake him. Better give

up trying to get out. Yes, I would find King Arthur's Round Table once

more--I had already found it several times--and use it for a base of

departure on an exploring tour for my bed; if I could find my bed I

could then find my water pitcher; I would quench my raging thirst and

turn in. So I started on my hands and knees, because I could go faster

that way, and with more confidence, too, and not knock down things. By

and by I found the table--with my head--rubbed the bruise a little, then

rose up and started, with hands abroad and fingers spread, to balance

myself. I found a chair; then a wall; then another chair; then a sofa;

then an alpenstock, then another sofa; this confounded me, for I had

thought there was only one sofa. I hunted up the table again and took a

fresh start; found some more chairs.

It occurred to me, now, as it ought to have done before, that as the

table was round, it was therefore of no value as a base to aim from; so

I moved off once more, and at random among the wilderness of chairs and

sofas--wandering off into unfamiliar regions, and presently knocked a

candlestick and knocked off a lamp, grabbed at the lamp and knocked

off 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 long

night-garment, with a candle, young Z after him with another candle; a

procession swept in at another door, with candles and lanterns--landlord

and 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 my

own. There was only one sofa; it was against the wall; there was only

one chair where a body could get at it--I had been revolving around it

like a planet, and colliding with it like a comet half the night.

I explained how I had been employing myself, and why. Then the

landlord's party left, and the rest of us set about our preparations for

breakfast, for the dawn was ready to break. I glanced furtively at my

pedometer, and found I had made 47 miles. But I did not care, for I had

come out for a pedestrian tour anyway.

CHAPTER XIV - [Rafting Down the Neckar]

When the landlord learned that I and my agents were artists, our party

rose perceptibly in his esteem; we rose still higher when he learned

that we were making a pedestrian tour of Europe.

He told us all about the Heidelberg road, and which were the best places

to avoid and which the best ones to tarry at; he charged me less than

cost for the things I broke in the night; he put up a fine luncheon

for us and added to it a quantity of great light-green plums, the

pleasantest fruit in Germany; he was so anxious to do us honor that he

would not allow us to walk out of Heilbronn, but called up Goetz von

Berlichingen's horse and cab and made us ride.

I made a sketch of the turnout. It is not a Work, it is only what

artists call a "study"--a thing to make a finished picture from. This

sketch has several blemishes in it; for instance, the wagon is not

traveling as fast as the horse is. This is wrong. Again, the person

trying 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 the

reigns; there seems to be a wheel missing--this would be corrected in a

finished 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 get

enough distance on it. I do not remember, now, what that thing is that

is in front of the man who is running, but I think it is a haystack or a

woman. This study was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1879, but did not

take any medal; they do not give medals for studies.

We discharged the carriage at the bridge. The river was full of

logs--long, slender, barkless pine logs--and we leaned on the rails

of the bridge, and watched the men put them together into rafts. These

rafts were of a shape and construction to suit the crookedness and

extreme narrowness of the Neckar. They were from fifty to one hundred

yards long, and they gradually tapered from a nine-log breadth at their

sterns, to a three-log breadth at their bow-ends. The main part of the

steering is done at the bow, with a pole; the three-log breadth there

furnishes room for only the steersman, for these little logs are not

larger around than an average young lady's waist. The connections of the

several sections of the raft are slack and pliant, so that the raft

may be readily bent into any sort of curve required by the shape of the

river.

The Neckar is in many places so narrow that a person can throw a dog

across 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 is

as much as thirty, and sometimes forty yards wide--but is split into

three equal bodies of water, by stone dikes which throw the main

volume, depth, and current into the central one. In low water these neat

narrow-edged dikes project four or five inches above the surface, like

the comb of a submerged roof, but in high water they are overflowed. A

hatful of rain makes high water in the Neckar, and a basketful produces

an overflow.

There are dikes abreast the Schloss Hotel, and the current is violently

swift at that point. I used to sit for hours in my glass cage, watching

the long, narrow rafts slip along through the central channel, grazing

the right-bank dike and aiming carefully for the middle arch of the

stone bridge below; I watched them in this way, and lost all this time

hoping to see one of them hit the bridge-pier and wreck itself sometime

or other, but was always disappointed. One was smashed there one

morning, 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, the

daredevil spirit of adventure came suddenly upon me, and I said to my

comrades:

"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 as

they could. Harris wanted to cable his mother--thought it his duty to

do that, as he was all she had in this world--so, while he attended to

this, I went down to the longest and finest raft and hailed the captain

with a hearty "Ahoy, shipmate!" which put us upon pleasant terms at

once, and we entered upon business. I said we were on a pedestrian tour

to Heidelberg, and would like to take passage with him. I said this

partly through young Z, who spoke German very well, and partly through

Mr. X, who spoke it peculiarly. I can UNDERSTAND German as well as the

maniac 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 no

license to carry passengers, and therefore was afraid the law would be

after him in case the matter got noised about or any accident happened.

So I CHARTERED the raft and the crew and took all the responsibilities

on myself.

With a rattling song the starboard watch bent to their work and hove

the cable short, then got the anchor home, and our bark moved off with a

stately 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, the

perils which beset it, and the need and wisdom of being always prepared

for the worst; this shaded off into low-voiced references to the dangers

of the deep, and kindred matters; but as the gray east began to redden

and the mysterious solemnity and silence of the dawn to give place

to the joy-songs of the birds, the talk took a cheerier tone, and our

spirits began to rise steadily.

Germany, in the summer, is the perfection of the beautiful, but nobody

has understood, and realized, and enjoyed the utmost possibilities of

this soft and peaceful beauty unless he has voyaged down the Neckar on

a raft. The motion of a raft is the needful motion; it is gentle,

and gliding, and smooth, and noiseless; it calms down all feverish

activities, it soothes to sleep all nervous hurry and impatience; under

its restful influence all the troubles and vexations and sorrows that

harass the mind vanish away, and existence becomes a dream, a charm,

a deep and tranquil ecstasy. How it contrasts with hot and perspiring

pedestrianism, and dusty and deafening railroad rush, and tedious

jolting 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 the

time. Sometimes the banks were overhung with thick masses of willows

that wholly hid the ground behind; sometimes we had noble hills on one

hand, clothed densely with foliage to their tops, and on the other hand

open levels blazing with poppies, or clothed in the rich blue of

the corn-flower; sometimes we drifted in the shadow of forests, and

sometimes along the margin of long stretches of velvety grass, fresh and

green and bright, a tireless charm to the eye. And the birds!--they were

everywhere; they swept back and forth across the river constantly, and

their jubilant music was never stilled.

It was a deep and satisfying pleasure to see the sun create the new

morning, and gradually, patiently, lovingly, clothe it on with splendor

after splendor, and glory after glory, till the miracle was complete.

How different is this marvel observed from a raft, from what it is when

one observes it through the dingy windows of a railway-station in some

wretched village while he munches a petrified sandwich and waits for the

train.

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--A

Handsome Picture: Girls in the Willows--We Sight a Tug--Steamers on the

Neckar--Dinner on Board--Legend "Cave of the Spectre "--Lady Gertrude

the Heiress--The Crusader--The Lady in the Cave--A Tragedy

CHAPTER XVI An Ancient Legend of the Rhine--"The Lorelei"--Count

Hermann--Falling in Love--A Sight of the Enchantress--Sad Effect

on Count Hermann--An Evening visit--A Sad Mistake--Count Hermann

Drowned--The Song and Music--Different Trans lations--Curiosities in

Titles

CHAPTER XVII Another Legend--The Unconquered Monster--The Unknown Knight

--His Queer Shaped Knapsack--The Knight Pitied and Advised--He Attacks

the Monster--Victory for the Fire Extinguisher--The Knight rewarded--His

Strange Request----Spectacles Made Popular--Danger to the Raft--Blasting

Rocks--An Inglorious Death in View--Escaped--A Storm Overtakes

us--GreatDanger--Man Overboard--Breakers Ahead--Springing a Leak--Ashore

Safe--A General Embracing--A Tramp in the Dark--The Naturalist Tavern--A

Night's Troubles--"It is the Cat"

CHAPTER XVIII Breakfast in a Garden--The Old Raven--Castle of

Hirschhorn--Attempt to Hire a Boat--High Dutch--What You Can Find out

by Enquiring--What I Found out about the Students--A good German

Custom--Harris Practices It--AnEmbarrassing Position--A Nice Party--At a

Ball--Stopped at the Door--Assistance at Hand and Rendered--Worthy to be

an Empress

CHAPTER XIX Arrive at Neckarsteinach--Castle of Dilsberg--A Walled

Town--On a Hill--Exclusiveness of the People--A Queer Old Place--An

Ancient Well--An Outlet Proved--Legend of Dilsberg Castle--The

Haunted Chamber--The Betrothed's request--The Knight's Slumbers

and Awakening--Horror of the Lover--The Wicked Jest--The Lover a

Maniac--Under the Linden--Turning Pilot--Accident to the Raft--Fearful

Disaster

CHAPTER XX Good News--"Slow Freight"--Keramics--My Collection of Bric-a-

brac--My Tear Jug--Henri II. Plate--Specimen of Blue China--Indifference

to the Laugh of the World--I Discover an Antique En-route to

Baden--Baden--Meeting an Old Acquaintance--A young American--Embryo

Horse Doctor--An American, Sure--A Minister Captured

CHAPTER XXI Baden--Baden--Energetic Girls--A Comprehensive Yawn--A

Beggar's Trick--Cool Impudence--The Bath Woman--Insolence of Shop

Keepers--Taking a Bath--Early and Late Hours--Popular Belief Regarding

Indians--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 grassy

shores, and gossiped with us and with the crew for a hundred yards or

so, then stepped ashore again, refreshed by the ride.

Only the men did this; the women were too busy. The women do all kinds

of work on the continent. They dig, they hoe, they reap, they sow, they

bear monstrous burdens on their backs, they shove similar ones long

distances on wheelbarrows, they drag the cart when there is no dog or

lean cow to drag it--and when there is, they assist the dog or cow. Age

is 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 of

everything; but in the towns it is different, there she only does

certain things, the men do the rest. For instance, a hotel chambermaid

has nothing to do but make beds and fires in fifty or sixty rooms, bring

towels and candles, and fetch several tons of water up several flights

of stairs, a hundred pounds at a time, in prodigious metal pitchers. She

does not have to work more than eighteen or twenty hours a day, and

she can always get down on her knees and scrub the floors of halls and

closets when she is tired and needs a rest.

As the morning advanced and the weather grew hot, we took off our

outside clothing and sat in a row along the edge of the raft and enjoyed

the scenery, with our sun-umbrellas over our heads and our legs dangling

in the water.

Every now and then we plunged in and had a swim. Every projecting grassy

cape had its joyous group of naked children, the boys to themselves and

the girls to themselves, the latter usually in care of some motherly

dame who sat in the shade of a tree with her knitting. The little boys

swam out to us, sometimes, but the little maids stood knee-deep in the

water and stopped their splashing and frolicking to inspect the raft

with their innocent eyes as it drifted by. Once we turned a corner

suddenly and surprised a slender girl of twelve years or upward, just

stepping into the water. She had not time to run, but she did what

answered just as well; she promptly drew a lithe young willow bough

athwart her white body with one hand, and then contemplated us with a

simple and untroubled interest. Thus she stood while we glided by. She

was a pretty creature, and she and her willow bough made a very

pretty picture, and one which could not offend the modesty of the most

fastidious spectator. Her white skin had a low bank of fresh green

willows for background and effective contrast--for she stood against

them--and above and out of them projected the eager faces and white

shoulders 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 they

had 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 often

watched her from the hotel, and wondered how she propelled herself, for

apparently she had no propeller or paddles. She came churning along,

now, making a deal of noise of one kind or another, and aggravating it

every now and then by blowing a hoarse whistle. She had nine keel-boats

hitched on behind and following after her in a long, slender rank. We

met her in a narrow place, between dikes, and there was hardly room for

us both in the cramped passage. As she went grinding and groaning by, we

perceived the secret of her moving impulse. She did not drive herself up

the river with paddles or propeller, she pulled herself by hauling on

a great chain. This chain is laid in the bed of the river and is only

fastened at the two ends. It is seventy miles long. It comes in over the

boat's bow, passes around a drum, and is payed out astern. She pulls

on that chain, and so drags herself up the river or down it. She has

neither bow or stern, strictly speaking, for she has a long-bladed

rudder on each end and she never turns around. She uses both rudders

all the time, and they are powerful enough to enable her to turn to

the right or the left and steer around curves, in spite of the strong

resistance of the chain. I would not have believed that that impossible

thing could be done; but I saw it done, and therefore I know that there

is one impossible thing which CAN be done. What miracle will man attempt

next?

We met many big keel-boats on their way up, using sails, mule power, and

profanity--a tedious and laborious business. A wire rope led from the

foretopmast 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 of

drivers managed to get a speed of two or three miles an hour out of the

mules against the stiff current. The Neckar has always been used as a

canal, 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 or

so of coal, to take nine keel-boats farther up the river in one hour

than thirty men and thirty mules can do it in two, it is believed

that the old-fashioned towing industry is on its death-bed. A second

steamboat began work in the Neckar three months after the first one was

put in service. [Figure 4]

At noon we stepped ashore and bought some bottled beer and got some

chickens cooked, while the raft waited; then we immediately put to sea

again, 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 is

gliding down the winding Neckar past green meadows and wooded hills, and

slumbering villages, and craggy heights graced with crumbling towers and

battlements.

In one place we saw a nicely dressed German gentleman without any

spectacles. Before I could come to anchor he had got underway. It was a

great pity. I so wanted to make a sketch of him. The captain comforted

me for my loss, however, by saying that the man was without any doubt a

fraud who had spectacles, but kept them in his pocket in order to make

himself conspicuous.

Below Hassmersheim we passed Hornberg, Goetz von Berlichingen's old

castle. It stands on a bold elevation two hundred feet above the surface

of the river; it has high vine-clad walls enclosing trees, and a peaked

tower about seventy-five feet high. The steep hillside, from the castle

clear down to the water's edge, is terraced, and clothed thick with

grape vines. This is like farming a mansard roof. All the steeps along

that part of the river which furnish the proper exposure, are given

up to the grape. That region is a great producer of Rhine wines. The

Germans are exceedingly fond of Rhine wines; they are put up in tall,

slender bottles, and are considered a pleasant beverage. One tells them

from vinegar by the label.

The Hornberg hill is to be tunneled, and the new railway will pass under

the castle. THE CAVE OF THE SPECTER Two miles below Hornberg castle is

a cave in a low cliff, which the captain of the raft said had once been

occupied by a beautiful heiress of Hornberg--the Lady Gertrude--in the

old times. It was seven hundred years ago. She had a number of rich and

noble lovers and one poor and obscure one, Sir Wendel Lobenfeld. With

the native chuckleheadedness of the heroine of romance, she preferred

the 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 donjon

keep, or his oubliette, or his culverin, or some such place, and

resolved that she should stay there until she selected a husband from

among her rich and noble lovers. The latter visited her and persecuted

her with their supplications, but without effect, for her heart was

true to her poor despised Crusader, who was fighting in the Holy Land.

Finally, she resolved that she would endure the attentions of the rich

lovers no longer; so one stormy night she escaped and went down

the river and hid herself in the cave on the other side. Her father

ransacked the country for her, but found not a trace of her. As the

days went by, and still no tidings of her came, his conscience began to

torture him, and he caused proclamation to be made that if she were yet

living and would return, he would oppose her no longer, she might marry

whom she would. The months dragged on, all hope forsook the old man, he

ceased from his customary pursuits and pleasures, he devoted himself to

pious works, and longed for the deliverance of death.

Now just at midnight, every night, the lost heiress stood in the mouth

of her cave, arrayed in white robes, and sang a little love ballad which

her Crusader had made for her. She judged that if he came home alive the

superstitious peasants would tell him about the ghost that sang in the

cave, and that as soon as they described the ballad he would know that

none but he and she knew that song, therefore he would suspect that she

was alive, and would come and find her. As time went on, the people of

the region became sorely distressed about the Specter of the Haunted

Cave. It was said that ill luck of one kind or another always overtook

any one who had the misfortune to hear that song. Eventually, every

calamity that happened thereabouts was laid at the door of that music.

Consequently, no boatmen would consent to pass the cave at night; the

peasants shunned the place, even in the daytime.

But the faithful girl sang on, night after night, month after month, and

patiently waited; her reward must come at last. Five years dragged by,

and still, every night at midnight, the plaintive tones floated out over

the silent land, while the distant boatmen and peasants thrust their

fingers into their ears and shuddered out a prayer.

And now came the Crusader home, bronzed and battle-scarred, but bringing

a great and splendid fame to lay at the feet of his bride. The old lord

of Hornberg received him as his son, and wanted him to stay by him

and be the comfort and blessing of his age; but the tale of that young

girl's devotion to him and its pathetic consequences made a changed

man of the knight. He could not enjoy his well-earned rest. He said his

heart was broken, he would give the remnant of his life to high deeds in

the cause of humanity, and so find a worthy death and a blessed reunion

with the brave true heart whose love had more honored him than all his

victories in war.

When the people heard this resolve of his, they came and told him there

was a pitiless dragon in human disguise in the Haunted Cave, a dread

creature which no knight had yet been bold enough to face, and begged

him 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, they

said the memory of it was gone, for nobody had been hardy enough to

listen 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 the

dim reflections of the crags and trees, with his intent eyes fixed upon

the low cliff which he was approaching. As he drew nearer, he discerned

the black mouth of the cave. Now--is that a white figure? Yes. The

plaintive song begins to well forth and float away over meadow and

river--the cross-bow is slowly raised to position, a steady aim is

taken, the bolt flies straight to the mark--the figure sinks down, still

singing, the knight takes the wool out of his ears, and recognizes the

old 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 the

spirit of the unfortunate girl sang nightly from the cave at midnight,

but the music carried no curse with it; and although many listened for

the mysterious sounds, few were favored, since only those could hear

them who had never failed in a trust. It is believed that the singing

still continues, but it is known that nobody has heard it during the

present 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 them

are peculiarly beautiful--but "The Lorelei" is the people's favorite. I

could 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 have

heard it there. The fact that I never heard it there, is evidence that

there are others in my country who have fared likewise; therefore, for

the 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 the

Lorelei, too. I have it by me in the LEGENDS OF THE RHINE, done into

English by the wildly gifted Garnham, Bachelor of Arts. I print the

legend partly to refresh my own memory, too, for I have never read it

before. THE LEGEND Lore (two syllables) was a water nymph who used to

sit 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 rapid

which marred the channel at that spot. She so bewitched them with her

plaintive songs and her wonderful beauty that they forgot everything

else to gaze up at her, and so they presently drifted among the broken

reefs and were lost.

In those old, old times, the Count Bruno lived in a great castle near

there with his son, the Count Hermann, a youth of twenty. Hermann had

heard a great deal about the beautiful Lore, and had finally fallen very

deeply in love with her without having seen her. So he used to wander to

the neighborhood of the Lei, evenings, with his Zither and "Express his

Longing in low Singing," as Garnham says. On one of these occasions,

"suddenly there hovered around the top of the rock a brightness of

unequaled clearness and color, which, in increasingly smaller circles

thickened, 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 friendly

manner; indeed, if his ear did not deceive him, she called his name with

unutterable sweet Whispers, proper to love. Beside himself with delight

the youth lost his Senses and sank senseless to the earth."

After that he was a changed person. He went dreaming about, thinking

only of his fairy and caring for naught else in the world. "The old

count saw with affliction this changement in his son," whose cause he

could not divine, and tried to divert his mind into cheerful channels,

but to no purpose. Then the old count used authority. He commanded the

youth to betake himself to the camp. Obedience was promised. Garnham

says:

"It was on the evening before his departure, as he wished still once to

visit the Lei and offer to the Nymph of the Rhine his Sighs, the

tones of his Zither, and his Songs. He went, in his boat, this time

accompanied by a faithful squire, down the stream. The moon shed her

silvery light over the whole country; the steep bank mountains appeared

in the most fantastical shapes, and the high oaks on either side bowed

their Branches on Hermann's passing. As soon as he approached the

Lei, and was aware of the surf-waves, his attendant was seized with an

inexpressible Anxiety and he begged permission to land; but the Knight

swept 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; that

he should have gone with such a song as that in his mouth was a most

serious mistake. The Lorelei did not "call his name in unutterable

sweet Whispers" this time. No, that song naturally worked an instant

and thorough "changement" in her; and not only that, but it stirred the

bowels of the whole afflicted region around about there--for--

"Scarcely had these tones sounded, everywhere there began tumult and

sound, 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 hand

clearly and urgently to the infatuated Knight, while with a staff in

her left hand she called the waves to her service. They began to mount

heavenward; the boat was upset, mocking every exertion; the waves rose

to the gunwale, and splitting on the hard stones, the Boat broke into

Pieces. The youth sank into the depths, but the squire was thrown on

shore by a powerful wave."

The bitterest things have been said about the Lorelei during many

centuries, but surely her conduct upon this occasion entitles her to our

respect. One feels drawn tenderly toward her and is moved to forget her

many crimes and remember only the good deed that crowned and closed her

career.

"The Fairy was never more seen; but her enchanting tones have often been

heard. In the beautiful, refreshing, still nights of spring, when the

moon pours her silver light over the Country, the listening shipper

hears from the rushing of the waves, the echoing Clang of a wonderfully

charming voice, which sings a song from the crystal castle, and with

sorrow and fear he thinks on the young Count Hermann, seduced by the

Nymph."

Here is the music, and the German words by Heinrich Heine. This song has

been a favorite in Germany for forty years, and will remain a favorite

always, maybe. [Figure 5]

I have a prejudice against people who print things in a foreign language

and add no translation. When I am the reader, and the author considers

me able to do the translating myself, he pays me quite a nice

compliment--but if he would do the translating for me I would try to get

along without the compliment.

If I were at home, no doubt I could get a translation of this poem, but

I am abroad and can't; therefore I will make a translation myself. It

may not be a good one, for poetry is out of my line, but it will serve

my purpose--which is, to give the unGerman young girl a jingle of words

to hang the tune on until she can get hold of a good version, made by

some one who is a poet and knows how to convey a poetical thought from

one 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 THE

RHINE, but it would not answer the purpose I mentioned above, because

the 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 one

runs out of words before he gets to the end of a bar. Still, Garnham's

translation has high merits, and I am not dreaming of leaving it out of

my book. I believe this poet is wholly unknown in America and England; I

take peculiar pleasure in bringing him forward because I consider that I

discovered 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 in

their regular order, too. There is not a statistic wanting. It is as

succinct as an invoice. That is what a translation ought to be; it

should 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 exact

translation of DORT OBEN WUNDERBAR--fits it like a blister. Mr.

Garnham's reproduction has other merits--a hundred of them--but it is

not necessary to point them out. They will be detected.

No one with a specialty can hope to have a monopoly of it. Even Garnham

has a rival. Mr. X had a small pamphlet with him which he had bought

while on a visit to Munich. It was entitled A CATALOGUE OF PICTURES IN

THE OLD PINACOTEK, and was written in a peculiar kind of English. Here

are a few extracts:

"It is not permitted to make use of the work in question to a

publication of the same contents as well as to the pirated edition of

it."

"An evening landscape. In the foreground near a pond and a group of

white beeches is leading a footpath animated by travelers."

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

hand."

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

martyr."

"Portrait of a young man. A long while this picture was thought to be

Bindi Altoviti's portrait; now somebody will again have it to be the

self-portrait of Raphael."

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

lapidation 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 his

plague-sore, whilst the dog the bread in his mouth attents him."

"Spring. The Goddess Flora, sitting. Behind her a fertile valley

perfused by a river."

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

"A warrior in armor with a gypseous pipe in his hand leans against a

table and blows the smoke far away of himself."

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

background."

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

cup."

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

tile.)

"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 the

signation is false."

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

Sassoferrato."

"A Larder with greens and dead game animated by a cook-maid and two

kitchen-boys."

However, the English of this catalogue is at least as happy as that

which distinguishes an inscription upon a certain picture in Rome--to

wit:

"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 the

foliage which clothed the peak of a high and very steep hill. This ruin

consisted of merely a couple of crumbling masses of masonry which bore

a rude resemblance to human faces; they leaned forward and touched

foreheads, and had the look of being absorbed in conversation. This

ruin had nothing very imposing or picturesque about it, and there was no

great deal of it, yet it was called the "Spectacular Ruin."

LEGEND OF THE "SPECTACULAR RUIN" The captain of the raft, who was as

full of history as he could stick, said that in the Middle Ages a most

prodigious fire-breathing dragon used to live in that region, and made

more trouble than a tax-collector. He was as long as a railway-train,

and had the customary impenetrable green scales all over him. His breath

bred pestilence and conflagration, and his appetite bred famine. He ate

men and cattle impartially, and was exceedingly unpopular. The German

emperor of that day made the usual offer: he would grant to the

destroyer of the dragon, any one solitary thing he might ask for; for he

had a surplusage of daughters, and it was customary for dragon-killers

to take a daughter for pay.

So the most renowned knights came from the four corners of the earth and

retired down the dragon's throat one after the other. A panic arose and

spread. Heroes grew cautious. The procession ceased. The dragon became

more destructive than ever. The people lost all hope of succor, and fled

to the mountains for refuge.

At last Sir Wissenschaft, a poor and obscure knight, out of a far

country, arrived to do battle with the monster. A pitiable object he

was, with his armor hanging in rags about him, and his strange-shaped

knapsack strapped upon his back. Everybody turned up their noses at him,

and some openly jeered him. But he was calm. He simply inquired if

the emperor's offer was still in force. The emperor said it was--but

charitably advised him to go and hunt hares and not endanger so precious

a life as his in an attempt which had brought death to so many of the

world'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 little

in 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 the

morning. Out of compassion, then, a decent spear was offered him, but

he declined, and said, "spears were useless to men of science." They

allowed him to sup in the servants' hall, and gave him a bed in the

stables.

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 volumes

of sulphurous smoke and lurid blasts of flame. The ragged knight

stole warily to a good position, then he unslung his cylindrical

knapsack--which was simply the common fire-extinguisher known to modern

times--and the first chance he got he turned on his hose and shot the

dragon square in the center of his cavernous mouth. Out went the fires

in an instant, and the dragon curled up and died.

This man had brought brains to his aid. He had reared dragons from the

egg, in his laboratory, he had watched over them like a mother, and

patiently studied them and experimented upon them while they grew. Thus

he had found out that fire was the life principle of a dragon; put out

the 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 the

extinguisher. The dragon being dead, the emperor fell on the hero's neck

and said:

"Deliverer, name your request," at the same time beckoning out behind

with his heel for a detachment of his daughters to form and advance. But

the tramp gave them no observance. He simply said:

"My request is, that upon me be conferred the monopoly of the

manufacture and sale of spectacles in Germany."

The emperor sprang aside and exclaimed:

"This transcends all the impudence I ever heard! A modest demand, by my

halidome! Why didn't you ask for the imperial revenues at once, and be

done with it?"

But the monarch had given his word, and he kept it. To everybody's

surprise, the unselfish monopolist immediately reduced the price of

spectacles to such a degree that a great and crushing burden was removed

from the nation. The emperor, to commemorate this generous act, and to

testify his appreciation of it, issued a decree commanding everybody to

buy this benefactor's spectacles and wear them, whether they needed them

or 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 legend

of 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, we

passed by a noble pile of castellated buildings overlooking the water

from the crest of a lofty elevation. A stretch of two hundred yards of

the high front wall was heavily draped with ivy, and out of the mass

of buildings within rose three picturesque old towers. The place was in

fine order, and was inhabited by a family of princely rank. This castle

had its legend, too, but I should not feel justified in repeating it

because I doubted the truth of some of its minor details.

Along in this region a multitude of Italian laborers were blasting away

the frontage of the hills to make room for the new railway. They were

fifty or a hundred feet above the river. As we turned a sharp corner

they began to wave signals and shout warnings to us to look out for the

explosions. It was all very well to warn us, but what could WE do? You

can't back a raft upstream, you can't hurry it downstream, you can't

scatter out to one side when you haven't any room to speak of, you won't

take to the perpendicular cliffs on the other shore when they appear to

be blasting there, too. Your resources are limited, you see. There is

simply nothing for it but to watch and pray.

For some hours we had been making three and a half or four miles an hour

and we were still making that. We had been dancing right along until

those men began to shout; then for the next ten minutes it seemed to me

that I had never seen a raft go so slowly. When the first blast went

off we raised our sun-umbrellas and waited for the result. No harm

done; none of the stones fell in the water. Another blast followed, and

another and another. Some of the rubbish fell in the water just astern

of us.

We ran that whole battery of nine blasts in a row, and it was certainly

one of the most exciting and uncomfortable weeks I ever spent, either

aship or ashore. Of course we frequently manned the poles and shoved

earnestly for a second or so, but every time one of those spurts of dust

and debris shot aloft every man dropped his pole and looked up to get

the bearings of his share of it. It was very busy times along there for

a while. It appeared certain that we must perish, but even that was

not the bitterest thought; no, the abjectly unheroic nature of the

death--that was the sting--that and the bizarre wording of the resulting

obituary: "SHOT WITH A ROCK, ON A RAFT." There would be no poetry

written 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. I

should be distinguished as the only "distinguished dead" who went down

to the grave unsonneted, in 1878.

But we escaped, and I have never regretted it. The last blast was a

peculiarly strong one, and after the small rubbish was done raining

around us and we were just going to shake hands over our deliverance, a

later and larger stone came down amongst our little group of pedestrians

and wrecked an umbrella. It did no other harm, but we took to the water

just the same.

It seems that the heavy work in the quarries and the new railway

gradings is done mainly by Italians. That was a revelation. We have

the notion in our country that Italians never do heavy work at all, but

confine themselves to the lighter arts, like organ-grinding, operatic

singing, and assassination. We have blundered, that is plain.

All along the river, near every village, we saw little station-houses

for the future railway. They were finished and waiting for the rails and

business. They were as trim and snug and pretty as they could be. They

were always of brick or stone; they were of graceful shape, they had

vines and flowers about them already, and around them the grass was

bright and green, and showed that it was carefully looked after. They

were a decoration to the beautiful landscape, not an offense. Wherever

one saw a pile of gravel or a pile of broken stone, it was always heaped

as trimly and exactly as a new grave or a stack of cannon-balls; nothing

about those stations or along the railroad or the wagon-road was

allowed to look shabby or be unornamental. The keeping a country in such

beautiful order as Germany exhibits, has a wise practical side to

it, too, for it keeps thousands of people in work and bread who would

otherwise be idle and mischievous.

As the night shut down, the captain wanted to tie up, but I thought

maybe we might make Hirschhorn, so we went on. Presently the sky became

overcast, and the captain came aft looking uneasy. He cast his eye

aloft, then shook his head, and said it was coming on to blow. My party

wanted to land at once--therefore I wanted to go on. The captain said we

ought to shorten sail anyway, out of common prudence. Consequently, the

larboard 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 of

the trees, and swept our decks in fitful gusts. Things were taking on an

ugly 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 on

the labboard!"

"Let her go off another point!"

"Aye-aye, sir!"

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

weather corner!"

"Aye-aye, sir!"

Then followed a wild running and trampling and hoarse shouting, but the

forms of the men were lost in the darkness and the sounds were distorted

and confused by the roaring of the wind through the shingle-bundles. By

this time the sea was running inches high, and threatening every moment

to 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 there

will be a panic and mutiny! Lay her in shore and stand by to jump with

the stern-line the moment she touches. Gentlemen, I must look to you to

second my endeavors in this hour of peril. You have hats--go forward and

bail for your lives!"

Down swept another mighty blast of wind, clothed in spray and thick

darkness. At such a moment as this, came from away forward that most

appalling 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 the

frenzy 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 tree

and 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 a

mariner for forty years on the Neckar, and in that time had seen storms

to 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 that

sounded! For I have been at sea a good deal and have heard that remark

from captains with a frequency accordingly.

We framed in our minds the usual resolution of thanks and admiration

and gratitude, and took the first opportunity to vote it, and put it

in writing and present it to the captain, with the customary speech. We

tramped through the darkness and the drenching summer rain full three

miles, and reached "The Naturalist Tavern" in the village of Hirschhorn

just 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 and

disobliging; he did not at all like being turned out of his warm bed to

open his house for us. But no matter, his household got up and cooked

a quick supper for us, and we brewed a hot punch for ourselves, to keep

off consumption. After supper and punch we had an hour's soothing smoke

while we fought the naval battle over again and voted the resolutions;

then we retired to exceedingly neat and pretty chambers upstairs that

had clean, comfortable beds in them with heirloom pillowcases most

elaborately and tastefully embroidered by hand.

Such rooms and beds and embroidered linen are as frequent in German

village inns as they are rare in ours. Our villages are superior

to German villages in more merits, excellences, conveniences, and

privileges than I can enumerate, but the hotels do not belong in the

list.

"The Naturalist Tavern" was not a meaningless name; for all the halls

and all the rooms were lined with large glass cases which were filled

with all sorts of birds and animals, glass-eyed, ably stuffed, and set

up in the most natural eloquent and dramatic attitudes. The moment we

were abed, the rain cleared away and the moon came out. I dozed off to

sleep while contemplating a great white stuffed owl which was looking

intently down on me from a high perch with the air of a person who

thought 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 sinking

deliciously to sleep, the moon lifted away the shadows and developed

a huge cat, on a bracket, dead and stuffed, but crouching, with every

muscle tense, for a spring, and with its glittering glass eyes aimed

straight at him. It made Z uncomfortable. He tried closing his own eyes,

but that did not answer, for a natural instinct kept making him open

them again to see if the cat was still getting ready to launch at

him--which she always was. He tried turning his back, but that was a

failure; he knew the sinister eyes were on him still. So at last he had

to get up, after an hour or two of worry and experiment, and set the cat

out 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 the

delightful German summer fashion. The air was filled with the fragrance

of flowers and wild animals; the living portion of the menagerie of the

"Naturalist Tavern" was all about us. There were great cages populous

with fluttering and chattering foreign birds, and other great cages and

greater 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 and

sniffed 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 doves

begged for crumbs, and a poor old tailless raven hopped about with

a humble, shamefaced mein which said, "Please do not notice my

exposure--think how you would feel in my circumstances, and be

charitable." If he was observed too much, he would retire behind

something and stay there until he judged the party's interest had found

another object. I never have seen another dumb creature that was

so morbidly sensitive. Bayard Taylor, who could interpret the dim

reasonings of animals, and understood their moral natures better than

most men, would have found some way to make this poor old chap forget

his troubles for a while, but we have not his kindly art, and so had to

leave the raven to his griefs.

After breakfast we climbed the hill and visited the ancient castle of

Hirschhorn, and the ruined church near it. There were some curious old

bas-reliefs leaning against the inner walls of the church--sculptured

lords of Hirschhorn in complete armor, and ladies of Hirschhorn in

the picturesque court costumes of the Middle Ages. These things are

suffering damage and passing to decay, for the last Hirschhorn has been

dead two hundred years, and there is nobody now who cares to preserve

the family relics. In the chancel was a twisted stone column, and the

captain told us a legend about it, of course, for in the matter of

legends he could not seem to restrain himself; but I do not repeat his

tale because there was nothing plausible about it except that the Hero

wrenched this column into its present screw-shape with his hands --just

one single wrench. All the rest of the legend was doubtful.

But Hirschhorn is best seen from a distance, down the river. Then

the clustered brown towers perched on the green hilltop, and the old

battlemented stone wall, stretching up and over the grassy ridge and

disappearing in the leafy sea beyond, make a picture whose grace and

beauty entirely satisfy the eye.

We descended from the church by steep stone stairways which curved this

way and that down narrow alleys between the packed and dirty tenements

of the village. It was a quarter well stocked with deformed, leering,

unkempt and uncombed idiots, who held out hands or caps and begged

piteously. The people of the quarter were not all idiots, of course, but

all that begged seemed to be, and were said to be.

I was thinking of going by skiff to the next town, Necharsteinach; so I

ran to the riverside in advance of the party and asked a man there if

he had a boat to hire. I suppose I must have spoken High German--Court

German--I intended it for that, anyway--so he did not understand me. I

turned and twisted my question around and about, trying to strike that

man'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 this

sentence on him, in the most glib and confident way: "Can man boat get

here?"

The mariner promptly understood and promptly answered. I can comprehend

why he was able to understand that particular sentence, because by mere

accident all the words in it except "get" have the same sound and the

same meaning in German that they have in English; but how he managed to

understand 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 find

a board, and so construct an additional seat. I spoke in the purest

German, but I might as well have spoken in the purest Choctaw for all

the good it did. The man tried his best to understand me; he tried, and

kept 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 answer

up at once, and say he would go and borrow a board as soon as he had lit

the pipe which he was filling.

We changed our mind about taking a boat, so we did not have to go. I

have given Mr. X's two remarks just as he made them. Four of the five

words in the first one were English, and that they were also German was

only accidental, not intentional; three out of the five words in the

second remark were English, and English only, and the two German ones

did not mean anything in particular, in such a connection.

X always spoke English to Germans, but his plan was to turn the sentence

wrong end first and upside down, according to German construction, and

sprinkle in a German word without any essential meaning to it, here and

there, by way of flavor. Yet he always made himself understood. He could

make those dialect-speaking raftsmen understand him, sometimes, when

even young Z had failed with them; and young Z was a pretty good German

scholar. For one thing, X always spoke with such confidence--perhaps

that helped. And possibly the raftsmen's dialect was what is called

PLATT-DEUTSCH, and so they found his English more familiar to their ears

than another man's German. Quite indifferent students of German can read

Fritz Reuter's charming platt-Deutch tales with some little facility

because many of the words are English. I suppose this is the tongue

which our Saxon ancestors carried to England with them. By and by I will

inquire of some other philologist.

However, in the mean time it had transpired that the men employed to

calk the raft had found that the leak was not a leak at all, but only

a crack between the logs--a crack that belonged there, and was not

dangerous, but had been magnified into a leak by the disordered

imagination of the mate. Therefore we went aboard again with a good

degree of confidence, and presently got to sea without accident. As we

swam smoothly along between the enchanting shores, we fell to swapping

notes about manners and customs in Germany and elsewhere.

As I write, now, many months later, I perceive that each of us, by

observing and noting and inquiring, diligently and day by day, had

managed to lay in a most varied and opulent stock of misinformation. But

this is not surprising; it is very difficult to get accurate details in

any country. For example, I had the idea once, in Heidelberg, to find

out all about those five student-corps. I started with the White Cap

corps. I began to inquire of this and that and the other citizen, and

here is what I found out:

1. It is called the Prussian Corps, because none but Prussians are

admitted to it.

2. It is called the Prussian Corps for no particular reason. It has

simply pleased each corps to name itself after some German state.

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

Corps.

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 of

noble 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 thought

of.

I got some of this information from students themselves--students who

did not belong to the corps.

I finally went to headquarters--to the White Caps--where I would

have gone in the first place if I had been acquainted. But even at

headquarters I found difficulties; I perceived that there were things

about 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 that

can be known about it. I doubt there is a man or a woman in Heidelberg

who would not answer promptly and confidently three out of every five

questions about the White Cap Corps which a stranger might ask; yet

it is a very safe bet that two of the three answers would be incorrect

every time.

There is one German custom which is universal--the bowing courteously

to strangers when sitting down at table or rising up from it. This

bow startles a stranger out of his self-possession, the first time

it occurs, and he is likely to fall over a chair or something, in his

embarrassment, but it pleases him, nevertheless. One soon learns to

expect this bow and be on the lookout and ready to return it; but to

learn to lead off and make the initial bow one's self is a difficult

matter for a diffident man. One thinks, "If I rise to go, and tender my

bow, and these ladies and gentlemen take it into their heads to ignore

the custom of their nation, and not return it, how shall I feel, in case

I survive to feel anything." Therefore he is afraid to venture. He sits

out the dinner, and makes the strangers rise first and originate the

bowing. A table d'hôte dinner is a tedious affair for a man who seldom

touches anything after the three first courses; therefore I used to do

some pretty dreary waiting because of my fears. It took me months to

assure myself that those fears were groundless, but I did assure myself

at last by experimenting diligently through my agent. I made Harris get

up and bow and leave; invariably his bow was returned, then I got up and

bowed myself and retired.

Thus my education proceeded easily and comfortably for me, but not for

Harris. Three courses of a table d'hôte dinner were enough for me, but

Harris preferred thirteen.

Even after I had acquired full confidence, and no longer needed the

agent's help, I sometimes encountered difficulties. Once at Baden-Baden

I nearly lost a train because I could not be sure that three young

ladies opposite me at table were Germans, since I had not heard them

speak; they might be American, they might be English, it was not safe

to venture a bow; but just as I had got that far with my thought, one of

them began a German remark, to my great relief and gratitude; and before

she got out her third word, our bows had been delivered and graciously

returned, and we were off.

There is a friendly something about the German character which is very

winning. When Harris and I were making a pedestrian tour through the

Black 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 parties

were hungry, so there was no talking. By and by the usual bows were

exchanged, and we separated.

As we sat at a late breakfast in the hotel at Allerheiligen, next

morning, these young people entered and took places near us without

observing us; but presently they saw us and at once bowed and smiled;

not ceremoniously, but with the gratified look of people who have found

acquaintances where they were expecting strangers. Then they spoke of

the weather and the roads. We also spoke of the weather and the roads.

Next, they said they had had an enjoyable walk, notwithstanding the

weather. We said that that had been our case, too. Then they said they

had walked thirty English miles the day before, and asked how many we

had walked. I could not lie, so I told Harris to do it. Harris told

them 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 out

of the dumb hotel clerk about routes, and observing that we were not

succeeding pretty well, they went and got their maps and things, and

pointed out and explained our course so clearly that even a New York

detective could have followed it. And when we started they spoke out a

hearty good-by and wished us a pleasant journey. Perhaps they were more

generous with us than they might have been with native wayfarers because

we were a forlorn lot and in a strange land; I don't know; I only know

it was lovely to be treated so.

Very well, I took an American young lady to one of the fine balls in

Baden-Baden, one night, and at the entrance-door upstairs we were halted

by an official--something about Miss Jones's dress was not according to

rule; I don't remember what it was, now; something was wanting--her back

hair, or a shawl, or a fan, or a shovel, or something. The official was

ever so polite, and ever so sorry, but the rule was strict, and he could

not let us in. It was very embarrassing, for many eyes were on us. But

now a richly dressed girl stepped out of the ballroom, inquired into the

trouble, and said she could fix it in a moment. She took Miss Jones to

the robing-room, and soon brought her back in regulation trim, and then

we entered the ballroom with this benefactress unchallenged.

Being safe, now, I began to puzzle through my sincere but ungrammatical

thanks, when there was a sudden mutual recognition --the benefactress

and 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 such

a difference between these clothes and the clothes I had seen her in

before, 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. I

had on MY other suit, too, but my German would betray me to a person who

had heard it once, anyway. She brought her brother and sister, and they

made our way smooth for that evening.

Well--months afterward, I was driving through the streets of Munich in a

cab 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 everybody

else--and they were returning all the bows and overlooking nobody, when

a young lady met them and made a deep courtesy.

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

friend.

I said:

"She is an honor to it, then. I know her. I don't know her name, but I

know HER. I have known her at Allerheiligen and Baden-Baden. She ought

to be an Empress, but she may be only a Duchess; it is the way things go

in this way."

If one asks a German a civil question, he will be quite sure to get a

civil answer. If you stop a German in the street and ask him to direct

you to a certain place, he shows no sign of feeling offended. If the

place be difficult to find, ten to one the man will drop his own matters

and go with you and show you.

In London, too, many a time, strangers have walked several blocks with

me 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 wanted

have sent one of their employees with me to show me a place where it

could be had.

CHAPTER XIX - [The Deadly Jest of Dilsberg]

However, I wander from the raft. We made the port of Necharsteinach in

good season, and went to the hotel and ordered a trout dinner, the same

to be ready against our return from a two-hour pedestrian excursion to

the village and castle of Dilsberg, a mile distant, on the other side

of the river. I do not mean that we proposed to be two hours making two

miles--no, we meant to employ most of the time in inspecting Dilsberg.

For Dilsberg is a quaint place. It is most quaintly and picturesquely

situated, too. Imagine the beautiful river before you; then a few rods

of brilliant green sward on its opposite shore; then a sudden hill--no

preparatory gently rising slopes, but a sort of instantaneous hill--a

hill two hundred and fifty or three hundred feet high, as round as a

bowl, with the same taper upward that an inverted bowl has, and with

about the same relation of height to diameter that distinguishes a

bowl of good honest depth--a hill which is thickly clothed with green

bushes--a comely, shapely hill, rising abruptly out of the dead level

of the surrounding green plains, visible from a great distance down the

bends of the river, and with just exactly room on the top of its head

for its steepled and turreted and roof-clustered cap of architecture,

which same is tightly jammed and compacted within the perfectly round

hoop of the ancient village wall.

There is no house outside the wall on the whole hill, or any vestige of

a former house; all the houses are inside the wall, but there isn't room

for another one. It is really a finished town, and has been finished a

very long time. There is no space between the wall and the first circle

of buildings; no, the village wall is itself the rear wall of the first

circle of buildings, and the roofs jut a little over the wall and

thus furnish it with eaves. The general level of the massed roofs is

gracefully broken and relieved by the dominating towers of the ruined

castle and the tall spires of a couple of churches; so, from a distance

Dilsberg has rather more the look of a king's crown than a cap. That

lofty green eminence and its quaint coronet form quite a striking

picture, 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 path

which plunged us at once into the leafy deeps of the bushes. But they

were not cool deeps by any means, for the sun's rays were weltering hot

and there was little or no breeze to temper them. As we panted up the

sharp ascent, we met brown, bareheaded and barefooted boys and girls,

occasionally, and sometimes men; they came upon us without warning, they

gave us good day, flashed out of sight in the bushes, and were gone

as suddenly and mysteriously as they had come. They were bound for the

other side of the river to work. This path had been traveled by many

generations of these people. They have always gone down to the valley to

earn their bread, but they have always climbed their hill again to eat

it, and to sleep in their snug town.

It is said that the Dilsbergers do not emigrate much; they find that

living up there above the world, in their peaceful nest, is pleasanter

than living down in the troublous world. The seven hundred inhabitants

are all blood-kin to each other, too; they have always been blood-kin to

each other for fifteen hundred years; they are simply one large family,

and they like the home folks better than they like strangers, hence they

persistently stay at home. It has been said that for ages Dilsberg

has been merely a thriving and diligent idiot-factory. I saw no idiots

there, but the captain said, "Because of late years the government has

taken to lugging them off to asylums and otherwheres; and government

wants to cripple the factory, too, and is trying to get these

Dilsbergers to marry out of the family, but they don't like to."

The captain probably imagined all this, as modern science denies that

the intermarrying of relatives deteriorates the stock.

Arrived within the wall, we found the usual village sights and life. We

moved along a narrow, crooked lane which had been paved in the Middle

Ages. A strapping, ruddy girl was beating flax or some such stuff in

a little bit of a good-box of a barn, and she swung her flail with a

will--if it was a flail; I was not farmer enough to know what she was

at; a frowsy, barelegged girl was herding half a dozen geese with

a stick--driving them along the lane and keeping them out of the

dwellings; a cooper was at work in a shop which I know he did not make

so large a thing as a hogshead in, for there was not room. In the front

rooms of dwellings girls and women were cooking or spinning, and ducks

and chickens were waddling in and out, over the threshold, picking up

chance crumbs and holding pleasant converse; a very old and wrinkled

man sat asleep before his door, with his chin upon his breast and his

extinguished pipe in his lap; soiled children were playing in the dirt

everywhere along the lane, unmindful of the sun.

Except the sleeping old man, everybody was at work, but the place was

very still and peaceful, nevertheless; so still that the distant

cackle of the successful hen smote upon the ear but little dulled

by intervening sounds. That commonest of village sights was lacking

here--the public pump, with its great stone tank or trough of limpid

water, and its group of gossiping pitcher-bearers; for there is no well

or fountain or spring on this tall hill; cisterns of rain-water are

used.

Our alpenstocks and muslin tails compelled attention, and as we moved

through the village we gathered a considerable procession of little boys

and girls, and so went in some state to the castle. It proved to be an

extensive pile of crumbling walls, arches, and towers, massive, properly

grouped for picturesque effect, weedy, grass-grown, and satisfactory.

The children acted as guides; they walked us along the top of the

highest walls, then took us up into a high tower and showed us a wide

and beautiful landscape, made up of wavy distances of woody hills, and

a nearer prospect of undulating expanses of green lowlands, on the one

hand, and castle-graced crags and ridges on the other, with the shining

curves of the Neckar flowing between. But the principal show, the chief

pride of the children, was the ancient and empty well in the grass-grown

court of the castle. Its massive stone curb stands up three or four feet

above-ground, and is whole and uninjured. The children said that in the

Middle Ages this well was four hundred feet deep, and furnished all the

village with an abundant supply of water, in war and peace. They said

that in the old day its bottom was below the level of the Neckar, hence

the water-supply was inexhaustible.

But there were some who believed it had never been a well at all, and

was never deeper than it is now--eighty feet; that at that depth a

subterranean passage branched from it and descended gradually to a

remote place in the valley, where it opened into somebody's cellar or

other hidden recess, and that the secret of this locality is now lost.

Those who hold this belief say that herein lies the explanation that

Dilsberg, besieged by Tilly and many a soldier before him, was

never taken: after the longest and closest sieges the besiegers were

astonished to perceive that the besieged were as fat and hearty as ever,

and were well furnished with munitions of war--therefore it must be

that the Dilsbergers had been bringing these things in through the

subterranean passage all the time.

The children said that there was in truth a subterranean outlet down

there, and they would prove it. So they set a great truss of straw on

fire and threw it down the well, while we leaned on the curb and watched

the glowing mass descend. It struck bottom and gradually burned out. No

smoke came up. The children clapped their hands and said:

"You see! Nothing makes so much smoke as burning straw--now where did

the 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, which

the children said was four hundred years old, and no doubt it was. It

had a mighty trunk and a mighty spread of limb and foliage. The limbs

near the ground were nearly the thickness of a barrel.

That tree had witnessed the assaults of men in mail--how remote such a

time seems, and how ungraspable is the fact that real men ever did fight

in real armor!--and it had seen the time when these broken arches and

crumbling battlements were a trim and strong and stately fortress,

fluttering its gay banners in the sun, and peopled with vigorous

humanity--how impossibly long ago that seems!--and here it stands yet,

and possibly may still be standing here, sunning itself and dreaming its

historical dreams, when today shall have been joined to the days called

"ancient."

Well, we sat down under the tree to smoke, and the captain delivered

himself of his legend: THE LEGEND OF DILSBERG CASTLE It was to this

effect. In the old times there was once a great company assembled at the

castle, and festivity ran high. Of course there was a haunted chamber

in the castle, and one day the talk fell upon that. It was said that

whoever slept in it would not wake again for fifty years. Now when a

young knight named Conrad von Geisberg heard this, he said that if the

castle were his he would destroy that chamber, so that no foolish person

might have the chance to bring so dreadful a misfortune upon himself

and afflict such as loved him with the memory of it. Straightway, the

company privately laid their heads together to contrive some way to get

this superstitious young man to sleep in that chamber.

And they succeeded--in this way. They persuaded his betrothed, a lovely

mischievous young creature, niece of the lord of the castle, to help

them in their plot. She presently took him aside and had speech with

him. She used all her persuasions, but could not shake him; he said his

belief was firm, that if he should sleep there he would wake no more for

fifty years, and it made him shudder to think of it. Catharina began to

weep. 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 and

be happy again. She flung her arms about his neck, and the kisses she

gave him showed that her thankfulness and her pleasure were very real.

Then she flew to tell the company her success, and the applause she

received made her glad and proud she had undertaken her mission, since

all alone she had accomplished what the multitude had failed in.

At midnight, that night, after the usual feasting, Conrad was taken to

the haunted chamber and left there. He fell asleep, by and by.

When he awoke again and looked about him, his heart stood still with

horror! The whole aspect of the chamber was changed. The walls were

moldy and hung with ancient cobwebs; the curtains and beddings were

rotten; the furniture was rickety and ready to fall to pieces. He sprang

out of bed, but his quaking knees sunk under him and he fell to the

floor.

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

He rose and sought his clothing. It was clothing no longer. The colors

were gone, the garments gave way in many places while he was putting

them on. He fled, shuddering, into the corridor, and along it to

the great hall. Here he was met by a middle-aged stranger of a kind

countenance, 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 the

stranger 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 the

former said:

"I am the lord of the castle."

"Since when, sir?"

"Since the death of my father, the good lord Ulrich more than forty

years ago."

Conrad sank upon a bench and covered his face with his hands while he

rocked his body to and fro and moaned. The stranger said in a low voice

to the servant:

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

In a moment several people came, and grouped themselves about, talking

in 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 the

world. They are dead and gone these many years that cared for me. But

sure, some of these aged ones I see about me can tell me some little

word or two concerning them."

Several bent and tottering men and women came nearer and answered his

questions about each former friend as he mentioned the names. This one

they said had been dead ten years, that one twenty, another thirty. Each

succeeding 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, and

she died of sorrow nearly fifty years ago. She lieth under the linden

tree 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 in

all the little summer of her life. Her loving debt shall be repaid--for

I will die of grief for her."

His head drooped upon his breast. In the moment there was a wild burst

of joyous laughter, a pair of round young arms were flung about Conrad's

neck and a sweet voice cried:

"There, Conrad mine, thy kind words kill me--the farce shall go no

further! Look up, and laugh with us--'twas all a jest!"

And he did look up, and gazed, in a dazed wonderment--for the disguises

were stripped away, and the aged men and women were bright and young and

gay again. Catharina's happy tongue ran on:

"'Twas a marvelous jest, and bravely carried out. They gave you a heavy

sleeping-draught before you went to bed, and in the night they bore you

to a ruined chamber where all had fallen to decay, and placed these rags

of 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 see

and hear, you may be sure. Ah, 'twas a gallant jest! Come, now, and make

thee ready for the pleasures of the day. How real was thy misery for the

moment, thou poor lad! Look up and have thy laugh, now!"

He looked up, searched the merry faces about him in a dreamy way, then

sighed 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 the

ground in a swoon.

All day the people went about the castle with troubled faces, and

communed together in undertones. A painful hush pervaded the place which

had lately been so full of cheery life. Each in his turn tried to arouse

Conrad out of his hallucination and bring him to himself; but all the

answer 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 and

forlorn in the world--prithee lead me to her grave."

During two years Conrad spent his days, from the early morning till the

night, under the linden tree, mourning over the imaginary grave of his

Catharina. Catharina was the only company of the harmless madman. He was

very friendly toward her because, as he said, in some ways she reminded

him 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 when

you think I am not looking, you cry."

When Conrad died, they buried him under the linden, according to his

directions, so that he might rest "near his poor Catharina." Then

Catharina sat under the linden alone, every day and all day long, a

great many years, speaking to no one, and never smiling; and at last her

long repentance was rewarded with death, and she was buried by Conrad's

side.

Harris pleased the captain by saying it was good legend; and pleased him

further by adding:

"Now that I have seen this mighty tree, vigorous with its four hundred

years, I feel a desire to believe the legend for ITS sake; so I will

humor the desire, and consider that the tree really watches over those

poor hearts and feels a sort of human tenderness for them."

We returned to Necharsteinach, plunged our hot heads into the trough at

the town pump, and then went to the hotel and ate our trout dinner in

leisurely comfort, in the garden, with the beautiful Neckar flowing at

our feet, the quaint Dilsberg looming beyond, and the graceful towers

and battlements of a couple of medieval castles (called the "Swallow's

Nest" [1] and "The Brothers.") assisting the rugged scenery of a bend

of the river down to our right. We got to sea in season to make the

eight-mile run to Heidelberg before the night shut down. We sailed by

the hotel in the mellow glow of sunset, and came slashing down with

the mad current into the narrow passage between the dikes. I believed I

could shoot the bridge myself, and I went to the forward triplet of logs

and 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 the

delicate duties of my office very well indeed for a first attempt;

but perceiving, presently, that I really was going to shoot the bridge

itself instead of the archway under it, I judiciously stepped ashore.

The next moment I had my long-coveted desire: I saw a raft wrecked. It

hit the pier in the center and went all to smash and scatteration like a

box of matches struck by lightning.

I was the only one of our party who saw this grand sight; the others

were attitudinizing, for the benefit of the long rank of young ladies

who were promenading on the bank, and so they lost it. But I helped to

fish them out of the river, down below the bridge, and then described it

to them as well as I could.

They were not interested, though. They said they were wet and felt

ridiculous and did not care anything for descriptions of scenery. The

young ladies, and other people, crowded around and showed a great deal

of sympathy, but that did not help matters; for my friends said they did

not 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 Hamburg

at last. Let this be a warning to the reader. The Germans are very

conscientious, and this trait makes them very particular. Therefore if

you tell a German you want a thing done immediately, he takes you

at your word; he thinks you mean what you say; so he does that thing

immediately--according to his idea of immediately--which is about a

week; 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. Very

well; 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 you

cannot imagine how long you will go on enlarging your admiration of the

expressiveness of that phrase in the German tongue, before you get that

trunk. The hair on my trunk was soft and thick and youthful, when I

got it ready for shipment in Hamburg; it was baldheaded when it reached

Heidelberg. However, it was still sound, that was a comfort, it was

not battered in the least; the baggagemen seemed to be conscientiously

careful, in Germany, of the baggage entrusted to their hands. There

was nothing now in the way of our departure, therefore we set about our

preparations.

Naturally my chief solicitude was about my collection of Ceramics. Of

course I could not take it with me, that would be inconvenient, and

dangerous besides. I took advice, but the best brick-a-brackers were

divided as to the wisest course to pursue; some said pack the collection

and warehouse it; others said try to get it into the Grand Ducal Museum

at Mannheim for safe keeping. So I divided the collection, and followed

the advice of both parties. I set aside, for the Museum, those articles

which were the most frail and precious.

Among these was my Etruscan tear-jug. I have made a little sketch of

it 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 and

fifty dollars. It is very rare. The man said the Etruscans used to keep

tears or something in these things, and that it was very hard to get

hold of a broken one, now.

I also set aside my Henri II. plate. See sketch from my pencil; it is

in the main correct, though I think I have foreshortened one end of it

a little too much, perhaps. This is very fine and rare; the shape is

exceedingly beautiful and unusual. It has wonderful decorations on it,

but I am not able to reproduce them. It cost more than the tear-jug, as

the dealer said there was not another plate just like it in the

world. He said there was much false Henri II ware around, but that the

genuineness of this piece was unquestionable.

He showed me its pedigree, or its history, if you please; it was a

document which traced this plate's movements all the way down from its

birth--showed who bought it, from whom, and what he paid for it--from

the first buyer down to me, whereby I saw that it had gone steadily up

from thirty-five cents to seven hundred dollars. He said that the whole

Ceramic world would be informed that it was now in my possession and

would 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 course

the main preciousness of this piece lies in its color; it is that old

sensuous, pervading, ramifying, interpolating, transboreal blue which is

the despair of modern art. The little sketch which I have made of this

gem cannot and does not do it justice, since I have been obliged to

leave out the color. But I've got the expression, though.

However, I must not be frittering away the reader's time with these

details. I did not intend to go into any detail at all, at first, but

it is the failing of the true ceramiker, or the true devotee in any

department of brick-a-brackery, that once he gets his tongue or his pen

started on his darling theme, he cannot well stop until he drops from

exhaustion. He has no more sense of the flight of time than has any

other lover when talking of his sweetheart. The very "marks" on the

bottom of a piece of rare crockery are able to throw me into a gibbering

ecstasy; and I could forsake a drowning relative to help dispute about

whether the stopple of a departed Buon Retiro scent-bottle was genuine

or spurious.

Many people say that for a male person, bric-a-brac hunting is about as

robust a business as making doll-clothes, or decorating Japanese pots

with decalcomania butterflies would be, and these people fling mud at

the elegant Englishman, Byng, who wrote a book called THE BRIC-A-BRAC

HUNTER, and make fun of him for chasing around after what they choose to

call "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 his

book with a picture of himself seated, in a "sappy, self-complacent

attitude, in the midst of his poor little ridiculous bric-a-brac junk

shop."

It is easy to say these things; it is easy to revile us, easy to despise

us; therefore, let these people rail on; they cannot feel as Byng and

I feel--it is their loss, not ours. For my part I am content to be a

brick-a-bracker and a ceramiker--more, I am proud to be so named. I am

proud to know that I lose my reason as immediately in the presence of a

rare jug with an illustrious mark on the bottom of it, as if I had

just emptied that jug. Very well; I packed and stored a part of my

collection, and the rest of it I placed in the care of the Grand Ducal

Museum in Mannheim, by permission. My Old Blue China Cat remains there

yet. I presented it to that excellent institution.

I had but one misfortune with my things. An egg which I had kept back

from 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 said

it was an antique. We spent a day or two in farewell visits, and then

left for Baden-Baden. We had a pleasant trip to it, for the Rhine valley

is always lovely. The only trouble was that the trip was too short. If

I remember rightly it only occupied a couple of hours, therefore I judge

that the distance was very little, if any, over fifty miles. We

quitted the train at Oos, and walked the entire remaining distance to

Baden-Baden, with the exception of a lift of less than an hour which

we got on a passing wagon, the weather being exhaustingly warm. We came

into 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 his

company and companionship are a genuine refreshment. We knew he had been

in 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 empty

one ready and thirsting to receive what you have got; we will sit up

till midnight and have a good satisfying interchange, for I leave here

early in the morning." We agreed to that, of course.

I had been vaguely conscious, for a while, of a person who was walking

in the street abreast of us; I had glanced furtively at him once or

twice, and noticed that he was a fine, large, vigorous young fellow,

with an open, independent countenance, faintly shaded with a pale and

even almost imperceptible crop of early down, and that he was clothed

from head to heel in cool and enviable snow-white linen. I thought I had

also noticed that his head had a sort of listening tilt to it. Now about

this 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 the

sidewalk alongside him, fetched him a cordial slap on the shoulder with

his 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 it

there!"

He held out his Sahara of his palm, and the Reverend laid his diminutive

hand in it, and got so cordial a shake that we heard his glove burst

under 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 been

over here long?"

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

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

you 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, rather

by instinct than otherwise, that he was throwing out signals of distress

to us; but we did not interfere or try to succor him, for we were quite

happy.

The young fellow hooked his arm into the Reverend's, now, with the

confiding 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 accents

of the mother-tongue--and then he limbered up the muscles of his mouth

and turned himself loose--and with such a relish! Some of his words were

not 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's

all. And when I heard you fellows gassing away in the good old American

language, I'm ------ if it wasn't all I could do to keep from hugging

you! 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's

awful good to lay it over a Christian word once more and kind of let the

old 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 to

be a horse-doctor! I LIKE that part of it, you know, but ------these

people, they won't learn a fellow in his own language, they make him

learn in German; so before I could tackle the horse-doctoring I had to

tackle this miserable language.

"First off, I thought it would certainly give me the botts, but I don't

mind 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 tell

you what! the difference between school-teaching over yonder and

school-teaching over here--sho! WE don't know anything about it! Here

you've got to peg and peg and peg and there just ain't any let-up--and

what you learn here, you've got to KNOW, dontchuknow --or else you'll

have one of these ------ spavined, spectacles, ring-boned, knock-kneed

old professors in your hair. I've been here long ENOUGH, and I'm getting

blessed tired of it, mind I TELL you. The old man wrote me that he was

coming over in June, and said he'd take me home in August, whether I was

done with my education or not, but durn him, he didn't come; never said

why; just sent me a hamper of Sunday-school books, and told me to

be 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 READ

them, anyway, because whatever the old man tells me to do, that's the

thing that I'm a-going to DO, or tear something, you know. I buckled

in and read all those books, because he wanted me to; but that kind of

thing 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 the

rag and give the word--yes, SIR, right here in this ------ country

I've got to linger till the old man says COME!--and you bet your bottom

dollar, 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, and

then he straightway dived into his narrative again for "Johnny's"

benefit, beginning, "Well, ------it ain't any use talking, some of those

old American words DO have a kind of a bully swing to them; a man

can 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 the

Reverend, he showed so much sorrow, and begged so hard and so earnestly

that the Reverend's heart was not hard enough to hold out against the

pleadings--so he went away with the parent-honoring student, like a

right Christian, and took supper with him in his lodgings, and sat in

the surf-beat of his slang and profanity till near midnight, and then

left him--left him pretty well talked out, but grateful "clear down

to his frogs," as he expressed it. The Reverend said it had transpired

during the interview that "Cholley" Adams's father was an extensive

dealer in horses in western New York; this accounted for Cholley's

choice of a profession. The Reverend brought away a pretty high opinion

of Cholley as a manly young fellow, with stuff in him for a useful

citizen; 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 artificial

beauties of the surroundings are combined effectively and charmingly.

The level strip of ground which stretches through and beyond the town is

laid out in handsome pleasure grounds, shaded by noble trees and adorned

at intervals with lofty and sparkling fountain-jets. Thrice a day a fine

band makes music in the public promenade before the Conversation

House, and in the afternoon and evening that locality is populous with

fashionably dressed people of both sexes, who march back and forth past

the great music-stand and look very much bored, though they make a

show of feeling otherwise. It seems like a rather aimless and stupid

existence. A good many of these people are there for a real purpose,

however; they are racked with rheumatism, and they are there to stew it

out in the hot baths. These invalids looked melancholy enough, limping

about on their canes and crutches, and apparently brooding over all

sorts of cheerless things. People say that Germany, with her damp stone

houses, is the home of rheumatism. If that is so, Providence must have

foreseen that it would be so, and therefore filled the land with the

healing baths. Perhaps no other country is so generously supplied with

medicinal springs as Germany. Some of these baths are good for one

ailment, some for another; and again, peculiar ailments are conquered

by combining the individual virtues of several different baths. For

instance, for some forms of disease, the patient drinks the native hot

water of Baden-Baden, with a spoonful of salt from the Carlsbad springs

dissolved 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 or

three young girls sit pottering at some sort of ladylike sewing-work

in your neighborhood and can't seem to see you --polite as three-dollar

clerks in government offices.

By and by one of these rises painfully, and "stretches"--stretches fists

and body heavenward till she raises her heels from the floor, at the

same time refreshing herself with a yawn of such comprehensiveness that

the bulk of her face disappears behind her upper lip and one is able to

see how she is constructed inside--then she slowly closes her

cavern, brings down her fists and her heels, comes languidly forward,

contemplates you contemptuously, draws you a glass of hot water and sets

it down where you can get it by reaching for it. You take it and say:

"How much?"--and she returns you, with elaborate indifference, a

beggar's answer:

"NACH BELIEBE" (what you please.)

This thing of using the common beggar's trick and the common beggar's

shibboleth to put you on your liberality when you were expecting a

simple straightforward commercial transaction, adds a little to your

prospering 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 resolve

to keep on asking your question till she changes her answer, or at least

her 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's

eyes, 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 I

gave up; that cast-iron indifference, that tranquil contemptuousness,

conquered me, and I struck my colors. Now I knew she was used to

receiving about a penny from manly people who care nothing about the

opinions of scullery-maids, and about tuppence from moral cowards; but

I laid a silver twenty-five cent piece within her reach and tried to

shrivel her up with this sarcastic speech:

"If it isn't enough, will you stoop sufficiently from your official

dignity to say so?"

She did not shrivel. Without deigning to look at me at all, she

languidly lifted the coin and bit it!--to see if it was good. Then she

turned her back and placidly waddled to her former roost again, tossing

the money into an open till as she went along. She was victor to the

last, 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-Baden

shopkeepers. The shopkeeper there swindles you if he can, and insults

you whether he succeeds in swindling you or not. The keepers of baths

also take great and patient pains to insult you. The frowsy woman who

sat at the desk in the lobby of the great Friederichsbad and sold bath

tickets, not only insulted me twice every day, with rigid fidelity

to her great trust, but she took trouble enough to cheat me out of a

shilling, one day, to have fairly entitled her to ten. Baden-Baden's

splendid 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 any

insolence here. These shopkeepers detest the English and despise the

Americans; they are rude to both, more especially to ladies of your

nationality and mine. If these go shopping without a gentleman or

a man-servant, they are tolerably sure to be subjected to petty

insolences--insolences of manner and tone, rather than word, though

words that are hard to bear are not always wanting. I know of an

instance where a shopkeeper tossed a coin back to an American lady with

the remark, snappishly uttered, 'We don't take French money here.' And

I 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 with

the question, 'Do you think you are obliged to buy it?' However, these

people are not impolite to Russians or Germans. And as to rank, they

worship that, for they have long been used to generals and nobles. If

you wish to see what abysses servility can descend, present yourself

before 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 all

agreed in that. I had the twinges of rheumatism unceasingly during three

years, 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 in

Baden-Baden. Baden-Baden is welcome to it. It was little, but it was

all I had to give. I would have preferred to leave something that was

catching, but it was not in my power.

There are several hot springs there, and during two thousand years they

have poured forth a never-diminishing abundance of the healing water.

This water is conducted in pipe to the numerous bath-houses, and is

reduced to an endurable temperature by the addition of cold water. The

new Friederichsbad is a very large and beautiful building, and in it one

may have any sort of bath that has ever been invented, and with all

the additions of herbs and drugs that his ailment may need or that the

physician of the establishment may consider a useful thing to put into

the water. You go there, enter the great door, get a bow graduated to

your style and clothes from the gorgeous portier, and a bath ticket and

an insult from the frowsy woman for a quarter; she strikes a bell and

a serving-man conducts you down a long hall and shuts you into a

commodious room which has a washstand, a mirror, a bootjack, and a sofa

in it, and there you undress at your leisure.

The room is divided by a great curtain; you draw this curtain aside, and

find a large white marble bathtub, with its rim sunk to the level of the

floor, and with three white marble steps leading down to it. This tub

is full of water which is as clear as crystal, and is tempered to 28

degrees Re'aumur (about 95 degrees Fahrenheit). Sunk into the floor, by

the tub, is a covered copper box which contains some warm towels and a

sheet. You look fully as white as an angel when you are stretched out

in that limpid bath. You remain in it ten minutes, the first time,

and afterward increase the duration from day to day, till you reach

twenty-five or thirty minutes. There you stop. The appointments of the

place are so luxurious, the benefit so marked, the price so moderate,

and the insults so sure, that you very soon find yourself adoring the

Friederichsbad and infesting it.

We had a plain, simple, unpretending, good hotel, in Baden-Baden--the

Hôtel de France--and alongside my room I had a giggling, cackling,

chattering family who always went to bed just two hours after me and

always got up two hours ahead of me. But this is common in German

hotels; the people generally go to bed long after eleven and get up

long before eight. The partitions convey sound like a drum-head, and

everybody knows it; but no matter, a German family who are all kindness

and consideration in the daytime make apparently no effort to moderate

their noises for your benefit at night. They will sing, laugh, and talk

loudly, and bang furniture around in a most pitiless way. If you knock

on your wall appealingly, they will quiet down and discuss the matter

softly among themselves for a moment--then, like the mice, they fall to

persecuting you again, and as vigorously as before. They keep cruelly

late and early hours, for such noisy folk.

Of course, when one begins to find fault with foreign people's ways, he

is very likely to get a reminder to look nearer home, before he gets far

with it. I open my note-book to see if I can find some more information

of a valuable nature about Baden-Baden, and the first thing I fall upon

is this:

"BADEN-BADEN (no date). Lot of vociferous Americans at breakfast

this morning. Talking AT everybody, while pretending to talk among

themselves. On their first travels, manifestly. Showing off. The usual

signs--airy, easy-going references to grand distances and foreign

places. '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 our

frontiersmen at their impudent leisure, and that we are only able

to send 1,200 soldiers against them, is utilized here to discourage

emigration to America. The common people think the Indians are in New

Jersey."

This is a new and peculiar argument against keeping our army down to a

ridiculous figure in the matter of numbers. It is rather a striking

one, too. I have not distorted the truth in saying that the facts in

the above item, about the army and the Indians, are made use of to

discourage emigration to America. That the common people should be

rather foggy in their geography, and foggy as to the location of the

Indians, is a matter for amusement, maybe, but not of surprise.

There is an interesting old cemetery in Baden-Baden, and we spent

several pleasant hours in wandering through it and spelling out the

inscriptions on the aged tombstones. Apparently after a man has laid

there a century or two, and has had a good many people buried on top

of him, it is considered that his tombstone is not needed by him any

longer. I judge so from the fact that hundreds of old gravestones have

been removed from the graves and placed against the inner walls of the

cemetery. What artists they had in the old times! They chiseled angels

and cherubs and devils and skeletons on the tombstones in the most

lavish and generous way--as to supply--but curiously grotesque and

outlandish as to form. It is not always easy to tell which of the

figures belong among the blest and which of them among the opposite

party. But there was an inscription, in French, on one of those old

stones, which was quaint and pretty, and was plainly not the work of any

other than a poet. It was to this effect:

Here Reposes in God, Caroline de Clery, a Religieuse of St. Denis aged

83 years--and blind. The light was restored to her in Baden the 5th of

January, 1839

We made several excursions on foot to the neighboring villages, over

winding and beautiful roads and through enchanting woodland scenery.

The woods and roads were similar to those at Heidelberg, but not

so bewitching. I suppose that roads and woods which are up to the

Heidelberg mark are rare in the world.

Once we wandered clear away to La Favorita Palace, which is several

miles from Baden-Baden. The grounds about the palace were fine; the

palace was a curiosity. It was built by a Margravine in 1725, and

remains as she left it at her death. We wandered through a great many

of its rooms, and they all had striking peculiarities of decoration.

For instance, the walls of one room were pretty completely covered

with small pictures of the Margravine in all conceivable varieties of

fanciful costumes, some of them male.

The walls of another room were covered with grotesquely and elaborately

figured hand-wrought tapestry. The musty ancient beds remained in the

chambers, and their quilts and curtains and canopies were decorated with

curious handwork, and the walls and ceilings frescoed with historical

and mythological scenes in glaring colors. There was enough crazy and

rotten rubbish in the building to make a true brick-a-bracker green with

envy. A painting in the dining-hall verged upon the indelicate--but then

the Margravine was herself a trifle indelicate.

It is in every way a wildly and picturesquely decorated house, and

brimful of interest as a reflection of the character and tastes of that

rude bygone time.

In the grounds, a few rods from the palace, stands the Margravine's

chapel, just as she left it--a coarse wooden structure, wholly barren

of ornament. It is said that the Margravine would give herself up to

debauchery and exceedingly fast living for several months at a time,

and then retire to this miserable wooden den and spend a few months in

repenting and getting ready for another good time. She was a devoted

Catholic, and was perhaps quite a model sort of a Christian as

Christians went then, in high life.

Tradition says she spent the last two years of her life in the strange

den I have been speaking of, after having indulged herself in one final,

triumphant, and satisfying spree. She shut herself up there, without

company, and without even a servant, and so abjured and forsook the

world. In her little bit of a kitchen she did her own cooking; she wore

a hair shirt next the skin, and castigated herself with whips--these

aids to grace are exhibited there yet. She prayed and told her beads,

in another little room, before a waxen Virgin niched in a little box

against the wall; she bedded herself like a slave.

In another small room is an unpainted wooden table, and behind it sit

half-life-size waxen figures of the Holy Family, made by the very worst

artist that ever lived, perhaps, and clothed in gaudy, flimsy drapery.

[1] The margravine used to bring her meals to this table and DINE WITH

THE HOLY FAMILY. What an idea that was! What a grisly spectacle it must

have been! Imagine it: Those rigid, shock-headed figures, with corpsy

complexions and fish glass eyes, occupying one side of the table in the

constrained attitudes and dead fixedness that distinguish all men that

are born of wax, and this wrinkled, smoldering old fire-eater occupying

the other side, mumbling her prayers and munching her sausages in the

ghostly stillness and shadowy indistinctness of a winter twilight. It

makes 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, this

strange princess lived and worshiped during two years, and in it she

died. Two or three hundred years ago, this would have made the poor den

holy ground; and the church would have set up a miracle-factory there

and made plenty of money out of it. The den could be moved into some

portions 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 Wealthy

Nabob--A New Standard of Wealth--Skeleton for a New Novel--Trying

Situation--The Common Council--Choosing a New Member Studying Natural

History--The Ant a Fraud--Eccentricities of the Ant--His Deceit and

Ignorance--A German Dish--Boiled Oranges

CHAPTER XXIII Off for a Day's Tramp--Tramping and Talking--Story

Telling--Dentistry in Camp--Nicodemus Dodge--Seeking a Situation--A

Butt for Jokes--Jimmy Finn's Skeleton--Descending a Farm--Unexpected

Notoriety

CHAPTER XXIV Sunday on the Continent--A Day of Rest--An Incident

at Church--An Object of Sympathy--Royalty at Church--Public Grounds

Concert--Power and Grades of Music--Hiring a Courier

CHAPTER XXV Lucerne--Beauty of its Lake--The Wild Chamois--A Great

Error Exposed--Methods of Hunting the Chamois--Beauties of Lucerne--The

Alpenstock--Marking Alpenstocks--Guessing at Nationalities--An American

Party--An Unexpected Acquaintance--Getting Mixed Up--Following Blind

Trails--A Happy Half--hour--Defeat and Revenge

CHAPTER XXVI Commerce of Lucerne--Benefits of Martyrdom--A Bit of

History--The Home of Cuckoo Clocks--A Satisfactory Revenge--The Alan

Who Put Up at Gadsby's--A Forgotten Story--Wanted to be Postmaster--A

Tennessean at Washington--He Concluded to Stay A While--Application of

the Story

CHAPTER XXVII The Glacier Garden--Excursion on the Lake--Life on the

Mountains--A Specimen Tourist--"Where're you From?"--An Advertising

Dodge--A Righteous Verdict--The Guide-book Student--I Believe that's All

CHAPTER XXVIII The Rigi-Kulm--Its Ascent--Stripping for Business--A

Mountain Lad--An English Tourist--Railroad up the Mountain--Villages and

Mountain--The Jodlers--About Ice Water--The Felsenthor--Too Late--Lost

in 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. We

were 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 a

buoyant, boyish gladness; and a third and very conspicuous feature of

it is one's sense of the remoteness of the work-day world and his entire

emancipation from it and its affairs.

Those woods stretch unbroken over a vast region; and everywhere they are

such dense woods, and so still, and so piney and fragrant. The stems of

the trees are trim and straight, and in many places all the ground is

hidden 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 leaf

or twig to mar its immaculate tidiness. A rich cathedral gloom pervades

the pillared aisles; so the stray flecks of sunlight that strike a trunk

here and a bough yonder are strongly accented, and when they strike the

moss they fairly seem to burn. But the weirdest effect, and the most

enchanting is that produced by the diffused light of the low afternoon

sun; no single ray is able to pierce its way in, then, but the diffused

light takes color from moss and foliage, and pervades the place like

a faint, green-tinted mist, the theatrical fire of fairyland. The

suggestion of mystery and the supernatural which haunts the forest at

all times is intensified by this unearthly glow.

We found the Black Forest farmhouses and villages all that the Black

Forest stories have pictured them. The first genuine specimen which

we came upon was the mansion of a rich farmer and member of the Common

Council of the parish or district. He was an important personage in the

land and so was his wife also, of course.

His daughter was the "catch" of the region, and she may be already

entering 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 recognize

her by her Black Forest clothes, and her burned complexion, her plump

figure, her fat hands, her dull expression, her gentle spirit,

her generous feet, her bonnetless head, and the plaited tails of

hemp-colored hair hanging down her back.

The house was big enough for a hotel; it was a hundred feet long and

fifty wide, and ten feet high, from ground to eaves; but from the eaves

to the comb of the mighty roof was as much as forty feet, or maybe even

more. This roof was of ancient mud-colored straw thatch a foot thick,

and was covered all over, except in a few trifling spots, with a

thriving and luxurious growth of green vegetation, mainly moss. The

mossless spots were places where repairs had been made by the insertion

of bright new masses of yellow straw. The eaves projected far down, like

sheltering, hospitable wings. Across the gable that fronted the road,

and about ten feet above the ground, ran a narrow porch, with a wooden

railing; a row of small windows filled with very small panes looked upon

the porch. Above were two or three other little windows, one clear up

under the sharp apex of the roof. Before the ground-floor door was a

huge pile of manure. The door of the second-story room on the side of

the house was open, and occupied by the rear elevation of a cow. Was

this probably the drawing-room? All of the front half of the house from

the ground up seemed to be occupied by the people, the cows, and the

chickens, and all the rear half by draught-animals and hay. But the

chief feature, all around this house, was the big heaps of manure.

We became very familiar with the fertilizer in the Forest. We fell

unconsciously into the habit of judging of a man's station in life

by this outward and eloquent sign. Sometimes we said, "Here is a poor

devil, this is manifest." When we saw a stately accumulation, we said,

"Here is a banker." When we encountered a country-seat surrounded by an

Alpine pomp of manure, we said, "Doubtless a duke lives here."

The importance of this feature has not been properly magnified in the

Black Forest stories. Manure is evidently the Black-Forester's main

treasure--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 his

will. The true Black Forest novel, if it is ever written, will be

skeletoned 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 paints

it--his masterpiece. The king comes to see it. Gretchen Huss,

daughter and heiress. Paul Hoch, young neighbor, suitor for Gretchen's

hand--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 without

sentiment, 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 the

house. His heart breaks, he goes away to die in the woods, far from the

cruel 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 you

required--come and view the pile." Old Huss views it and says, "It is

sufficient--take her and be happy,"--meaning Gretchen.

[Interval of two weeks.]

Wedding party assembled in old Huss's drawing-room. Hoch placid and

content, Gretchen weeping over her hard fate. Enter old Huss's head

bookkeeper. Huss says fiercely, "I gave you three weeks to find out why

your 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 as

a thief." Bookkeeper: "I have found it." "Where?" Bookkeeper

(sternly--tragically): "In the bridegroom's pile!--behold the thief--see

him blench and tremble!" [Sensation.] Paul Hoch: "Lost, lost!"--falls

over the cow in a swoon and is handcuffed. Gretchen: "Saved!" Falls over

the 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? Unhand

the maid and quit the place." Hans (still supporting the insensible

girl): "Never! Cruel old man, know that I come with claims which even

you cannot despise."

Huss: "What, YOU? name them."

Hans: "Listen then. The world has forsaken me, I forsook the world, I

wandered in the solitude of the forest, longing for death but finding

none. I fed upon roots, and in my bitterness I dug for the bitterest,

loathing the sweeter kind. Digging, three days agone, I struck a manure

mine!--a Golconda, a limitless Bonanza, of solid manure! I can buy you

ALL, and have mountain ranges of manure left! Ha-ha, NOW thou smilest a

smile!" [Immense sensation.] Exhibition of specimens from the mine. Old

Huss (enthusiastically): "Wake her up, shake her up, noble young man,

she is yours!" Wedding takes place on the spot; bookkeeper restored to

his office and emoluments; Paul Hoch led off to jail. The Bonanza king

of the Black Forest lives to a good old age, blessed with the love of

his wife and of his twenty-seven children, and the still sweeter envy of

everybody around.

We took our noon meal of fried trout one day at the Plow Inn, in a very

pretty village (Ottenhoefen), and then went into the public room to rest

and smoke. There we found nine or ten Black Forest grandees assembled

around a table. They were the Common Council of the parish. They had

gathered there at eight o'clock that morning to elect a new member, and

they 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-natured

faces, and were all dressed in the costume made familiar to us by the

Black Forest stories; broad, round-topped black felt hats with the brims

curled up all round; long red waistcoats with large metal buttons, black

alpaca coats with the waists up between the shoulders. There were no

speeches, there was but little talk, there were no frivolities; the

Council 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 a

rushing stream of clear water, past farmhouses, water-mills, and no end

of wayside crucifixes and saints and Virgins. These crucifixes, etc.,

are set up in memory of departed friends, by survivors, and are almost

as frequent as telegraph-poles are in other lands.

We followed the carriage-road, and had our usual luck; we traveled under

a beating sun, and always saw the shade leave the shady places before we

could get to them. In all our wanderings we seldom managed to strike

a piece of road at its time for being shady. We had a particularly hot

time of it on that particular afternoon, and with no comfort but what we

could get out of the fact that the peasants at work away up on the steep

mountainsides above our heads were even worse off than we were. By and

by it became impossible to endure the intolerable glare and heat

any longer; so we struck across the ravine and entered the deep cool

twilight of the forest, to hunt for what the guide-book called the "old

road."

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 the

wrong 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 and

enjoyed the restful quiet and shade of the forest solitudes. There

had been distractions in the carriage-road--school-children, peasants,

wagons, troops of pedestrianizing students from all over Germany--but we

had 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 of

him. It seems to me that in the matter of intellect the ant must be a

strangely overrated bird. During many summers, now, I have watched him,

when I ought to have been in better business, and I have not yet come

across 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 of

those wonderful Swiss and African ones which vote, keep drilled armies,

hold slaves, and dispute about religion. Those particular ants may be

all that the naturalist paints them, but I am persuaded that the

average ant is a sham. I admit his industry, of course; he is the

hardest-working creature in the world--when anybody is looking--but

his leather-headedness is the point I make against him. He goes out

foraging, he makes a capture, and then what does he do? Go home? No--he

goes anywhere but home. He doesn't know where home is. His home may be

only 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 of

use to himself or anybody else; it is usually seven times bigger than

it 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 toward

home, but in the opposite direction; not calmly and wisely, but with a

frantic haste which is wasteful of his strength; he fetches up against

a pebble, and instead of going around it, he climbs over it backward

dragging his booty after him, tumbles down on the other side, jumps up

in a passion, kicks the dust off his clothes, moistens his hands, grabs

his property viciously, yanks it this way, then that, shoves it ahead

of him a moment, turns tail and lugs it after him another moment,

gets madder and madder, then presently hoists it into the air and goes

tearing away in an entirely new direction; comes to a weed; it never

occurs to him to go around it; no, he must climb it; and he does climb

it, dragging his worthless property to the top--which is as bright

a thing to do as it would be for me to carry a sack of flour from

Heidelberg to Paris by way of Strasburg steeple; when he gets up there

he finds that that is not the place; takes a cursory glance at the

scenery and either climbs down again or tumbles down, and starts off

once more--as usual, in a new direction. At the end of half an hour, he

fetches up within six inches of the place he started from and lays his

burden down; meantime he has been over all the ground for two yards

around, and climbed all the weeds and pebbles he came across. Now he

wipes the sweat from his brow, strokes his limbs, and then marches

aimlessly off, in as violently a hurry as ever. He does not remember to

have ever seen it before; he looks around to see which is not the way

home, grabs his bundle and starts; he goes through the same adventures

he had before; finally stops to rest, and a friend comes along.

Evidently the friend remarks that a last year's grasshopper leg is a

very noble acquisition, and inquires where he got it.

Evidently the proprietor does not remember exactly where he did get

it, but thinks he got it "around here somewhere." Evidently the friend

contracts to help him freight it home. Then, with a judgment peculiarly

antic (pun not intended), they take hold of opposite ends of that

grasshopper leg and begin to tug with all their might in opposite

directions. Presently they take a rest and confer together. They decide

that something is wrong, they can't make out what. Then they go at

it again, just as before. Same result. Mutual recriminations follow.

Evidently each accuses the other of being an obstructionist. They lock

themselves together and chew each other's jaws for a while; then they

roll and tumble on the ground till one loses a horn or a leg and has to

haul off for repairs. They make up and go to work again in the same old

insane 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. Instead

of giving up, he hangs on, and gets his shins bruised against every

obstruction that comes in the way. By and by, when that grasshopper leg

has been dragged all over the same old ground once more, it is finally

dumped at about the spot where it originally lay, the two perspiring

ants inspect it thoughtfully and decide that dried grasshopper legs

are a poor sort of property after all, and then each starts off in a

different direction to see if he can't find an old nail or something

else that is heavy enough to afford entertainment and at the same time

valueless enough to make an ant want to own it.

There in the Black Forest, on the mountainside, I saw an ant go through

with such a performance as this with a dead spider of fully ten times

his own weight. The spider was not quite dead, but too far gone to

resist. He had a round body the size of a pea. The little ant--observing

that I was noticing--turned him on his back, sunk his fangs into his

throat, lifted him into the air and started vigorously off with him,

stumbling over little pebbles, stepping on the spider's legs and

tripping 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 their

summits--and finally leaving him in the middle of the road to be

confiscated by any other fool of an ant that wanted him. I measured the

ground which this ass traversed, and arrived at the conclusion that what

he had accomplished inside of twenty minutes would constitute some

such job as this--relatively speaking--for a man; to wit: to strap two

eight-hundred-pound horses together, carry them eighteen hundred feet,

mainly over (not around) boulders averaging six feet high, and in the

course of the journey climb up and jump from the top of one precipice

like Niagara, and three steeples, each a hundred and twenty feet high;

and then put the horses down, in an exposed place, without anybody to

watch them, and go off to indulge in some other idiotic miracle for

vanity's sake.

Science has recently discovered that the ant does not lay up anything

for 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 the

observer 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 for

him. He cannot stroll around a stump and find his way home again. This

amounts to idiocy, and once the damaging fact is established, thoughtful

people will cease to look up to him, the sentimental will cease to

fondle him. His vaunted industry is but a vanity and of no effect, since

he never gets home with anything he starts with. This disposes of the

last remnant of his reputation and wholly destroys his main usefulness

as a moral agent, since it will make the sluggard hesitate to go to him

any more. It is strange, beyond comprehension, that so manifest a humbug

as the ant has been able to fool so many nations and keep it up so many

ages without being found out.

The ant is strong, but we saw another strong thing, where we had not

suspected the presence of much muscular power before. A toadstool--that

vegetable which springs to full growth in a single night--had torn loose

and lifted a matted mass of pine needles and dirt of twice its own bulk

into the air, and supported it there, like a column supporting a shed.

Ten thousand toadstools, with the right purchase, could lift a man, I

suppose. But what good would it do?

All our afternoon's progress had been uphill. About five or half past we

reached the summit, and all of a sudden the dense curtain of the forest

parted and we looked down into a deep and beautiful gorge and out over a

wide panorama of wooded mountains with their summits shining in the sun

and their glade-furrowed sides dimmed with purple shade. The gorge under

our feet--called Allerheiligen--afforded room in the grassy level at its

head for a cozy and delightful human nest, shut away from the world and

its botherations, and consequently the monks of the old times had not

failed to spy it out; and here were the brown and comely ruins of their

church and convent to prove that priests had as fine an instinct seven

hundred years ago in ferreting out the choicest nooks and corners in a

land as priests have today.

A big hotel crowds the ruins a little, now, and drives a brisk trade

with summer tourists. We descended into the gorge and had a supper which

would 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 to

their own devices. This is an argument of some value in support of the

theory that they were the original colonists of the wild islands of the

coast of Scotland. A schooner laden with oranges was wrecked upon one

of those islands a few years ago, and the gentle savages rendered the

captain such willing assistance that he gave them as many oranges as

they wanted. Next day he asked them how they liked them. They shook

their heads and said:

"Baked, they were tough; and even boiled, they warn't things for a

hungry man to hanker after."

We went down the glen after supper. It is beautiful--a mixture of sylvan

loveliness and craggy wildness. A limpid torrent goes whistling down

the glen, and toward the foot of it winds through a narrow cleft between

lofty precipices and hurls itself over a succession of falls. After one

passes the last of these he has a backward glimpse at the falls which

is very pleasing--they rise in a seven-stepped stairway of foamy and

glittering cascades, and make a picture which is as charming as it is

unusual.

CHAPTER XXIII - [Nicodemus Dodge and the Skeleton]

We were satisfied that we could walk to Oppenau in one day, now that

we were in practice; so we set out the next morning after breakfast

determined to do it. It was all the way downhill, and we had the

loveliest summer weather for it. So we set the pedometer and then

stretched away on an easy, regular stride, down through the cloven

forest, drawing in the fragrant breath of the morning in deep refreshing

draughts, and wishing we might never have anything to do forever but

walk 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, or

in the scenery, but in the talking. The walking is good to time the

movement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirred

up and active; the scenery and the woodsy smells are good to bear in

upon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm and solace to eye and

soul and sense; but the supreme pleasure comes from the talk. It is no

matter whether one talks wisdom or nonsense, the case is the same, the

bulk of the enjoyment lies in the wagging of the gladsome jaw and the

flapping of the sympathetic ear.

And what motley variety of subjects a couple of people will casually

rake 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 to

keep pegging at a single topic until it grows tiresome. We discussed

everything we knew, during the first fifteen or twenty minutes, that

morning, and then branched out into the glad, free, boundless realm of

the things we were not certain about.

Harris said that if the best writer in the world once got the slovenly

habit of doubling up his "haves" he could never get rid of it while he

lived. That is to say, if a man gets the habit of saying "I should

have liked to have known more about it" instead of saying simply and

sensibly, "I should have liked to know more about it," that man's

disease is incurable. Harris said that his sort of lapse is to be found

in 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's

grammar and in Macaulay. Harris believed that milk-teeth are commoner in

men's mouths than those "doubled-up haves."

I do not know that there have not been moments in the course of the

present session when I should have been very glad to have accepted the

proposal of my noble friend, and to have exchanged parts in some of our

evenings of work.--[From a Speech of the English Chancellor of the

Exchequer, August, 1879.]

That changed the subject to dentistry. I said I believed the average

man dreaded tooth-pulling more than amputation, and that he would yell

quicker under the former operation than he would under the latter. The

philosopher Harris said that the average man would not yell in either

case if he had an audience. Then he continued:

"When our brigade first went into camp on the Potomac, we used to be

brought up standing, occasionally, by an ear-splitting howl of anguish.

That meant that a soldier was getting a tooth pulled in a tent. But the

surgeons soon changed that; they instituted open-air dentistry. There

never was a howl afterward--that is, from the man who was having the

tooth pulled. At the daily dental hour there would always be about five

hundred soldiers gathered together in the neighborhood of that dental

chair waiting to see the performance--and help; and the moment the

surgeon took a grip on the candidate's tooth and began to lift, every

one of those five hundred rascals would clap his hand to his jaw and

begin 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 enormous

unanimous caterwaul burst out!

With so big and so derisive an audience as that, a sufferer wouldn't

emit a sound though you pulled his head off. The surgeons said that

pretty often a patient was compelled to laugh, in the midst of his

pangs, but that they had never caught one crying out, after the open-air

exhibition was instituted."

Dental surgeons suggested doctors, doctors suggested death, death

suggested skeletons--and so, by a logical process the conversation

melted out of one of these subjects and into the next, until the topic

of skeletons raised up Nicodemus Dodge out of the deep grave in my

memory 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 sixteen

lounged in one day, and without removing his hands from the depths of

his trousers pockets or taking off his faded ruin of a slouch hat, whose

broken rim hung limp and ragged about his eyes and ears like a bug-eaten

cabbage leaf, stared indifferently around, then leaned his hip against

the editor's table, crossed his mighty brogans, aimed at a distant

fly from a crevice in his upper teeth, laid him low, and said with

composure:

"Whar's the boss?"

"I am the boss," said the editor, following this curious bit of

architecture 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 if

I kin, 'taint no diffunce what--I'm strong and hearty, and I don't turn

my 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 chance

fur 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 as

twelve-times-twelve I ain't no slouch. 'Tother side of that is what gits

me."

"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 to

any CHURCH?"

"NOW you're talkin'! Couldn't make out what you was a-tryin' to git

through yo' head no way. B'long to a CHURCH! Why, boss, he's ben the

pizenest kind of Free-will Babtis' for forty year. They ain't no pizener

ones 'n what HE is. Mighty good man, pap is. Everybody says that. If

they said any diffrunt they wouldn't say it whar I wuz--not MUCH they

wouldn't."

"What is your own religion?"

"Well, boss, you've kind o' got me, there--and yit you hain't got me so

mighty much, nuther. I think 't if a feller he'ps another feller when

he's in trouble, and don't cuss, and don't do no mean things, nur

noth'n' he ain' no business to do, and don't spell the Saviour's name

with a little g, he ain't runnin' no resks--he's about as saift as he

b'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--he

OUGHTN'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 he

was 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 and

villainous "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 a

smoke-house a generation before. Nicodemus was given this lonely and

ghostly den as a bedchamber.

The village smarties recognized a treasure in Nicodemus, right away--a

butt to play jokes on. It was easy to see that he was inconceivably

green and confiding. George Jones had the glory of perpetrating the

first joke on him; he gave him a cigar with a firecracker in it and

winked to the crowd to come; the thing exploded presently and swept away

the bulk of Nicodemus's eyebrows and eyelashes. He simply said:

"I consider them kind of seeg'yars dangersome,"--and seemed to suspect

nothing. The next evening Nicodemus waylaid George and poured a bucket

of ice-water over him.

One day, while Nicodemus was in swimming, Tom McElroy "tied" his

clothes. Nicodemus made a bonfire of Tom's by way of retaliation.

A third joke was played upon Nicodemus a day or two later--he walked

up the middle aisle of the village church, Sunday night, with a staring

handbill pinned between his shoulders. The joker spent the remainder

of the night, after church, in the cellar of a deserted house, and

Nicodemus sat on the cellar door till toward breakfast-time to make

sure that the prisoner remembered that if any noise was made, some rough

treatment would be the consequence. The cellar had two feet of stagnant

water in it, and was bottomed with six inches of soft mud.

But I wander from the point. It was the subject of skeletons that

brought this boy back to my recollection. Before a very long time

had elapsed, the village smarties began to feel an uncomfortable

consciousness of not having made a very shining success out of their

attempts on the simpleton from "old Shelby." Experimenters grew scarce

and chary. Now the young doctor came to the rescue. There was delight

and applause when he proposed to scare Nicodemus to death, and explained

how he was going to do it. He had a noble new skeleton--the skeleton of

the late and only local celebrity, Jimmy Finn, the village drunkard--a

grisly piece of property which he had bought of Jimmy Finn himself, at

auction, for fifty dollars, under great competition, when Jimmy lay very

sick in the tan-yard a fortnight before his death. The fifty dollars had

gone promptly for whiskey and had considerably hurried up the change of

ownership in the skeleton. The doctor would put Jimmy Finn's skeleton in

Nicodemus's bed!

This was done--about half past ten in the evening. About Nicodemus's

usual bedtime--midnight--the village jokers came creeping stealthily

through 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 dangling

his legs contentedly back and forth, and wheezing the music of "Camptown

Races" out of a paper-overlaid comb which he was pressing against his

mouth; by him lay a new jewsharp, a new top, and solid india-rubber

ball, a handful of painted marbles, five pounds of "store" candy, and

a well-gnawed slab of gingerbread as big and as thick as a volume of

sheet-music. He had sold the skeleton to a traveling quack for three

dollars and was enjoying the result!

Just as we had finished talking about skeletons and were drifting into

the subject of fossils, Harris and I heard a shout, and glanced up the

steep hillside. We saw men and women standing away up there looking

frightened, and there was a bulky object tumbling and floundering down

the steep slope toward us. We got out of the way, and when the object

landed in the road it proved to be a boy. He had tripped and fallen, and

there was nothing for him to do but trust to luck and take what might

come.

When one starts to roll down a place like that, there is no stopping

till the bottom is reached. Think of people FARMING on a slant which is

so steep that the best you can say of it--if you want to be fastidiously

accurate--is, that it is a little steeper than a ladder and not quite

so steep as a mansard roof. But that is what they do. Some of the little

farms on the hillside opposite Heidelberg were stood up "edgeways."

The boy was wonderfully jolted up, and his head was bleeding, from cuts

which it had got from small stones on the way.

Harris and I gathered him up and set him on a stone, and by that time

the men and women had scampered down and brought his cap.

Men, women, and children flocked out from neighboring cottages

and joined the crowd; the pale boy was petted, and stared at, and

commiserated, and water was brought for him to drink and bathe his

bruises in. And such another clatter of tongues! All who had seen the

catastrophe were describing it at once, and each trying to talk louder

than his neighbor; and one youth of a superior genius ran a little way

up the hill, called attention, tripped, fell, rolled down among us, and

thus triumphantly showed exactly how the thing had been done.

Harris and I were included in all the descriptions; how we were coming

along; how Hans Gross shouted; how we looked up startled; how we saw

Peter 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 and

brushed 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 so

recognized; we were taken with Peter and the populace to Peter's

mother's cottage, and there we ate bread and cheese, and drank milk and

beer with everybody, and had a most sociable good time; and when we left

we 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 kindly

new friends forever.

We accomplished our undertaking. At half past eight in the evening

we stepped into Oppenau, just eleven hours and a half out of

Allerheiligen--one hundred and forty-six miles. This is the distance by

pedometer; the guide-book and the Imperial Ordinance maps make it only

ten and a quarter--a surprising blunder, for these two authorities are

usually 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 ever

to have which was all the way downhill. We took the train next morning

and returned to Baden-Baden through fearful fogs of dust. Every seat was

crowded, too; for it was Sunday, and consequently everybody was taking

a "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 pleasure

excursion, 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; the

Germans do not work on Sunday, because the commandment forbids it. We

rest on Sunday, because the commandment requires it; the Germans rest on

Sunday because the commandment requires it. But in the definition of

the word "rest" lies all the difference. With us, its Sunday meaning

is, stay in the house and keep still; with the Germans its Sunday and

week-day meanings seem to be the same--rest the TIRED PART, and never

mind the other parts of the frame; rest the tired part, and use the

means best calculated to rest that particular part. Thus: If one's

duties have kept him in the house all the week, it will rest him to

be out on Sunday; if his duties have required him to read weighty and

serious matter all the week, it will rest him to read light matter on

Sunday; if his occupation has busied him with death and funerals all the

week, it will rest him to go to the theater Sunday night and put in two

or three hours laughing at a comedy; if he is tired with digging ditches

or felling trees all the week, it will rest him to lie quiet in the

house on Sunday; if the hand, the arm, the brain, the tongue, or any

other member, is fatigued with inanition, it is not to be rested by

addeding 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 Germans

seem to define the word "rest"; that is to say, they rest a member by

recreating, recuperating, restoring its forces. But our definition is

less broad. We all rest alike on Sunday--by secluding ourselves and

keeping still, whether that is the surest way to rest the most of us or

not. The Germans make the actors, the preachers, etc., work on Sunday.

We encourage the preachers, the editors, the printers, etc., to work on

Sunday, and imagine that none of the sin of it falls upon us; but I do

not know how we are going to get around the fact that if it is wrong for

the printer to work at his trade on Sunday it must be equally wrong for

the preacher to work at his, since the commandment has made no exception

in his favor. We buy Monday morning's paper and read it, and thus

encourage Sunday printing. But I shall never do it again.

The Germans remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy, by abstaining

from work, as commanded; we keep it holy by abstaining from work, as

commanded, and by also abstaining from play, which is not commanded.

Perhaps we constructively BREAK the command to rest, because the resting

we do is in most cases only a name, and not a fact.

These reasonings have sufficed, in a measure, to mend the rent in my

conscience which I made by traveling to Baden-Baden that Sunday. We

arrived in time to furbish up and get to the English church before

services began. We arrived in considerable style, too, for the landlord

had ordered the first carriage that could be found, since there was no

time to lose, and our coachman was so splendidly liveried that we were

probably mistaken for a brace of stray dukes; why else were we honored

with a pew all to ourselves, away up among the very elect at the left of

the chancel? That was my first thought. In the pew directly in front of

us sat an elderly lady, plainly and cheaply dressed; at her side sat

a young lady with a very sweet face, and she also was quite simply

dressed; but around us and about us were clothes and jewels which it

would do anybody's heart good to worship in.

I thought it was pretty manifest that the elderly lady was embarrassed

at finding herself in such a conspicuous place arrayed in such cheap

apparel; I began to feel sorry for her and troubled about her. She

tried to seem very busy with her prayer-book and her responses, and

unconscious that she was out of place, but I said to myself, "She is

not succeeding--there is a distressed tremulousness in her voice which

betrays increasing embarrassment." Presently the Savior's name was

mentioned, and in her flurry she lost her head completely, and rose and

courtesied, instead of making a slight nod as everybody else did. The

sympathetic blood surged to my temples and I turned and gave those fine

birds what I intended to be a beseeching look, but my feelings got the

better of me and changed it into a look which said, "If any of you pets

of fortune laugh at this poor soul, you will deserve to be flayed for

it." Things went from bad to worse, and I shortly found myself mentally

taking the unfriended lady under my protection. My mind was wholly upon

her. I forgot all about the sermon. Her embarrassment took stronger

and stronger hold upon her; she got to snapping the lid of her

smelling-bottle--it made a loud, sharp sound, but in her trouble she

snapped and snapped away, unconscious of what she was doing. The last

extremity was reached when the collection-plate began its rounds; the

moderate people threw in pennies, the nobles and the rich contributed

silver, but she laid a twenty-mark gold piece upon the book-rest before

her with a sounding slap! I said to myself, "She has parted with all her

little hoard to buy the consideration of these unpitying people--it is a

sorrowful spectacle." I did not venture to look around this time; but

as the service closed, I said to myself, "Let them laugh, it is their

opportunity; but at the door of this church they shall see her step into

our fine carriage with us, and our gaudy coachman shall drive her home."

Then she rose--and all the congregation stood while she walked down the

aisle. She was the Empress of Germany!

No--she had not been so much embarrassed as I had supposed. My

imagination had got started on the wrong scent, and that is always

hopeless; one is sure, then, to go straight on misinterpreting

everything, clear through to the end. The young lady with her imperial

Majesty was a maid of honor--and I had been taking her for one of her

boarders, all the time.

This is the only time I have ever had an Empress under my personal

protection; and considering my inexperience, I wonder I got through

with it so well. I should have been a little embarrassed myself if I had

known earlier what sort of a contract I had on my hands.

We found that the Empress had been in Baden-Baden several days. It is

said 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 remainder

of that Sunday, but I sent my agent to represent me at the afternoon

service, for I never allow anything to interfere with my habit of

attending church twice every Sunday.

There was a vast crowd in the public grounds that night to hear the band

play the "Fremersberg." This piece tells one of the old legends of the

region; 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 last

the faint tones of a monastery bell, calling the monks to a midnight

service, caught his ear, and he followed the direction the sounds came

from and was saved. A beautiful air ran through the music, without

ceasing, sometimes loud and strong, sometimes so soft that it could

hardly be distinguished--but it was always there; it swung grandly along

through the shrill whistling of the storm-wind, the rattling patter of

the rain, and the boom and crash of the thunder; it wound soft and low

through the lesser sounds, the distant ones, such as the throbbing

of the convent bell, the melodious winding of the hunter's horn, the

distressed bayings of his dogs, and the solemn chanting of the monks;

it rose again, with a jubilant ring, and mingled itself with the country

songs and dances of the peasants assembled in the convent hall to

cheer up the rescued huntsman while he ate his supper. The instruments

imitated all these sounds with a marvelous exactness. More than one man

started to raise his umbrella when the storm burst forth and the sheets

of mimic rain came driving by; it was hardly possible to keep from

putting your hand to your hat when the fierce wind began to rage and

shriek; and it was NOT possible to refrain from starting when those

sudden 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 of

cry all the time, and mad with enthusiasm. My soul had never had such a

scouring out since I was born. The solemn and majestic chanting of the

monks was not done by instruments, but by men's voices; and it rose

and fell, and rose again in that rich confusion of warring sounds, and

pulsing bells, and the stately swing of that ever-present enchanting

air, and it seemed to me that nothing but the very lowest of low-grade

music COULD be so divinely beautiful. The great crowd which the

"Fremersberg" had called out was another evidence that it was low-grade

music; for only the few are educated up to a point where high-grade

music gives pleasure. I have never heard enough classic music to be able

to 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, just

as an oyster might, and another sort which requires a higher faculty,

a faculty which must be assisted and developed by teaching. Yet if base

music gives certain of us wings, why should we want any other? But we

do. We want it because the higher and better like it. We want it without

giving it the necessary time and trouble; so we climb into that upper

tier, that dress-circle, by a lie; we PRETEND we like it. I know several

of that sort of people--and I propose to be one of them myself when I

get home with my fine European education.

And then there is painting. What a red rag is to a bull, Turner's "Slave

Ship" was to me, before I studied art. Mr. Ruskin is educated in art

up to a point where that picture throws him into as mad an ecstasy of

pleasure as it used to throw me into one of rage, last year, when I was

ignorant. His cultivation enables him--and me, now--to see water in that

glaring yellow mud, and natural effects in those lurid explosions

of mixed smoke and flame, and crimson sunset glories; it reconciles

him--and me, now--to the floating of iron cable-chains and other

unfloatable things; it reconciles us to fishes swimming around on top

of the mud--I mean the water. The most of the picture is a manifest

impossibility--that is to say, a lie; and only rigid cultivation can

enable a man to find truth in a lie. But it enabled Mr. Ruskin to do

it, and it has enabled me to do it, and I am thankful for it. A Boston

newspaper reporter went and took a look at the Slave Ship floundering

about in that fierce conflagration of reds and yellows, and said it

reminded him of a tortoise-shell cat having a fit in a platter

of tomatoes. In my then uneducated state, that went home to my

non-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 would

say, now.

Months after this was written, I happened into the National Gallery in

London, and soon became so fascinated with the Turner pictures that I

could hardly get away from the place. I went there often, afterward,

meaning to see the rest of the gallery, but the Turner spell was too

strong; it could not be shaken off. However, the Turners which attracted

me 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 the

hotel, ready to take charge of us. I asked him if he was "all fixed." He

said 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 railway

fares. On the continent the railway fare on a trunk is about the same

it is on a man. Couriers do not have to pay any board and lodging. This

seems a great saving to the tourist--at first. It does not occur to the

tourist that SOMEBODY pays that man's board and lodging. It occurs to

him 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 Lucerne

about ten o'clock at night. The first discovery I made was that the

beauty of the lake had not been exaggerated. Within a day or two I made

another 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 not

avoid 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 vast

herds 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, on

the contrary, it will attack him; its bite is not dangerous, but neither

is it pleasant; its activity has not been overstated --if you try to put

your finger on it, it will skip a thousand times its own length at one

jump, and no eye is sharp enough to see where it lights. A great deal

of romantic nonsense has been written about the Swiss chamois and the

perils of hunting it, whereas the truth is that even women and children

hunt it, and fearlessly; indeed, everybody hunts it; the hunting is

going on all the time, day and night, in bed and out of it. It is poetic

foolishness to hunt it with a gun; very few people do that; there is

not one man in a million who can hit it with a gun. It is much easier to

catch it than it is to shoot it, and only the experienced chamois-hunter

can do either. Another common piece of exaggeration is that about the

"scarcity" of the chamois. It is the reverse of scarce. Droves of one

hundred million chamois are not unusual in the Swiss hotels. Indeed,

they are so numerous as to be a great pest. The romancers always dress

up the chamois-hunter in a fanciful and picturesque costume, whereas the

best way to hunt this game is to do it without any costume at all.

The article of commerce called chamois-skin is another fraud; nobody

could skin a chamois, it is too small. The creature is a humbug in

every way, and everything which has been written about it is sentimental

exaggeration. It was no pleasure to me to find the chamois out, for he

had been one of my pet illusions; all my life it had been my dream to

see him in his native wilds some day, and engage in the adventurous

sport of chasing him from cliff to cliff. It is no pleasure to me to

expose him, now, and destroy the reader's delight in him and respect for

him, but still it must be done, for when an honest writer discovers an

imposition it is his simple duty to strip it bare and hurl it down from

its place of honor, no matter who suffers by it; any other course would

render him unworthy of the public confidence.

Lucerne is a charming place. It begins at the water's edge, with a

fringe of hotels, and scrambles up and spreads itself over two or three

sharp hills in a crowded, disorderly, but picturesque way, offering

to the eye a heaped-up confusion of red roofs, quaint gables, dormer

windows, toothpick steeples, with here and there a bit of ancient

embattled wall bending itself over the ridges, worm-fashion, and here

and there an old square tower of heavy masonry. And also here and there

a town clock with only one hand--a hand which stretches across the dial

and has no joint in it; such a clock helps out the picture, but you

cannot tell the time of day by it. Between the curving line of hotels

and the lake is a broad avenue with lamps and a double rank of low shade

trees. The lake-front is walled with masonry like a pier, and has

a railing, to keep people from walking overboard. All day long the

vehicles dash along the avenue, and nurses, children, and tourists sit

in the shade of the trees, or lean on the railing and watch the schools

of fishes darting about in the clear water, or gaze out over the lake

at the stately border of snow-hooded mountain peaks. Little pleasure

steamers, black with people, are coming and going all the time; and

everywhere one sees young girls and young men paddling about in fanciful

rowboats, or skimming along by the help of sails when there is any wind.

The front rooms of the hotels have little railed balconies, where one

may take his private luncheon in calm, cool comfort and look down upon

this busy and pretty scene and enjoy it without having to do any of the

work connected with it.

Most of the people, both male and female, are in walking costume, and

carry alpenstocks. Evidently, it is not considered safe to go about in

Switzerland, even in town, without an alpenstock. If the tourist forgets

and comes down to breakfast without his alpenstock he goes back and gets

it, and stands it up in the corner. When his touring in Switzerland is

finished, he does not throw that broomstick away, but lugs it home

with him, to the far corners of the earth, although this costs him

more trouble and bother than a baby or a courier could. You see, the

alpenstock is his trophy; his name is burned upon it; and if he has

climbed a hill, or jumped a brook, or traversed a brickyard with it, he

has the names of those places burned upon it, too.

Thus it is his regimental flag, so to speak, and bears the record of his

achievements. It is worth three francs when he buys it, but a bonanza

could not purchase it after his great deeds have been inscribed upon it.

There are artisans all about Switzerland whose trade it is to burn

these things upon the alpenstock of the tourist. And observe, a man is

respected in Switzerland according to his alpenstock. I found I could

get no attention there, while I carried an unbranded one. However,

branding is not expected, so I soon remedied that. The effect upon

the next detachment of tourists was very marked. I felt repaid for my

trouble.

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 and

the Americans coming next. The Americans were not as numerous as I had

expected they would be.

The seven-thirty table d'hôte at the great Schweitzerhof furnished

a mighty array and variety of nationalities, but it offered a better

opportunity to observe costumes than people, for the multitude sat

at immensely long tables, and therefore the faces were mainly seen in

perspective; but the breakfasts were served at small round tables,

and then if one had the fortune to get a table in the midst of the

assemblage he could have as many faces to study as he could desire.

We used to try to guess out the nationalities, and generally succeeded

tolerably well. Sometimes we tried to guess people's names; but that

was a failure; that is a thing which probably requires a good deal of

practice. We presently dropped it and gave our efforts to less difficult

particulars. 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, and

very tastefully dressed. But we disagreed as to her age. I said she was

eighteen, 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 you

need to do is to use the common formula over here: go and say, 'I'm an

American!' Of course she will be glad to see you."

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

speak to her.

I said, "I was only talking--I didn't intend to approach her, but I see

that you do not know what an intrepid person I am. I am not afraid of

any 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 her

in the most respectful way and ask her to pardon me if her strong

resemblance to a former acquaintance of mine was deceiving me; and when

she should reply that the name I mentioned was not the name she bore, I

meant to beg pardon again, most respectfully, and retire. There would be

no harm done. I walked to her table, bowed to the gentleman, then turned

to 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 probably

wasn't, but I knew I was right. I said you would recognize me presently

and come over; and I'm glad you did, for I shouldn't have felt much

flattered 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 ever

expecting to see again."

This was a stupefying surprise. It took my wits clear away, for an

instant. 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 vaguely

remember the girl's face, now, but I had no idea where I had seen it

before, or what name belonged with it. I immediately tried to get up a

diversion about Swiss scenery, to keep her from launching into topics

that might betray that I did not know her, but it was of no use, she

went right along upon matters which interested her more:

"Oh dear, what a night that was, when the sea washed the forward boats

away--do you remember it?"

"Oh, DON'T I!" said I--but I didn't. I wished the sea had washed the

rudder and the smoke-stack and the captain away--then I could have

located this questioner.

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

cried?"

"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. The

wise way would have been to frankly own up; but I could not bring myself

to 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 clue

but 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 blame

as 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 was

the following winter that I said it."

"Well, as it turned out, Mary was not in the least to blame --it was all

her 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, although

he had so many eccentricities. You remember that when the weather was

the least cold, he would try to come into the house."

I was rather afraid to proceed. Evidently Darley was not a man--he

must 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 possible

she is going to stop there, and wait for me to speak? If she does, the

conversation is blocked. A negro with a thousand tails is a topic which

a person cannot talk upon fluently and instructively without more or

less 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 no

end to them if anybody would listen. His own quarters were comfortable

enough, but when the weather was cold, the family were sure to have his

company--nothing could keep him out of the house. But they always bore

it kindly because he had saved Tom's life, years before. You remember

Tom?

"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 would

have given something to know what the child's was. However, I had the

good luck to think of a name that would fit either sex--so I brought it

out:

"I named it Frances."

"From a relative, I suppose? But you named the one that died, too--one

that I never saw. What did you call that one?"

I was out of neutral names, but as the child was dead and she had

never 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 of

trouble, but I believed I could worry through if she wouldn't ask me

to name any more children. I wondered where the lightning was going to

strike next. She was still ruminating over that last child's title, but

presently she said:

"I have always been sorry you were away at the time--I would have had

you 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, but

would 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. That

was my birthday."

That did not help matters, much, as I did not know the date of the

storm. I tried to think of some non-committal thing to say, to keep up

my end of the talk, and render my poverty in the matter of reminiscences

as little noticeable as possible, but I seemed to be about out of

non-committal things. I was about to say, "You haven't changed a bit

since then"--but that was risky. I thought of saying, "You have improved

ever so much since then"--but that wouldn't answer, of course. I was

about to try a shy at the weather, for a saving change, when the girl

slipped 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 was

holily grateful to be through with the ordeal, and was about to make my

good-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 to

know, 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 named

a great many, and I get them confused--this one was named Henry

Thompson--"

"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 named

him for Thomas--er--Thomas Carlyle, the great author, you know--and

Henry--er--er--Henry the Eighth. The parents were very grateful to have

a 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 it

Susan Amelia."

That spiked my gun. I could not say anything. I was entirely out of

verbal obliquities; to go further would be to lie, and that I would not

do; 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 very

soon that you were only pretending to know me, and so as I had wasted a

compliment on you in the beginning, I made up my mind to punish you. And

I have succeeded pretty well. I was glad to see that you knew George and

Tom and Darley, for I had never heard of them before and therefore could

not be sure that you had; and I was glad to learn the names of those

imaginary children, too. One can get quite a fund of information out

of you if one goes at it cleverly. Mary and the storm, and the sweeping

away of the forward boats, were facts--all the rest was fiction. Mary

was 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 you

were thirteen years ago in that ship, else you wouldn't have punished me

so. 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 were

then, and you have transmitted a deal of your comeliness to this fine

boy. 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 went

back 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 can

do. The idea of your going and intruding on a party of strangers, that

way, and talking for half an hour; why I never heard of a man in his

right 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 exhibition

of yourself. But you know I couldn't really believe you would do such an

inexcusable thing. What will those people think of us? But how did you

say 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 to

know what your name is, if you don't mind.'"

"No, that was not abrupt. There is a polish about it that does you

infinite credit. And I am glad you put me in; that was a delicate

attention 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 any

surprise?"

"Well, now I come to think, she did show something; maybe it was

surprise; I hadn't thought of that--I took it for gratification."

"Oh, undoubtedly you were right; it must have been gratification; it

could not be otherwise than gratifying to be assaulted by a stranger

with 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 gentleman

say 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 amuse

ourselves with him.' There is no other way of accounting for their

facile 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 talk

about?"

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

"UNdoubtedly. Your delicacy is beyond praise. Go on, go on--don't mind

my apparent misery--I always look so when I am steeped in a profound and

reverent joy. Go on--she told you her age?"

"Yes, she told me her age, and all about her mother, and her

grandmother, 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 inquire

into 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 is

there 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 does

the half come in?"

"There is a child which she had by another husband--not this one

but another one--so it is a stepchild, and they do not count in full

measure."

"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 that

boy 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 wretched

business. It is a plain case: they simply took your measure, and

concluded to fill you up. They seem to have succeeded. I am glad I am

not in the mess; they may at least be charitable enough to think there

ain'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, and

they 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 tour

around with them with pleasure, and offered to bring you over and

introduce you, they hesitated a little, and asked if you were from the

same establishment that I was. I said you were, and then they said they

had changed their mind and considered it necessary to start at once and

visit a sick relative in Siberia."

"Ah, me, you struck the summit! You struck the loftiest altitude of

stupidity that human effort has ever reached. You shall have a monument

of jackasses' skulls as high as the Strasburg spire if you die before

I do. They wanted to know I was from the same 'establishment' that you

hailed 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 think

of yourself?"

"Well, I don't know. I didn't know I was doing any harm; I didn't MEAN

to 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 some

furniture, he said. He was a singularly irascible man; any little thing

would disturb his temper.

I had been well scorched by the young woman, but no matter, I took it

out on Harris. One should always "get even" in some way, else the sore

place will go on hurting.

CHAPTER XXVI - [The Nest of the Cuckoo-clock]

The Hofkirche is celebrated for its organ concerts. All summer long the

tourists flock to that church about six o'clock in the evening, and pay

their franc, and listen to the noise. They don't stay to hear all of

it, but get up and tramp out over the sounding stone floor, meeting late

comers who tramp in in a sounding and vigorous way. This tramping

back and forth is kept up nearly all the time, and is accented by

the continuous slamming of the door, and the coughing and barking and

sneezing of the crowd. Meantime, the big organ is booming and crashing

and thundering away, doing its best to prove that it is the biggest and

best organ in Europe, and that a tight little box of a church is the

most favorable place to average and appreciate its powers in. It is

true, there were some soft and merciful passages occasionally, but the

tramp-tramp of the tourists only allowed one to get fitful glimpses of

them, so to speak. Then right away the organist would let go another

avalanche.

The commerce of Lucerne consists mainly in gimcrackery of the souvenir

sort; the shops are packed with Alpine crystals, photographs of

scenery, and wooden and ivory carvings. I will not conceal the fact that

miniature figures of the Lion of Lucerne are to be had in them. Millions

of them. But they are libels upon him, every one of them. There is a

subtle something about the majestic pathos of the original which the

copyist cannot get. Even the sun fails to get it; both the photographer

and the carver give you a dying lion, and that is all. The shape is

right, the attitude is right, the proportions are right, but that

indescribable something which makes the Lion of Lucerne the most

mournful and moving piece of stone in the world, is wanting.

The Lion lies in his lair in the perpendicular face of a low cliff--for

he 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 sticking

in his shoulder, his protecting paw rests upon the lilies of France.

Vines hang down the cliff and wave in the wind, and a clear stream

trickles from above and empties into a pond at the base, and in the

smooth 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--and

all this is fitting, for lions do die in such places, and not on granite

pedestals in public squares fenced with fancy iron railings. The Lion of

Lucerne would be impressive anywhere, but nowhere so impressive as where

he is.

Martyrdom is the luckiest fate that can befall some people. Louis XVI

did not die in his bed, consequently history is very gentle with him;

she is charitable toward his failings, and she finds in him high virtues

which are not usually considered to be virtues when they are lodged in

kings. 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 qualities

are kingly but the last. Taken together they make a character which

would have fared harshly at the hands of history if its owner had had

the ill luck to miss martyrdom. With the best intentions to do the right

thing, he always managed to do the wrong one. Moreover, nothing could

get the female saint out of him. He knew, well enough, that in national

emergencies he must not consider how he ought to act, as a man, but how

he ought to act as a king; so he honestly tried to sink the man and be

the king--but it was a failure, he only succeeded in being the female

saint. He was not instant in season, but out of season. He could not be

persuaded to do a thing while it could do any good--he was iron, he was

adamant in his stubbornness then--but as soon as the thing had reached a

point where it would be positively harmful to do it, do it he would, and

nothing 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 good

which it would have done if applied earlier. His comprehension was

always a train or two behindhand. If a national toe required amputating,

he could not see that it needed anything more than poulticing; when

others saw that the mortification had reached the knee, he first

perceived that the toe needed cutting off--so he cut it off; and he

severed the leg at the knee when others saw that the disease had reached

the thigh. He was good, and honest, and well meaning, in the matter of

chasing national diseases, but he never could overtake one. As a private

man, he would have been lovable; but viewed as a king, he was strictly

contemptible.

His was a most unroyal career, but the most pitiable spectacle in it was

his sentimental treachery to his Swiss guard on that memorable 10th of

August, when he allowed those heroes to be massacred in his cause, and

forbade them to shed the "sacred French blood" purporting to be flowing

in the veins of the red-capped mob of miscreants that was raging around

the palace. He meant to be kingly, but he was only the female saint once

more. Some of his biographers think that upon this occasion the spirit

of Saint Louis had descended upon him. It must have found pretty cramped

quarters. If Napoleon the First had stood in the shoes of Louis XVI that

day, instead of being merely a casual and unknown looker-on, there would

be no Lion of Lucerne, now, but there would be a well-stocked Communist

graveyard in Paris which would answer just as well to remember the 10th

of 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 saint

of the trivial and foolish Marie Antoinette, and her biographers

still keep her fragrant with the odor of sanctity to this day, while

unconsciously proving upon almost every page they write that the only

calamitous instinct which her husband lacked, she supplied--the instinct

to root out and get rid of an honest, able, and loyal official, wherever

she found him. The hideous but beneficent French Revolution would have

been deferred, or would have fallen short of completeness, or even

might not have happened at all, if Marie Antoinette had made the unwise

mistake of not being born. The world owes a great deal to the French

Revolution, and consequently to its two chief promoters, Louis the Poor

in Spirit and his queen.

We did not buy any wooden images of the Lion, nor any ivory or ebony

or marble or chalk or sugar or chocolate ones, or even any photographic

slanders of him. The truth is, these copies were so common, so

universal, in the shops and everywhere, that they presently became as

intolerable to the wearied eye as the latest popular melody usually

becomes to the harassed ear. In Lucerne, too, the wood carvings of

other sorts, which had been so pleasant to look upon when one saw them

occasionally at home, soon began to fatigue us. We grew very tired

of seeing wooden quails and chickens picking and strutting around

clock-faces, and still more tired of seeing wooden images of the alleged

chamois skipping about wooden rocks, or lying upon them in family

groups, or peering alertly up from behind them. The first day, I would

have bought a hundred and fifty of these clocks if I had the money--and

I 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 be

pretty enough, no doubt, when I get them home.

For years my pet aversion had been the cuckoo clock; now here I was, at

last, 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 it

home to a certain person; for I have always said that if the opportunity

ever happened, I would do that man an ill turn.

What I meant, was, that I would break one of his legs, or something of

that 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 bought

the cuckoo clock; and if I ever get home with it, he is "my meat," as

they say in the mines. I thought of another candidate--a book-reviewer

whom I could name if I wanted to--but after thinking it over, I didn't

buy him a clock. I couldn't injure his mind.

We visited the two long, covered wooden bridges which span the green and

brilliant Reuss just below where it goes plunging and hurrahing out

of the lake. These rambling, sway-backed tunnels are very attractive

things, with their alcoved outlooks upon the lovely and inspiriting

water. They contain two or three hundred queer old pictures, by old

Swiss masters--old boss sign-painters, who flourished before the

decadence of art.

The lake is alive with fishes, plainly visible to the eye, for the water

is very clear. The parapets in front of the hotels were usually fringed

with fishers of all ages. One day I thought I would stop and see a

fish caught. The result brought back to my mind, very forcibly, a

circumstance which I had not thought of before for twelve years. This

one:

THE MAN WHO PUT UP AT GADSBY'S

When my odd friend Riley and I were newspaper correspondents in

Washington, in the winter of '67, we were coming down Pennsylvania

Avenue one night, near midnight, in a driving storm of snow, when the

flash of a street-lamp fell upon a man who was eagerly tearing along in

the opposite direction. "This is lucky! You are Mr. Riley, ain't you?"

Riley was the most self-possessed and solemnly deliberate person in the

republic. He stopped, looked his man over from head to foot, and finally

said:

"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 the

biggest luck in the world that I've found you. My name is Lykins. I'm

one of the teachers of the high school--San Francisco. As soon as I

heard the San Francisco postmastership was vacant, I made up my mind to

get it--and here I am."

"Yes," said Riley, slowly, "as you have remarked ... Mr. Lykins ... here

you are. And have you got it?"

"Well, not exactly GOT it, but the next thing to it. I've brought a

petition, signed by the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and all

the 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 the

delegation tonight," said Riley, in a voice which had nothing mocking in

it--to an unaccustomed ear.

"Oh, tonight, by all means! I haven't got any time to fool around. I

want their promise before I go to bed--I ain't the talking kind, I'm the

DOING 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 the

delegation, 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 appointment

confirmed--I reckon you'll grant that?"

"Yes ... yes," said Riley, meditatively, "you are right again. Then

you take the train for New York in the evening, and the steamer for San

Francisco 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 fooling

around--I'm a man that DOES things, I tell you."

The storm was raging, the thick snow blowing in gusts. Riley stood

silent, apparently deep in a reverie, during a minute or more, then he

looked 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, fastened

him with his eye, like the Ancient Mariner, and proceeded to unfold

his narrative as placidly and peacefully as if we were all stretched

comfortably in a blossomy summer meadow instead of being persecuted by a

wintry midnight tempest:

"I will tell you about that man. It was in Jackson's time. Gadsby's was

the principal hotel, then. Well, this man arrived from Tennessee

about nine o'clock, one morning, with a black coachman and a splendid

four-horse carriage and an elegant dog, which he was evidently fond

of and proud of; he drove up before Gadsby's, and the clerk and the

landlord 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 claim

against the government to collect, would run across the way, to

the Treasury, and fetch the money, and then get right along back to

Tennessee, for he was in considerable of a hurry.

"Well, about eleven o'clock that night he came back and ordered a bed

and told them to put the horses up--said he would collect the claim in

the morning. This was in January, you understand--January, 1834--the 3d

of January--Wednesday.

"Well, on the 5th of February, he sold the fine carriage, and bought

a cheap second-hand one--said it would answer just as well to take the

money home in, and he didn't care for style.

"On the 11th of August he sold a pair of the fine horses--said he'd

often thought a pair was better than four, to go over the rough mountain

roads with where a body had to be careful about his driving--and there

wasn't so much of his claim but he could lug the money home with a pair

easy enough.

"On the 13th of December he sold another horse--said two warn't

necessary to drag that old light vehicle with--in fact, one could snatch

it along faster than was absolutely necessary, now that it was good

solid winter weather and the roads in splendid condition.

"On the 17th of February, 1835, he sold the old carriage and bought a

cheap second-hand buggy--said a buggy was just the trick to skim along

mushy, slushy early spring roads with, and he had always wanted to try a

buggy on those mountain roads, anyway.

"On the 1st August he sold the buggy and bought the remains of an old

sulky--said he just wanted to see those green Tennesseans stare and gawk

when they saw him come a-ripping along in a sulky--didn't believe they'd

ever heard of a sulky in their lives.

"Well, on the 29th of August he sold his colored coachman--said he

didn't need a coachman for a sulky--wouldn't be room enough for two in

it anyway--and, besides, it wasn't every day that Providence sent a man

a fool who was willing to pay nine hundred dollars for such a third-rate

negro as that--been wanting to get rid of the creature for years, but

didn'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 was

what the doctor had always recommended HIM to take, and dog'd if he

wanted to risk HIS neck going over those mountain roads on wheels in the

dead of winter, not if he knew himself.

"On the 9th of April he sold the saddle--said he wasn't going to risk

HIS life with any perishable saddle-girth that ever was made, over a

rainy, miry April road, while he could ride bareback and know and feel

he 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-seven

today, hale and hearty--it would be a PRETTY howdy-do for me to be

wasting such a trip as that and such weather as this, on a horse, when

there ain't anything in the world so splendid as a tramp on foot through

the fresh spring woods and over the cheery mountains, to a man that IS

a 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 my

little 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, where

you're just starting off on a rattling bully pleasure tramp through the

summer woods and hills--perfect nuisance--chases the squirrels, barks

at everything, goes a-capering and splattering around in the fords--man

can't get any chance to reflect and enjoy nature--and I'd a blamed sight

ruther carry the claim myself, it's a mighty sight safer; a dog's

mighty 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 the

pelting 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 to

tell me good-by. I saw him an hour ago--he's off for Tennessee early

tomorrow morning--as usual; said he calculated to get his claim through

and be off before night-owls like me have turned out of bed. The tears

were in his eyes, he was so glad he was going to see his old Tennessee

and 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 the

story 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 in

TOO much of a hurry to rush off to San Francisco with that post-office

appointment, Mr. Lykins, I'd advise you to 'PUT UP AT GADSBY'S' for a

spell, and take it easy. Good-by. GOD bless you!"

So saying, Riley blandly turned on his heel and left the astonished

school-teacher standing there, a musing and motionless snow image

shining 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 about

nine hours' waiting, that the man who proposes to tarry till he sees

something hook one of those well-fed and experienced fishes will find

it wisdom to "put up at Gadsby's" and take it easy. It is likely that

a fish has not been caught on that lake pier for forty years; but no

matter, the patient fisher watches his cork there all the day long, just

the same, and seems to enjoy it. One may see the fisher-loafers just as

thick and contented and happy and patient all along the Seine at Paris,

but tradition says that the only thing ever caught there in modern times

is a thing they don't fish for at all--the recent dog and the translated

cat.

CHAPTER XXVII - [I Spare an Awful Bore]

Close by the Lion of Lucerne is what they call the "Glacier Garden"--and

it is the only one in the world. It is on high ground. Four or five

years ago, some workmen who were digging foundations for a house came

upon this interesting relic of a long-departed age. Scientific men

perceived in it a confirmation of their theories concerning the glacial

period; so through their persuasions the little tract of ground was

bought and permanently protected against being built upon. The soil was

removed, and there lay the rasped and guttered track which the ancient

glacier 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 the

turbulent torrent which flows beneath all glaciers. These huge round

boulders still remain in the holes; they and the walls of the holes are

worn smooth by the long-continued chafing which they gave each other in

those old days.

It took a mighty force to churn these big lumps of stone around in that

vigorous way. The neighboring country had a very different shape, at

that time--the valleys have risen up and become hills, since, and the

hills have become valleys. The boulders discovered in the pots had

traveled a great distance, for there is no rock like them nearer than

the distant Rhone Glacier.

For some days we were content to enjoy looking at the blue lake

Lucerne and at the piled-up masses of snow-mountains that border it all

around--an enticing spectacle, this last, for there is a strange and

fascinating beauty and charm about a majestic snow-peak with the sun

blazing upon it or the moonlight softly enriching it--but finally we

concluded to try a bit of excursioning around on a steamboat, and a dash

on foot at the Rigi. Very well, we had a delightful trip to Fluelen, on

a breezy, sunny day. Everybody sat on the upper deck, on benches, under

an awning; everybody talked, laughed, and exclaimed at the wonderful

scenery; in truth, a trip on that lake is almost the perfection of

pleasuring.

The mountains were a never-ceasing marvel. Sometimes they rose straight

up out of the lake, and towered aloft and overshadowed our pygmy steamer

with their prodigious bulk in the most impressive way. Not snow-clad

mountains, these, yet they climbed high enough toward the sky to meet

the clouds and veil their foreheads in them. They were not barren and

repulsive, but clothed in green, and restful and pleasant to the eye.

And they were so almost straight-up-and-down, sometimes, that one could

not 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 of

the huge ship-houses in dockyards--then high aloft, toward the sky, it

took a little stronger inclination, like that of a mansard roof--and

perched on this dizzy mansard one's eye detected little things like

martin boxes, and presently perceived that these were the dwellings of

peasants--an airy place for a home, truly. And suppose a peasant should

walk in his sleep, or his child should fall out of the front

yard?--the friends would have a tedious long journey down out of those

cloud-heights before they found the remains. And yet those far-away

homes looked ever so seductive, they were so remote from the troubled

world, they dozed in such an atmosphere of peace and dreams--surely no

one who has learned to live up there would ever want to live on a meaner

level.

We swept through the prettiest little curving arms of the lake, among

these colossal green walls, enjoying new delights, always, as the

stately panorama unfolded itself before us and rerolled and hid itself

behind us; and now and then we had the thrilling surprise of bursting

suddenly upon a tremendous white mass like the distant and dominating

Jungfrau, or some kindred giant, looming head and shoulders above a

tumbled waste of lesser Alps.

Once, while I was hungrily taking in one of these surprises, and doing

my best to get all I possibly could of it while it should last, I was

interrupted 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 medium

height; open, frank, happy face; a restless but independent eye; a snub

nose, which had the air of drawing back with a decent reserve from

the silky new-born mustache below it until it should be introduced; a

loosely hung jaw, calculated to work easily in the sockets. He wore a

low-crowned, narrow-brimmed straw hat, with a broad blue ribbon

around it which had a white anchor embroidered on it in front; nobby

short-tailed coat, pantaloons, vest, all trim and neat and up with the

fashion; 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 with

large oxidized silver sleeve-buttons, bearing the device of a dog's

face--English pug. He carried a slim cane, surmounted with an English

pug's head with red glass eyes. Under his arm he carried a German

grammar--Otto's. His hair was short, straight, and smooth, and presently

when he turned his head a moment, I saw that it was nicely parted

behind. He took a cigarette out of a dainty box, stuck it into a

meerschaum holder which he carried in a morocco case, and reached for my

cigar. 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 you

have?"

"Tolerably rough."

"So did we. Captain said he'd hardly ever seen it rougher. Where are you

from?"

"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't

you think so?"

"Rather slow."

"Ever been over here before?"

"Yes."

"I haven't. My first trip. But we've been all around--Paris and

everywhere. I'm to enter Harvard next year. Studying German all the

time, now. Can't enter till I know German. I know considerable French--I

get 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 to

the reception-room a good deal of the time, because there's so many

Americans there. I make lots of acquaintances. I know an American as

soon as I see him--and so I speak to him and make his acquaintance. I

like 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 on

a trip like this, if I can make acquaintances and have somebody to

talk to. But I think a trip like this would be an awful bore, if a body

couldn't find anybody to get acquainted with and talk to on a trip like

this. 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, and

talk. 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 the

Rigi 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 big

hotels 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 the

Schweitzerhof was the best hotel in Switzerland?-- look at your

Baedeker."

"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 in

the great reception-room most all the time. I make lots of acquaintances

there. Not as many as I did at first, because now only the new ones stop

in 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 at

home. 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, and

making 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 awful

fond of talking when I can get hold of the right kind of a person, ain't

you?"

"I prefer it to any other dissipation."

"That's my notion, too. Now some people like to take a book and sit

down and read, and read, and read, or moon around yawping at the lake or

these mountains and things, but that ain't my way; no, sir, if they like

it, 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. What

ship 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 to

harpoon him in the back with my alpenstock, but as I raised the weapon

the disposition left me; I found I hadn't the heart to kill him, he was

such a joyous, innocent, good-natured numbskull.

Half an hour later I was sitting on a bench inspecting, with strong

interest, a noble monolith which we were skimming by--a monolith not

shaped by man, but by Nature's free great hand--a massy pyramidal rock

eighty feet high, devised by Nature ten million years ago against the

day when a man worthy of it should need it for his monument. The time

came at last, and now this grand remembrancer bears Schiller's name in

huge letters upon its face. Curiously enough, this rock was not degraded

or defiled in any way. It is said that two years ago a stranger let

himself down from the top of it with ropes and pulleys, and painted all

over it, in blue letters bigger than those in Schiller's name, these

words: "Try Sozodont;" "Buy Sun Stove Polish;" "Helmbold's Buchu;" "Try

Benzaline for the Blood." He was captured and it turned out that he was

an American. Upon his trial the judge said to him:

"You are from a land where any insolent that wants to is privileged

to profane and insult Nature, and, through her, Nature's God, if by

so doing he can put a sordid penny in his pocket. But here the case is

different. Because you are a foreigner and ignorant, I will make your

sentence light; if you were a native I would deal strenuously with

you. Hear and obey: --You will immediately remove every trace of

your offensive work from the Schiller monument; you pay a fine of ten

thousand francs; you will suffer two years' imprisonment at hard labor;

you will then be horsewhipped, tarred and feathered, deprived of your

ears, ridden on a rail to the confines of the canton, and banished

forever. The severest penalties are omitted in your case--not as a grace

to you, but to that great republic which had the misfortune to give you

birth."

The steamer's benches were ranged back to back across the deck. My back

hair was mingling innocently with the back hair of a couple of

ladies. Presently they were addressed by some one and I overheard this

conversation:

"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 kind

of a passage did you have?"

"Pretty fair."

"That was luck. We had it awful rough. Captain said he'd hardly seen it

rougher. Where are you from?"

"New Jersey."

"So'm I. No--I didn't mean that; I'm from New England. New Bloomfield's

my 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't

you think so?"

"I suppose it must be."

"Hi, there's Mount Pilatus coming in sight again. Named after Pontius

Pilate, 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 American

told me. I don't read when I'm knocking around like this, having a good

time. 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 up

his 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 ever

been over here before?"

"Yes."

"I haven't. It's my first trip. But we've been all around--Paris and

everywhere. I'm to enter Harvard next year. Studying German all the time

now. Can't enter till I know German. This book's Otto's grammar. It's a

mighty good book to get the ICH HABE GEHABT HABEN's out of. But I don't

really 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 HAT

GEHABT, WIR HABEN GEHABT, IHR HABEN GEHABT, SIE HABEN GEHABT--kind of

'Now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep' fashion, you know, and after that, maybe

I don't buckle to it for three days. It's awful undermining to the

intellect, German is; you want to take it in small doses, or first you

know your brains all run together, and you feel them sloshing around in

your head same as so much drawn butter. But French is different; FRENCH

ain't anything. I ain't any more afraid of French than a tramp's afraid

of pie; I can rattle off my little J'AI, TU AS, IL A, and the rest of

it, just as easy as a-b-c. I get along pretty well in Paris, or anywhere

where 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 in

there 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 ship

did you come over in?"

"CITY OF CHESTER."

"Oh, yes, I remember I asked you that before. But I always ask everybody

what 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 in

the pensions. What hotel are you stopping at here?"

"The Schweitzerhof."

"Oh, yes. I asked you that before, too. But I always ask everybody what

hotel they're stopping at, and so I've got my head all mixed up with

hotels. But it makes talk, and I love to talk. It refreshes me up

so--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't

that 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 person

starts in to jabber-jabber-jabber about scenery, and history, and

pictures, and all sorts of tiresome things, I get the fan-tods mighty

soon. I say 'Well, I must be going now--hope I'll see you again'--and

then I take a walk. Where you from?"

"New Jersey."

"Why, bother it all, I asked you THAT before, too. Have you seen the

Lion of Lucerne?"

"Not yet."

"Nor I, either. But the man who told me about Mount Pilatus says it's

one of the things to see. It's twenty-eight feet long. It don't seem

reasonable, but he said so, anyway. He saw it yesterday; said it was

dying, then, so I reckon it's dead by this time. But that ain't any

matter, of course they'll stuff it. Did you say the children are

yours--or HERS?"

"Mine."

"Oh, so you did. Are you going up the ... no, I asked you that. What

ship ... no, I asked you that, too. What hotel are you ... no, you told

me that. Let me see ... um .... Oh, what kind of voy ... no, we've

been over that ground, too. Um ... um ... well, I believe that is all.

BONJOUR--I am very glad to have made your acquaintance, ladies. GUTEN

TAG."

CHAPTER XXVIII - [The Jodel and Its Native Wilds]

The Rigi-Kulm is an imposing Alpine mass, six thousand feet high, which

stands by itself, and commands a mighty prospect of blue lakes, green

valleys, and snowy mountains--a compact and magnificent picture

three hundred miles in circumference. The ascent is made by rail, or

horseback, or on foot, as one may prefer. I and my agent panoplied

ourselves in walking-costume, one bright morning, and started down

the lake on the steamboat; we got ashore at the village of Waeggis;

three-quarters of an hour distant from Lucerne. This village is at the

foot of the mountain.

We were soon tramping leisurely up the leafy mule-path, and then the

talk began to flow, as usual. It was twelve o'clock noon, and a breezy,

cloudless day; the ascent was gradual, and the glimpses, from under

the curtaining boughs, of blue water, and tiny sailboats, and beetling

cliffs, were as charming as glimpses of dreamland. All the circumstances

were perfect--and the anticipations, too, for we should soon be

enjoying, for the first time, that wonderful spectacle, an Alpine

sunrise--the object of our journey. There was (apparently) no real need

for hurry, for the guide-book made the walking-distance from Waeggis to

the summit only three hours and a quarter. I say "apparently," because

the guide-book had already fooled us once--about the distance from

Allerheiligen to Oppenau--and for aught I knew it might be getting

ready to fool us again. We were only certain as to the altitudes--we

calculated to find out for ourselves how many hours it is from the

bottom to the top. The summit is six thousand feet above the sea, but

only forty-five hundred feet above the lake. When we had walked half an

hour, we were fairly into the swing and humor of the undertaking, so we

cleared for action; that is to say, we got a boy whom we met to carry

our alpenstocks and satchels and overcoats and things for us; that left

us free for business. I suppose we must have stopped oftener to stretch

out on the grass in the shade and take a bit of a smoke than this boy

was used to, for presently he asked if it had been our idea to hire him

by the job, or by the year? We told him he could move along if he was

in a hurry. He said he wasn't in such a very particular hurry, but he

wanted to get to the top while he was young.

We told him to clear out, then, and leave the things at the uppermost

hotel and say we should be along presently. He said he would secure us a

hotel if he could, but if they were all full he would ask them to build

another one and hurry up and get the paint and plaster dry against we

arrived. Still gently chaffing us, he pushed ahead, up the trail, and

soon 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 and

interest. We halted awhile at a little public house, where we had bread

and cheese and a quart or two of fresh milk, out on the porch, with the

big panorama all before us--and then moved on again.

Ten minutes afterward we met a hot, red-faced man plunging down the

mountain, making mighty strides, swinging his alpenstock ahead of him,

and taking a grip on the ground with its iron point to support these

big strides. He stopped, fanned himself with his hat, swabbed the

perspiration from his face and neck with a red handkerchief, panted

a moment or two, and asked how far to Waeggis. I said three hours. He

looked 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 enough

today; 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 a

hot 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 my

agent turned in, it was with the resolution to be up early and make the

utmost 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 the

window it was already too late, because it was half past eleven. It

was a sharp disappointment. However, we ordered breakfast and told the

landlady to call the Englishman, but she said he was already up and off

at daybreak--and swearing like mad about something or other. We could

not find out what the matter was. He had asked the landlady the altitude

of her place above the level of the lake, and she told him fourteen

hundred and ninety-five feet. That was all that was said; then he lost

his temper. He said that between ------fools and guide-books, a man

could acquire ignorance enough in twenty-four hours in a country like

this to last him a year. Harris believed our boy had been loading him

up with misinformation; and this was probably the case, for his epithet

described that boy to a dot.

We got under way about the turn of noon, and pulled out for the summit

again, with a fresh and vigorous step. When we had gone about two

hundred yards, and stopped to rest, I glanced to the left while I was

lighting my pipe, and in the distance detected a long worm of black

smoke crawling lazily up the steep mountain. Of course that was the

locomotive. We propped ourselves on our elbows at once, to gaze, for we

had never seen a mountain railway yet. Presently we could make out the

train. It seemed incredible that that thing should creep straight up a

sharp slant like the roof of a house--but there it was, and it was doing

that very miracle.

In the course of a couple hours we reached a fine breezy altitude where

the little shepherd huts had big stones all over their roofs to hold

them down to the earth when the great storms rage. The country was wild

and 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 between

their proportions and those of the giant mountains at whose feet they

slept. When one is in one of those villages it seems spacious, and

its houses seem high and not out of proportion to the mountain that

overhangs them--but from our altitude, what a change! The mountains were

bigger and grander than ever, as they stood there thinking their solemn

thoughts with their heads in the drifting clouds, but the villages

at their feet--when the painstaking eye could trace them up and find

them--were so reduced, almost invisible, and lay so flat against the

ground, that the exactest simile I can devise is to compare them to

ant-deposits of granulated dirt overshadowed by the huge bulk of a

cathedral. The steamboats skimming along under the stupendous precipices

were diminished by distance to the daintiest little toys, the sailboats

and rowboats to shallops proper for fairies that keep house in the cups

of lilies and ride to court on the backs of bumblebees.

Presently we came upon half a dozen sheep nibbling grass in the spray

of a stream of clear water that sprang from a rock wall a hundred feet

high, 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 but

invisible source, and recognized that we were hearing for the first

time the famous Alpine JODEL in its own native wilds. And we recognized,

also, that it was that sort of quaint commingling of baritone and

falsetto which at home we call "Tyrolese warbling."

The jodeling (pronounced yOdling--emphasis on the O) continued, and

was very pleasant and inspiriting to hear. Now the jodeler appeared--a

shepherd boy of sixteen--and in our gladness and gratitude we gave him

a franc to jodel some more. So he jodeled and we listened. We moved

on, presently, and he generously jodeled us out of sight. After about

fifteen 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 of

sight. After that, we found a jodeler every ten minutes; we gave the

first one eight cents, the second one six cents, the third one four, the

fourth one a penny, contributed nothing to Nos. 5, 6, and 7, and during

the remainder of the day hired the rest of the jodelers, at a franc

apiece, not to jodel any more. There is somewhat too much of the

jodeling in the Alps.

About the middle of the afternoon we passed through a prodigious natural

gateway called the Felsenthor, formed by two enormous upright rocks,

with a third lying across the top. There was a very attractive little

hotel close by, but our energies were not conquered yet, so we went on.

Three hours afterward we came to the railway-track. It was planted

straight up the mountain with the slant of a ladder that leans against a

house, and it seemed to us that man would need good nerves who proposed

to travel up it or down it either.

During the latter part of the afternoon we cooled our roasting interiors

with ice-cold water from clear streams, the only really satisfying water

we had tasted since we left home, for at the hotels on the continent

they merely give you a tumbler of ice to soak your water in, and that

only modifies its hotness, doesn't make it cold. Water can only be made

cold enough for summer comfort by being prepared in a refrigerator or

a closed ice-pitcher. Europeans say ice-water impairs digestion. How do

they know?--they never drink any.

At ten minutes past six we reached the Kaltbad station, where there is

a spacious hotel with great verandas which command a majestic expanse of

lake and mountain scenery. We were pretty well fagged out, now, but as

we did not wish to miss the Alpine sunrise, we got through our dinner

as quickly as possible and hurried off to bed. It was unspeakably

comfortable 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 instant

and ran and stripped aside the window-curtains; but we suffered a bitter

disappointment again: it was already half past three in the afternoon.

We dressed sullenly and in ill spirits, each accusing the other of

oversleeping. Harris said if we had brought the courier along, as we

ought to have done, we should not have missed these sunrises. I said he

knew very well that one of us would have to sit up and wake the

courier; and I added that we were having trouble enough to take care

of ourselves, on this climb, without having to take care of a courier

besides.

During breakfast our spirits came up a little, since we found by this

guide-book that in the hotels on the summit the tourist is not left to

trust to luck for his sunrise, but is roused betimes by a man who goes

through the halls with a great Alpine horn, blowing blasts that would

raise the dead. And there was another consoling thing: the guide-book

said 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. This

was good; this would be romantic; two hundred and fifty people grouped

on the windy summit, with their hair flying and their red blankets

flapping, in the solemn presence of the coming sun, would be a striking

and memorable spectacle. So it was good luck, not ill luck, that we had

missed those other sunrises.

We were informed by the guide-book that we were now 3,228 feet above

the level of the lake--therefore full two-thirds of our journey had been

accomplished. We got away at a quarter past four P.M.; a hundred yards

above the hotel the railway divided; one track went straight up the

steep hill, the other one turned square off to the right, with a very

slight 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 we

had gone on, we should have arrived at the summit, but Harris

preferred to ask a lot of questions--as usual, of a man who didn't know

anything--and he told us to go back and follow the other route. We did

so. We could ill afford this loss of time.

We climbed and climbed; and we kept on climbing; we reached about forty

summits, but there was always another one just ahead. It came on to

rain, and it rained in dead earnest. We were soaked through and it

was bitter cold. Next a smoky fog of clouds covered the whole region

densely, 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 the

track, but by and by when the fog blew aside a little and we saw that we

were treading the rampart of a precipice and that our left elbows were

projecting 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 the

evening the fog lifted and showed us a well-worn path which led up a

very steep rise to the left. We took it, and as soon as we had got far

enough 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 right

along, in order to keep warm, though we rather expected to go over a

precipice, sooner or later. About nine o'clock we made an important

discovery--that we were not in any path. We groped around a while on our

hands and knees, but we could not find it; so we sat down in the mud and

the wet scant grass to wait.

We were terrified into this by being suddenly confronted with a vast

body which showed itself vaguely for an instant and in the next instant

was 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 a

precipice, and decided not to try to claw up it.

We sat there an hour, with chattering teeth and quivering bodies, and

quarreled over all sorts of trifles, but gave most of our attention to

abusing each other for the stupidity of deserting the railway-track. We

sat with our backs to the precipice, because what little wind there was

came 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 the

thinness could not show; but at last Harris happened to look around, and

there stood a huge, dim, spectral hotel where the precipice had been.

One could faintly discern the windows and chimneys, and a dull blur of

lights. Our first emotion was deep, unutterable gratitude, our next was

a foolish rage, born of the suspicion that possibly the hotel had been

visible three-quarters of an hour while we sat there in those cold

puddles quarreling.

Yes, it was the Rigi-Kulm hotel--the one that occupies the extreme

summit, and whose remote little sparkle of lights we had often seen

glinting high aloft among the stars from our balcony away down yonder

in Lucerne. The crusty portier and the crusty clerks gave us the

surly reception which their kind deal out in prosperous times, but by

mollifying them with an extra display of obsequiousness and servility

we finally got them to show us to the room which our boy had engaged for

us.

We got into some dry clothing, and while our supper was preparing we

loafed forsakenly through a couple of vast cavernous drawing-rooms,

one of which had a stove in it. This stove was in a corner, and densely

walled around with people. We could not get near the fire, so we moved

at large in the artic spaces, among a multitude of people who sat

silent, smileless, forlorn, and shivering--thinking what fools they were

to come, perhaps. There were some Americans and some Germans, but one

could see that the great majority were English.

We lounged into an apartment where there was a great crowd, to see

what was going on. It was a memento-magazine. The tourists were eagerly

buying all sorts and styles of paper-cutters, marked "Souvenir of the

Rigi," with handles made of the little curved horn of the ostensible

chamois; there were all manner of wooden goblets and such things,

similarly marked. I was going to buy a paper-cutter, but I believed

I could remember the cold comfort of the Rigi-Kulm without it, so I

smothered 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 which

they may find in his guide-books, I dropped him a line to inform him he

missed it by just about three days. I had previously informed him of his

mistake about the distance from Allerheiligen to Oppenau, and had also

informed the Ordnance Depart of the German government of the same error

in the imperial maps. I will add, here, that I never got any answer to

those letters, or any thanks from either of those sources; and, what is

still more discourteous, these corrections have not been made, either in

the maps or the guide-books. But I will write again when I get time, for

my letters may have miscarried.

We curled up in the clammy beds, and went to sleep without rocking. We

were so sodden with fatigue that we never stirred nor turned over till

the blooming blasts of the Alpine horn aroused us.

It may well be imagined that we did not lose any time. We snatched on

a few odds and ends of clothing, cocooned ourselves in the proper red

blankets, and plunged along the halls and out into the whistling wind

bareheaded. We saw a tall wooden scaffolding on the very peak of the

summit, a hundred yards away, and made for it. We rushed up the stairs

to the top of this scaffolding, and stood there, above the vast outlying

world, with hair flying and ruddy blankets waving and cracking in the

fierce breeze.

"Fifteen minutes too late, at last!" said Harris, in a vexed voice. "The

sun is clear above the horizon."

"No matter," I said, "it is a most magnificent spectacle, and we will

see it do the rest of its rising anyway."

In a moment we were deeply absorbed in the marvel before us, and dead to

everything else. The great cloud-barred disk of the sun stood just above

a limitless expanse of tossing white-caps--so to speak--a billowy chaos

of massy mountain domes and peaks draped in imperishable snow, and

flooded with an opaline glory of changing and dissolving splendors,

while through rifts in a black cloud-bank above the sun, radiating

lances of diamond dust shot to the zenith. The cloven valleys of the

lower world swam in a tinted mist which veiled the ruggedness of their

crags and ribs and ragged forests, and turned all the forbidding region

into a soft and rich and sensuous paradise.

We could not speak. We could hardly breathe. We could only gaze in

drunken 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 top

of this gallows, in these idiotic blankets, and two hundred and fifty

well-dressed men and women down here gawking up at us and not caring

a straw whether the sun rises or sets, as long as they've got such a

ridiculous spectacle as this to set down in their memorandum-books. They

seem to be laughing their ribs loose, and there's one girl there that

appears 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 the

evening 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 to

get up with the lark, till I came under the petrifying influence of your

turgid intellect."

"YOU used to get up with the lark--Oh, no doubt--you'll get up with the

hangman one of these days. But you ought to be ashamed to be jawing

here like this, in a red blanket, on a forty-foot scaffold on top of the

Alps. And no end of people down here to boot; this isn't any place for

an exhibition of temper."

And so the customary quarrel went on. When the sun was fairly down, we

slipped back to the hotel in the charitable gloaming, and went to bed

again. We had encountered the horn-blower on the way, and he had tried

to collect compensation, not only for announcing the sunset, which we

did see, but for the sunrise, which we had totally missed; but we said

no, we only took our solar rations on the "European plan"--pay for what

you get. He promised to make us hear his horn in the morning, if we were

alive.

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 Western

Sunrise--Mutual Recrimination--View from the Summit--Down the

Mountain--Railroading--Confidence Wanted and Acquired

CHAPTER XXX A Trip by Proxy--A Visit to the Furka Regions--Deadman's

Lake--Source of the Rhone--Glacier Tables--Storm in the Mountains--At

Grindelwald--Dawn on the Mountains--An Explanation Required--Dead

Language--Criticism of Harris's Report

CHAPTER XXXI Preparations for a Tramp--From Lucerne to Interlaken--The

Brunig Pass--Modern and Ancient Chalets--Death of Pontius Pilate--Hermit

Home of St Nicholas--Landslides--Children Selling Refreshments--How they

Harness a Horse--A Great Man--Honors to a Hero--A Thirsty Bride--For

Better or Worse--German Fashions--Anticipations--Solid Comfort--An

Unsatisfactory Awakening--What we had Lost--Our Surroundings

CHAPTER XXXII The Jungfrau Hotel--A Whiskered Waitress--An Arkansas

Bride--Perfection in Discord--A Famous Victory--A Look from a

Window--About the Jungfrau

CHAPTER XXXIII The Giesbach Falls--The Spirit of the Alps--Why People

Visit Them--Whey and Grapes as Medicines--The Kursaal--A Formidable

Undertaking--From Interlaken to Zermatt on Foot--We Concluded to take

a Buggy--A Pair of Jolly Drivers--We meet with Companions--A Cheerful

Ride--Kandersteg Valley--An Alpine Parlor--Exercise and Amusement--A

Race with a Log

CHAPTER XXXIV An Old Guide--Possible Accidents--Dangerous

Habitation--Mountain Flowers--Embryo Lions--Mountain Pigs--The End

of The World--Ghastly Desolation--Proposed Adventure--Reading-up

Adventures--Ascent of Monte Rosa--Precipices and Crevasses--Among

the Snows--Exciting Experiences--lee Ridges--The Summit--Adventures

Postponed

CHAPTER XXXV A New Interest--Magnificent Views--A Mule's

Prefereoces--Turning Mountain Corners--Terror of a Horse--Lady

Tourists--Death of a young Countess--A Search for a Hat--What We Did

Find--Harris's Opinion of Chamois--A Disappointed Man--A Giantess--Model

for an Empress--Baths at Leuk--Sport in the Water--The Gemmi

Precipices--A Palace for an Emperor--The Famous Ladders--Considerably

Mixed 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 dark

and cold and wretched. As I fumbled around for the matches, knocking

things down with my quaking hands, I wished the sun would rise in the

middle of the day, when it was warm and bright and cheerful, and one

wasn't sleepy. We proceeded to dress by the gloom of a couple sickly

candles, but we could hardly button anything, our hands shook so.

I thought of how many happy people there were in Europe, Asia, and

America, and everywhere, who were sleeping peacefully in their beds,

and did not have to get up and see the Rigi sunrise--people who did

not appreciate their advantage, as like as not, but would get up in the

morning wanting more boons of Providence. While thinking these thoughts

I yawned, in a rather ample way, and my upper teeth got hitched on a

nail 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 the

mountains, in full view."

That was glad news, indeed. It made us cheerful right away. One could

see the grand Alpine masses dimly outlined against the black firmament,

and one or two faint stars blinking through rifts in the night. Fully

clothed, and wrapped in blankets, and huddled ourselves up, by the

window, with lighted pipes, and fell into chat, while we waited in

exceeding comfort to see how an Alpine sunrise was going to look by

candlelight. By and by a delicate, spiritual sort of effulgence spread

itself by imperceptible degrees over the loftiest altitudes of the snowy

wastes--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 sunrise

act like that before. Can it be that the hotel is playing anything on

us?"

"Of course not. The hotel merely has a property interest in the sun, it

has nothing to do with the management of it. It is a precarious kind of

property, too; a succession of total eclipses would probably ruin this

tavern. 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 at

the place where the sun SET last night!"

"It is perfectly true! Why couldn't you have thought of that sooner? Now

we've lost another one! And all through your blundering. It was exactly

like you to light a pipe and sit down to wait for the sun to rise in the

west."

"It was exactly like me to find out the mistake, too. You never would

have found it out. I find out all the mistakes."

"You make them all, too, else your most valuable faculty would be wasted

on 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 in

all sorts of queer costumes, and exhibiting all degrees of cold and

wretchedness in their gaits and countenances. A dozen still remained on

the ground when we reached there, huddled together about the scaffold

with their backs to the bitter wind. They had their red guide-books open

at the diagram of the view, and were painfully picking out the several

mountains and trying to impress their names and positions on their

memories. It was one of the saddest sights I ever saw.

Two sides of this place were guarded by railings, to keep people from

being blown over the precipices. The view, looking sheer down into

the broad valley, eastward, from this great elevation--almost a

perpendicular mile--was very quaint and curious. Counties, towns, hilly

ribs and ridges, wide stretches of green meadow, great forest tracts,

winding streams, a dozen blue lakes, a block of busy steamboats--we saw

all this little world in unique circumstantiality of detail--saw it just

as the birds see it--and all reduced to the smallest of scales and as

sharply worked out and finished as a steel engraving. The numerous toy

villages, with tiny spires projecting out of them, were just as the

children might have left them when done with play the day before; the

forest tracts were diminished to cushions of moss; one or two big lakes

were dwarfed to ponds, the smaller ones to puddles--though they did not

look like puddles, but like blue teardrops which had fallen and lodged

in slight depressions, conformable to their shapes, among the moss-beds

and the smooth levels of dainty green farm-land; the microscopic

steamboats glided along, as in a city reservoir, taking a mighty time to

cover the distance between ports which seemed only a yard apart; and the

isthmus which separated two lakes looked as if one might stretch out on

it and lie with both elbows in the water, yet we knew invisible wagons

were toiling across it and finding the distance a tedious one. This

beautiful miniature world had exactly the appearance of those "relief

maps" which reproduce nature precisely, with the heights and depressions

and 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 knew

we 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 the

middle of the afternoon, and an odd thing it was. The locomotive-boiler

stood on end, and it and the whole locomotive were tilted sharply

backward. There were two passenger-cars, roofed, but wide open all

around. These cars were not tilted back, but the seats were; this

enables the passenger to sit level while going down a steep incline.

There are three railway-tracks; the central one is cogged; the "lantern

wheel" of the engine grips its way along these cogs, and pulls the

train up the hill or retards its motion on the down trip. About the same

speed--three miles an hour--is maintained both ways. Whether going up or

down, the locomotive is always at the lower end of the train. It pushes

in the one case, braces back in the other. The passenger rides backward

going up, and faces forward going down.

We got front seats, and while the train moved along about fifty yards

on level ground, I was not the least frightened; but now it started

abruptly 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 the

balusters when I was a boy, and thought nothing of it, but to slide down

the 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 this

gave us a few full breaths in comfort; but straightway we would turn a

corner and see a long steep line of rails stretching down below us, and

the comfort was at an end. One expected to see the locomotive pause,

or slack up a little, and approach this plunge cautiously, but it

did nothing of the kind; it went calmly on, and went it reached the

jumping-off place it made a sudden bow, and went gliding smoothly

downstairs, 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-off

valley which I was describing a while ago.

There was no level ground at the Kaltbad station; the railbed was as

steep as a roof; I was curious to see how the stop was going to be

managed. But it was very simple; the train came sliding down, and when

it reached the right spot it just stopped--that was all there was "to

it"--stopped on the steep incline, and when the exchange of passengers

and baggage had been made, it moved off and went sliding down again. The

train can be stopped anywhere, at a moment's notice.

There was one curious effect, which I need not take the trouble to

describe--because I can scissor a description of it out of the railway

company's advertising pamphlet, and save my ink:

"On the whole tour, particularly at the Descent, we undergo an optical

illusion which often seems to be incredible. All the shrubs, fir trees,

stables, houses, etc., seem to be bent in a slanting direction, as by an

immense pressure of air. They are all standing awry, so much awry that

the chalets and cottages of the peasants seem to be tumbling down. It

is the consequence of the steep inclination of the line. Those who

are seated in the carriage do not observe that they are going down a

declivity of twenty to twenty-five degrees (their seats being adapted

to this course of proceeding and being bent down at their backs). They

mistake their carriage and its horizontal lines for a proper measure of

the normal plain, and therefore all the objects outside which really

are in a horizontal position must show a disproportion of twenty to

twenty-five degrees declivity, in regard to the mountain."

By the time one reaches Kaltbad, he has acquired confidence in the

railway, and he now ceases to try to ease the locomotive by holding

back. Thenceforth he smokes his pipe in serenity, and gazes out upon the

magnificent picture below and about him with unfettered enjoyment. There

is nothing to interrupt the view or the breeze; it is like inspecting

the world on the wing. However--to be exact--there is one place where

the serenity lapses for a while; this is while one is crossing the

Schnurrtobel Bridge, a frail structure which swings its gossamer frame

down through the dizzy air, over a gorge, like a vagrant spider-strand.

One has no difficulty in remembering his sins while the train is

creeping 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 was

perfectly safe.

So ends the eventual trip which we made to the Rigi-Kulm to see an

Alpine sunrise.

CHAPTER XXX - [Harris Climbs Mountains for Me]

An hour's sail brought us to Lucerne again. I judged it best to go to

bed and rest several days, for I knew that the man who undertakes to

make the tour of Europe on foot must take care of himself.

Thinking over my plans, as mapped out, I perceived that they did not

take in the Furka Pass, the Rhone Glacier, the Finsteraarhorn, the

Wetterhorn, etc. I immediately examined the guide-book to see if these

were important, and found they were; in fact, a pedestrian tour of

Europe could not be complete without them. Of course that decided me at

once to see them, for I never allow myself to do things by halves, or in

a slurring, slipshod way.

I called in my agent and instructed him to go without delay and make a

careful examination of these noted places, on foot, and bring me back a

written report of the result, for insertion in my book. I instructed

him to go to Hospenthal as quickly as possible, and make his grand start

from 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 take

the courier with him.

He objected to the courier, and with some show of reason, since he was

about to venture upon new and untried ground; but I thought he might

as well learn how to take care of the courier now as later, therefore I

enforced my point. I said that the trouble, delay, and inconvenience

of traveling with a courier were balanced by the deep respect which a

courier's presence commands, and I must insist that as much style be

thrown into my journeys as possible.

So the two assumed complete mountaineering costumes and departed. A week

later they returned, pretty well used up, and my agent handed me the

following: Official Report

OF A VISIT TO THE FURKA REGION.

BY H. HARRIS, AGENT About seven o'clock in the morning, with perfectly

fine weather, we started from Hospenthal, and arrived at the MAISON on

the Furka in a little under QUATRE hours. The want of variety in the

scenery from Hospenthal made the KAHKAHPONEEKA wearisome; but let none

be discouraged; no one can fail to be completely R'ECOMPENS'EE for his

fatigue, when he sees, for the first time, the monarch of the Oberland,

the tremendous Finsteraarhorn. A moment before all was dullness, but

a PAS further has placed us on the summit of the Furka; and exactly in

front of us, at a HOPOW of only fifteen miles, this magnificent mountain

lifts its snow-wreathed precipices into the deep blue sky. The inferior

mountains on each side of the pass form a sort of frame for the picture

of their dread lord, and close in the view so completely that no other

prominent feature in the Oberland is visible from this BONG-A-BONG;

nothing withdraws the attention from the solitary grandeur of the

Finsteraarhorn and the dependent spurs which form the abutments of the

central 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 the

shoulder of a mountain toward the Rhone Glacier. We soon left the path

and took to the ice; and after wandering amongst the crevices UN PEU, to

admire the wonders of these deep blue caverns, and hear the rushing of

waters through their subglacial channels, we struck out a course toward

L'AUTRE CÔTE and crossed the glacier successfully, a little above the

cave from which the infant Rhone takes its first bound from under the

grand precipice of ice. Half a mile below this we began to climb the

flowery 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 lying

at full length in the shade of a large GESTEIN. We sat down with him

for a time, for all felt the heat exceedingly in the climb up this very

steep BOLWOGGOLY, and then we set out again together, and arrived at

last near the Dead Man's Lake, at the foot of the Sidelhorn. This lonely

spot, once used for an extempore burying-place, after a sanguinary

BATTUE between the French and Austrians, is the perfection of

desolation; there is nothing in sight to mark the hand of man, except

the line of weather-beaten whitened posts, set up to indicate the

direction of the pass in the OWDAWAKK of winter. Near this point the

footpath joins the wider track, which connects the Grimsel with the head

of the Rhone SCHNAWP; this has been carefully constructed, and leads

with a tortuous course among and over LES PIERRES, down to the bank of

the gloomy little SWOSH-SWOSH, which almost washes against the walls of

the Grimsel Hospice. We arrived a little before four o'clock at the end

of our day's journey, hot enough to justify the step, taking by most of

the PARTIE, of plunging into the crystal water of the snow-fed lake.

The next afternoon we started for a walk up the Unteraar glacier, with

the intention of, at all events, getting as far as the Hütte which is

used as a sleeping-place by most of those who cross the Strahleck Pass

to Grindelwald. We got over the tedious collection of stones and DÉBRIS

which covers the PIED of the GLETCHER, and had walked nearly three hours

from the Grimsel, when, just as we were thinking of crossing over to the

right, to climb the cliffs at the foot of the hut, the clouds, which had

for some time assumed a threatening appearance, suddenly dropped, and

a huge mass of them, driving toward us from the Finsteraarhorn, poured

down a deluge of HABOOLONG and hail. Fortunately, we were not far from

a very large glacier-table; it was a huge rock balanced on a pedestal

of 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 ice

at its base, and we were obliged to stand with one FUSS on each side of

this, and endeavor to keep ourselves CHAUD by cutting steps in the steep

bank of the pedestal, so as to get a higher place for standing on,

as the WASSER rose rapidly in its trench. A very cold BZZZZZZZZEEE

accompanied the storm, and made our position far from pleasant; and

presently came a flash of BLITZEN, apparently in the middle of our

little party, with an instantaneous clap of YOKKY, sounding like a large

gun fired close to our ears; the effect was startling; but in a few

seconds our attention was fixed by the roaring echoes of the thunder

against the tremendous mountains which completely surrounded us. This

was followed by many more bursts, none of WELCHE, however, was so

dangerously near; and after waiting a long DEMI-hour in our icy prison,

we sallied out to talk through a HABOOLONG which, though not so heavy

as before, was quite enough to give us a thorough soaking before our

arrival at the Hospice.

The Grimsel is CERTAINEMENT a wonderful place; situated at the bottom

of 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 if

it must be completely BEGRABEN in the winter snows. Enormous avalanches

fall against it every spring, sometimes covering everything to the depth

of thirty or forty feet; and, in spite of walls four feet thick, and

furnished with outside shutters, the two men who stay here when the

VOYAGEURS are snugly quartered in their distant homes can tell you that

the snow sometimes shakes the house to its foundations.

Next morning the HOGGLEBUMGULLUP still continued bad, but we made up our

minds 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 under

a projecting rock, but being far to NASS already to make standing at

all AGRÉABLE, we pushed on for the Handeck, consoling ourselves with the

reflection that from the furious rushing of the river Aar at our

side, we should at all events see the celebrated WASSERFALL in GRANDE

PERFECTION. Nor were we NAPPERSOCKET in our expectation; the water

was roaring down its leap of two hundred and fifty feet in a most

magnificent frenzy, while the trees which cling to its rocky sides

swayed to and fro in the violence of the hurricane which it brought down

with it; even the stream, which falls into the main cascade at right

angles, and TOUTEFOIS forms a beautiful feature in the scene, was now

swollen into a raging torrent; and the violence of this "meeting of the

waters," about fifty feet below the frail bridge where we stood, was

fearfully grand. While we were looking at it, GLÜECKLICHEWEISE a gleam

of sunshine came out, and instantly a beautiful rainbow was formed by

the spray, and hung in mid-air suspended over the awful gorge.

On going into the CHALET above the fall, we were informed that a BRUECKE

had broken down near Guttanen, and that it would be impossible to

proceed for some time; accordingly we were kept in our drenched

condition for EIN STUNDE, when some VOYAGEURS arrived from Meiringen,

and told us that there had been a trifling accident, ABER that we could

now cross. On arriving at the spot, I was much inclined to suspect that

the whole story was a ruse to make us SLOWWK and drink the more at the

Handeck Inn, for only a few planks had been carried away, and though

there might perhaps have been some difficulty with mules, the gap was

certainly not larger than a MMBGLX might cross with a very slight leap.

Near Guttanen the HABOOLONG happily ceased, and we had time to walk

ourselves tolerably dry before arriving at Reichenback, WO we enjoyed a

good 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 constant

progress of the ice it has changed the form of its extremity and formed

a vast cavern, as blue as the sky above, and rippled like a frozen

ocean. A few steps cut in the WHOOPJAMBOREEHOO enabled us to walk

completely under this, and feast our eyes upon one of the loveliest

objects in creation. The glacier was all around divided by numberless

fissures of the same exquisite color, and the finest wood-ERDBEEREN were

growing in abundance but a few yards from the ice. The inn stands in a

CHARMANT spot close to the CÔTÉ DE LA RIVIÈRE, which, lower down, forms

the Reichenbach fall, and embosomed in the richest of pine woods,

while the fine form of the Wellhorn looking down upon it completes the

enchanting BOPPLE. In the afternoon we walked over the Great Scheideck

to Grindelwald, stopping to pay a visit to the Upper glacier by the way;

but we were again overtaken by bad HOGGLEBUMGULLUP and arrived at the

hotel in a SOLCHE a state that the landlord's wardrobe was in great

request.

The clouds by this time seemed to have done their worst, for a lovely

day succeeded, which we determined to devote to an ascent of the

Faulhorn. We left Grindelwald just as a thunder-storm was dying away,

and we hoped to find GUTEN WETTER up above; but the rain, which had

nearly ceased, began again, and we were struck by the rapidly increasing

FROID as we ascended. Two-thirds of the way up were completed when

the rain was exchanged for GNILLIC, with which the BODEN was thickly

covered, and before we arrived at the top the GNILLIC and mist became

so thick that we could not see one another at more than twenty POOPOO

distance, and it became difficult to pick our way over the rough and

thickly covered ground. Shivering with cold, we turned into bed with a

double allowance of clothes, and slept comfortably while the wind

howled AUTOUR DE LA MAISON; when I awoke, the wall and the window looked

equally dark, but in another hour I found I could just see the form

of the latter; so I jumped out of bed, and forced it open, though with

great difficulty from the frost and the quantities of GNILLIC heaped up

against it.

A row of huge icicles hung down from the edge of the roof, and anything

more wintry than the whole ANBLICK could not well be imagined; but the

sudden appearance of the great mountains in front was so startling

that I felt no inclination to move toward bed again. The snow which

had collected upon LA FÊNTRE had increased the FINSTERNISS ODER DER

DUNKELHEIT, so that when I looked out I was surprised to find that the

daylight was considerable, and that the BALRAGOOMAH would evidently rise

before long. Only the brightest of LES E'TOILES were still shining; the

sky was cloudless overhead, though small curling mists lay thousands of

feet below us in the valleys, wreathed around the feet of the mountains,

and adding to the splendor of their lofty summits. We were soon dressed

and out of the house, watching the gradual approach of dawn, thoroughly

absorbed in the first near view of the Oberland giants, which broke

upon us unexpectedly after the intense obscurity of the evening before.

"KABAUGWAKKO SONGWASHEE KUM WETTERHORN SNAWPO!" cried some one, as that

grand summit gleamed with the first rose of dawn; and in a few moments

the double crest of the Schreckhorn followed its example; peak after

peak seemed warmed with life, the Jungfrau blushed even more beautifully

than her neighbors, and soon, from the Wetterhorn in the east to the

Wildstrubel 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 DISTINGUEÉ

from the snow around it, which had fallen to a depth of a FLIRK during

the past evening, and we heartily enjoyed a rough scramble EN BAS to

the Giesbach falls, where we soon found a warm climate. At noon the day

before Grindelwald the thermometer could not have stood at less than 100

degrees Fahr. in the sun; and in the evening, judging from the icicles

formed, and the state of the windows, there must have been at least

twelve DINGBLATTER of frost, thus giving a change of 80 degrees during a

few hours.

I said:

"You have done well, Harris; this report is concise, compact, well

expressed; the language is crisp, the descriptions are vivid and not

needlessly elaborated; your report goes straight to the point, attends

strictly to business, and doesn't fool around. It is in many ways an

excellent document. But it has a fault--it is too learned, it is much

too 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 the

enchanting 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 more

descriptive?"

"No, it means just the same."

"And 'DINGBLATTER' and 'GNILLIC,' and 'BOPPLE,' and 'SCHNAWP'--are they

better 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 and

Choctaw and Zulu rubbish?"

"Because I didn't know any French but two or three words, and I didn't

know 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 that

wants to."

"I think you are mistaken." I then proceeded in the following scathing

manner. "When really learned men write books for other learned men

to read, they are justified in using as many learned words as they

please--their audience will understand them; but a man who writes a book

for the general public to read is not justified in disfiguring his pages

with untranslated foreign expressions. It is an insolence toward the

majority of the purchasers, for it is a very frank and impudent way of

saying, 'Get the translations made yourself if you want them, this

book is not written for the ignorant classes.' There are men who know

a foreign language so well and have used it so long in their daily

life that they seem to discharge whole volleys of it into their English

writings unconsciously, and so they omit to translate, as much as

half the time. That is a great cruelty to nine out of ten of the man's

readers. What is the excuse for this? The writer would say he only uses

the foreign language where the delicacy of his point cannot be conveyed

in 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, the

excuse he offers is at least an excuse; but there is another set of

men who are like YOU; they know a WORD here and there, of a foreign

language, or a few beggarly little three-word phrases, filched from the

back of the Dictionary, and these are continually peppering into their

literature, with a pretense of knowing that language--what excuse can

they offer? The foreign words and phrases which they use have their

exact equivalents in a nobler language--English; yet they think they

'adorn their page' when they say STRASSE for street, and BAHNHOF for

railway-station, and so on--flaunting these fluttering rags of poverty

in the reader's face and imagining he will be ass enough to take

them 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 of

your sort have to adorn theirs with insolent odds and ends smouched from

half 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 exhibits

a wild surprise, then he shrivels up. Similar was the effect of these

blistering words upon the tranquil and unsuspecting Agent. I can be

dreadfully 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 good

that I changed my mind and hired a four-horse carriage. It was a huge

vehicle, roomy, as easy in its motion as a palanquin, and exceedingly

comfortable.

We got away pretty early in the morning, after a hot breakfast, and

went bowling over a hard, smooth road, through the summer loveliness of

Switzerland, with near and distant lakes and mountains before and about

us for the entertainment of the eye, and the music of multitudinous

birds to charm the ear. Sometimes there was only the width of the road

between the imposing precipices on the right and the clear cool water on

the left with its shoals of uncatchable fish skimming about through the

bars of sun and shadow; and sometimes, in place of the precipices, the

grassy land stretched away, in an apparently endless upward slant,

and was dotted everywhere with snug little chalets, the peculiarly

captivating cottage of Switzerland.

The ordinary chalet turns a broad, honest gable end to the road, and

its ample roof hovers over the home in a protecting, caressing way,

projecting its sheltering eaves far outward. The quaint windows are

filled with little panes, and garnished with white muslin curtains,

and brightened with boxes of blooming flowers. Across the front of the

house, and up the spreading eaves and along the fanciful railings of

the shallow porch, are elaborate carvings--wreaths, fruits, arabesques,

verses from Scripture, names, dates, etc. The building is wholly of

wood, reddish brown in tint, a very pleasing color. It generally has

vines climbing over it. Set such a house against the fresh green of the

hillside, and it looks ever so cozy and inviting and picturesque, and is

a decidedly graceful addition to the landscape.

One does not find out what a hold the chalet has taken upon him, until

he presently comes upon a new house--a house which is aping the town

fashions of Germany and France, a prim, hideous, straight-up-and-down

thing, plastered all over on the outside to look like stone, and

altogether so stiff, and formal, and ugly, and forbidding, and so out of

tune with the gracious landscape, and so deaf and dumb and dead to the

poetry 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 is

said to have thrown himself into the lake. The legend goes that after

the Crucifixion his conscience troubled him, and he fled from Jerusalem

and wandered about the earth, weary of life and a prey to tortures

of the mind. Eventually, he hid himself away, on the heights of Mount

Pilatus, and dwelt alone among the clouds and crags for years; but rest

and peace were still denied him, so he finally put an end to his misery

by drowning himself.

Presently we passed the place where a man of better odor was born. This

was the children's friend, Santa Claus, or St. Nicholas. There are some

unaccountable reputations in the world. This saint's is an instance. He

has ranked for ages as the peculiar friend of children, yet it appears

he was not much of a friend to his own. He had ten of them, and when

fifty years old he left them, and sought out as dismal a refuge from the

world as possible, and became a hermit in order that he might reflect

upon pious themes without being disturbed by the joyous and other noises

from the nursery, doubtless.

Judging by Pilate and St. Nicholas, there exists no rule for the

construction of hermits; they seem made out of all kinds of material.

But Pilate attended to the matter of expiating his sin while he was

alive, whereas St. Nicholas will probably have to go on climbing down

sooty chimneys, Christmas eve, forever, and conferring kindness on other

people's children, to make up for deserting his own. His bones are kept

in a church in a village (Sachseln) which we visited, and are naturally

held in great reverence. His portrait is common in the farmhouses of

the region, but is believed by many to be but an indifferent likeness.

During his hermit life, according to legend, he partook of the bread

and wine of the communion once a month, but all the rest of the month he

fasted.

A constant marvel with us, as we sped along the bases of the steep

mountains on this journey, was, not that avalanches occur, but that they

are not occurring all the time. One does not understand why rocks

and landslides do not plunge down these declivities daily. A landslip

occurred three quarters of a century ago, on the route from Arth to

Brunnen, which was a formidable thing. A mass of conglomerate two miles

long, a thousand feet broad, and a hundred feet thick, broke away from a

cliff 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 cataracts

dancing down the steeps and gleaming in the sun, that we could not help

feeling sweet toward all the world; so we tried to drink all the

milk, and eat all the grapes and apricots and berries, and buy all the

bouquets of wild flowers which the little peasant boys and girls offered

for 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 the

road, were groups of neat and comely children, with their wares nicely

and temptingly set forth in the grass under the shade trees, and as soon

as we approached they swarmed into the road, holding out their baskets

and milk bottles, and ran beside the carriage, barefoot and bareheaded,

and importuned us to buy. They seldom desisted early, but continued to

run and insist--beside the wagon while they could, and behind it until

they lost breath. Then they turned and chased a returning carriage back

to their trading-post again. After several hours of this, without any

intermission, it becomes almost annoying. I do not know what we should

have done without the returning carriages to draw off the pursuit.

However, there were plenty of these, loaded with dusty tourists and

piled high with luggage. Indeed, from Lucerne to Interlaken we had

the spectacle, among other scenery, of an unbroken procession of

fruit-peddlers and tourists carriages.

Our talk was mostly anticipatory of what we should see on the down-grade

of the Bruenig, by and by, after we should pass the summit. All our

friends in Lucerne had said that to look down upon Meiringen, and the

rushing blue-gray river Aar, and the broad level green valley; and

across at the mighty Alpine precipices that rise straight up to the

clouds out of that valley; and up at the microscopic chalets perched

upon the dizzy eaves of those precipices and winking dimly and fitfully

through the drifting veil of vapor; and still up and up, at the superb

Oltschiback and the other beautiful cascades that leap from those rugged

heights, robed in powdery spray, ruffled with foam, and girdled with

rainbows--to look upon these things, they say, was to look upon the last

possibility of the sublime and the enchanting. Therefore, as I say,

we talked mainly of these coming wonders; if we were conscious of any

impatience, it was to get there in favorable season; if we felt any

anxiety, it was that the day might remain perfect, and enable us to see

those 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 the

fore-and-aft gear that was broken--the thing that leads aft from the

forward part of the horse and is made fast to the thing that pulls the

wagon. In America this would have been a heavy leathern strap; but, all

over the continent it is nothing but a piece of rope the size of

your little finger--clothes-line is what it is. Cabs use it, private

carriages, freight-carts and wagons, all sorts of vehicles have it. In

Munich I afterward saw it used on a long wagon laden with fifty-four

half-barrels of beer; I had before noticed that the cabs in Heidelberg

used it--not new rope, but rope that had been in use since Abraham's

time --and I had felt nervous, sometimes, behind it when the cab was

tearing down a hill. But I had long been accustomed to it now, and had

even become afraid of the leather strap which belonged in its place. Our

driver got a fresh piece of clothes-line out of his locker and repaired

the break in two minutes.

So much for one European fashion. Every country has its own ways. It may

interest 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 projects

from the front end of the wagon, and then throws the tangled mess of

gear forward through a ring, and hauls it aft, and passes the other

thing through the other ring and hauls it aft on the other side of the

other horse, opposite to the first one, after crossing them and bringing

the loose end back, and then buckles the other thing underneath the

horse, and takes another thing and wraps it around the thing I spoke

of before, and puts another thing over each horse's head, with broad

flappers to it to keep the dust out of his eyes, and puts the iron thing

in his mouth for him to grit his teeth on, uphill, and brings the ends

of these things aft over his back, after buckling another one around

under his neck to hold his head up, and hitching another thing on

a thing that goes over his shoulders to keep his head up when he is

climbing a hill, and then takes the slack of the thing which I mentioned

a while ago, and fetches it aft and makes it fast to the thing that

pulls the wagon, and hands the other things up to the driver to steer

with. I never have buckled up a horse myself, but I do not think we do

it that way.

We had four very handsome horses, and the driver was very proud of his

turnout. He would bowl along on a reasonable trot, on the highway, but

when he entered a village he did it on a furious run, and accompanied it

with a frenzy of ceaseless whip-crackings that sounded like volleys of

musketry. He tore through the narrow streets and around the sharp curves

like a moving earthquake, showering his volleys as he went, and before

him swept a continuous tidal wave of scampering children, ducks, cats,

and mothers clasping babies which they had snatched out of the way of

the coming destruction; and as this living wave washed aside, along the

walls, its elements, being safe, forgot their fears and turned their

admiring gaze upon that gallant driver till he thundered around the next

curve and was lost to sight.

He was a great man to those villagers, with his gaudy clothes and his

terrific ways. Whenever he stopped to have his cattle watered and fed

with loaves of bread, the villagers stood around admiring him while

he swaggered about, the little boys gazed up at his face with humble

homage, and the landlord brought out foaming mugs of beer and conversed

proudly with him while he drank. Then he mounted his lofty box, swung

his explosive whip, and away he went again, like a storm. I had not

seen anything like this before since I was a boy, and the stage used to

flourish the village with the dust flying and the horn tooting.

When we reached the base of the Kaiserstuhl, we took two more horses; we

had 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 and

approached the station, the driver surpassed all his previous efforts in

the 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 a

frequent feature of the scenery.

About noon we arrived at the foot of the Bruenig Pass, and made a

two-hour stop at the village hotel, another of those clean, pretty, and

thoroughly well-kept inns which are such an astonishment to people

who are accustomed to hotels of a dismally different pattern in remote

country-towns. There was a lake here, in the lap of the great mountains,

the green slopes that rose toward the lower crags were graced with

scattered Swiss cottages nestling among miniature farms and gardens,

and from out a leafy ambuscade in the upper heights tumbled a brawling

cataract.

Carriage after carriage, laden with tourists and trunks, arrived, and

the quiet hotel was soon populous. We were early at the table d'hôte and

saw the people all come in. There were twenty-five, perhaps. They were

of various nationalities, but we were the only Americans. Next to me sat

an 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 to

his full name. They had a pretty little lovers' quarrel over what wine

they should have. Neddy was for obeying the guide-book and taking the

wine 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 well

that she never drank anything but champagne.

She added:

"You know very well papa always has champagne on his table, and I've

always 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 with

laughter--and this pleased HIM so much that he repeated his jest a

couple of times, and added new and killing varieties to it. When the

bride finally recovered, she gave Neddy a love-box on the arm with her

fan, and said with arch severity:

"Well, you would HAVE me--nothing else would do--so you'll have to make

the 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 the

champagne.

The fact that this young woman had never moistened the selvedge edge of

her soul with a less plebeian tipple than champagne, had a marked and

subduing 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 the

table and guessed out the nationalities of most of the guests to our

satisfaction, but we failed with an elderly gentleman and his wife and

a young girl who sat opposite us, and with a gentleman of about

thirty-five who sat three seats beyond Harris. We did not hear any of

these speak. But finally the last-named gentleman left while we were not

noticing, but we looked up as he reached the far end of the table. He

stopped there a moment, and made his toilet with a pocket comb. So he

was a German; or else he had lived in German hotels long enough to catch

the fashion. When the elderly couple and the young girl rose to leave,

they bowed respectfully to us. So they were Germans, too. This national

custom is worth six of the other one, for export.

After dinner we talked with several Englishmen, and they inflamed our

desire to a hotter degree than ever, to see the sights of Meiringen from

the heights of the Bruenig Pass. They said the view was marvelous, and

that one who had seen it once could never forget it. They also spoke of

the romantic nature of the road over the pass, and how in one place it

had been cut through a flank of the solid rock, in such a way that the

mountain overhung the tourist as he passed by; and they furthermore said

that the sharp turns in the road and the abruptness of the descent would

afford us a thrilling experience, for we should go down in a flying

gallop and seem to be spinning around the rings of a whirlwind, like a

drop of whiskey descending the spirals of a corkscrew.

I got all the information out of these gentlemen that we could need; and

then, to make everything complete, I asked them if a body could get hold

of a little fruit and milk here and there, in case of necessity. They

threw up their hands in speechless intimation that the road was simply

paved with refreshment-peddlers. We were impatient to get away, now, and

the rest of our two-hour stop rather dragged. But finally the set time

arrived and we began the ascent. Indeed it was a wonderful road. It was

smooth, and compact, and clean, and the side next the precipices was

guarded all along by dressed stone posts about three feet high, placed

at short distances apart. The road could not have been better built if

Napoleon the First had built it. He seems to have been the introducer of

the sort of roads which Europe now uses. All literature which describes

life as it existed in England, France, and Germany up to the close

of the last century, is filled with pictures of coaches and carriages

wallowing through these three countries in mud and slush half-wheel

deep; but after Napoleon had floundered through a conquered kingdom he

generally arranged things so that the rest of the world could follow

dry-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 of

wild flowers all about us; and glimpses of rounded grassy backbones

below us occupied by trim chalets and nibbling sheep, and other glimpses

of far lower altitudes, where distance diminished the chalets to toys

and obliterated the sheep altogether; and every now and then some

ermined 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 of

satisfaction that follows a good dinner added largely to the enjoyment;

the having something especial to look forward to and muse about, like

the approaching grandeurs of Meiringen, sharpened the zest. Smoking

was never so good before, solid comfort was never solider; we lay back

against the thick cushions silent, meditative, steeped in felicity. *

* * * * * * * I rubbed my eyes, opened them, and started. I had been

dreaming I was at sea, and it was a thrilling surprise to wake up and

find land all around me. It took me a couple seconds to "come to," as

you may say; then I took in the situation. The horses were drinking at

a trough in the edge of a town, the driver was taking beer, Harris was

snoring at my side, the courier, with folded arms and bowed head, was

sleeping on the box, two dozen barefooted and bareheaded children were

gathered about the carriage, with their hands crossed behind, gazing up

with serious and innocent admiration at the dozing tourists baking there

in the sun. Several small girls held night-capped babies nearly as big

as themselves in their arms, and even these fat babies seemed to take a

sort of sluggish interest in us.

We had slept an hour and a half and missed all the scenery! I did not

need anybody to tell me that. If I had been a girl, I could have cursed

for vexation. As it was, I woke up the agent and gave him a piece of

my mind. Instead of being humiliated, he only upbraided me for being

so wanting in vigilance. He said he had expected to improve his mind by

coming to Europe, but a man might travel to the ends of the earth with

me and never see anything, for I was manifestly endowed with the very

genius of ill luck. He even tried to get up some emotion about that

poor courier, who never got a chance to see anything, on account of my

heedlessness. But when I thought I had borne about enough of this kind

of talk, I threatened to make Harris tramp back to the summit and make a

report on that scenery, and this suggestion spiked his battery.

We drove sullenly through Brienz, dead to the seductions of its

bewildering array of Swiss carvings and the clamorous HOO-hooing of

its cuckoo clocks, and had not entirely recovered our spirits when we

rattled across a bridge over the rushing blue river and entered the

pretty town of Interlaken. It was just about sunset, and we had made the

trip from Lucerne in ten hours.

CHAPTER XXXII - [The Jungfrau, the Bride, and the Piano]

We located ourselves at the Jungfrau Hotel, one of those huge

establishments which the needs of modern travel have created in every

attractive 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 and

comely costume of the Swiss peasants. This consists of a simple gros de

laine, trimmed with ashes of roses, with overskirt of scare bleu ventre

saint gris, cut bias on the off-side, with facings of petit polonaise

and narrow insertions of pâte de foie gras backstitched to the mise

en sce`ne in the form of a jeu d'esprit. It gives to the wearer a

singularly piquant and alluring aspect.

One of these waitresses, a woman of forty, had side-whiskers reaching

half-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 on

the continent with quite conspicuous mustaches, but this was the only

woman I saw who had reached the dignity of whiskers.

After dinner the guests of both sexes distributed themselves about the

front porches and the ornamental grounds belonging to the hotel, to

enjoy the cool air; but, as the twilight deepened toward darkness, they

gathered themselves together in that saddest and solemnest and most

constrained of all places, the great blank drawing-room which is the

chief feature of all continental summer hotels. There they grouped

themselves 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, asthmatic

thing, certainly the very worst miscarriage in the way of a piano that

the world has seen. In turn, five or six dejected and homesick ladies

approached it doubtingly, gave it a single inquiring thump, and

retired 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 her

grave and worshiping stripling of a husband; she was about eighteen,

just out of school, free from affectations, unconscious of that

passionless multitude around her; and the very first time she smote

that old wreck one recognized that it had met its destiny. Her stripling

brought an armful of aged sheet-music from their room--for this bride

went "heeled," as you might say--and bent himself lovingly over and got

ready to turn the pages.

The bride fetched a swoop with her fingers from one end of the keyboard

to the other, just to get her bearings, as it were, and you could see

the congregation set their teeth with the agony of it. Then, without

any more preliminaries, she turned on all the horrors of the "Battle of

Prague," that venerable shivaree, and waded chin-deep in the blood of

the slain. She made a fair and honorable average of two false notes in

every 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 the

cannonade waxed hotter and fiercer, and the discord average rose to

four in five, the procession began to move. A few stragglers held their

ground ten minutes longer, but when the girl began to wring the true

inwardness out of the "cries of the wounded," they struck their colors

and retired in a kind of panic.

There never was a completer victory; I was the only non-combatant left

on the field. I would not have deserted my countrywoman anyhow, but

indeed I had no desires in that direction. None of us like mediocrity,

but we all reverence perfection. This girl's music was perfection in its

way; it was the worst music that had ever been achieved on our planet by

a mere human being.

I moved up close, and never lost a strain. When she got through, I

asked her to play it again. She did it with a pleased alacrity and a

heightened enthusiasm. She made it ALL discords, this time. She got an

amount of anguish into the cries of the wounded that shed a new light on

human suffering. She was on the war-path all the evening. All the time,

crowds of people gathered on the porches and pressed their noses against

the windows to look and marvel, but the bravest never ventured in.

The bride went off satisfied and happy with her young fellow, when her

appetite was finally gorged, and the tourists swarmed in again.

What a change has come over Switzerland, and in fact all Europe, during

this century! Seventy or eighty years ago Napoleon was the only man in

Europe who could really be called a traveler; he was the only man who

had devoted his attention to it and taken a powerful interest in it; he

was the only man who had traveled extensively; but now everybody goes

everywhere; and Switzerland, and many other regions which were unvisited

and unknown remotenesses a hundred years ago, are in our days a buzzing

hive of restless strangers every summer. But I digress.

In the morning, when we looked out of our windows, we saw a wonderful

sight. Across the valley, and apparently quite neighborly and close at

hand, the giant form of the Jungfrau rose cold and white into the clear

sky, beyond a gateway in the nearer highlands. It reminded me, somehow,

of one of those colossal billows which swells suddenly up beside one's

ship, at sea, sometimes, with its crest and shoulders snowy white, and

the 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 rank

it among my Works at all; it is only a study; it is hardly more than

what one might call a sketch. Other artists have done me the grace to

admire it; but I am severe in my judgments of my own pictures, and this

one does not move me.

It was hard to believe that that lofty wooded rampart on the left which

so overtops the Jungfrau was not actually the higher of the two, but it

was not, of course. It is only two or three thousand feet high, and of

course has no snow upon it in summer, whereas the Jungfrau is not much

shorter of fourteen thousand feet high and therefore that lowest verge

of snow on her side, which seems nearly down to the valley level, is

really about seven thousand feet higher up in the air than the summit

of that wooded rampart. It is the distance that makes the deception.

The wooded height is but four or five miles removed from us, but the

Jungfrau is four or five times that distance away.

Walking down the street of shops, in the fore-noon, I was attracted by

a large picture, carved, frame and all, from a single block of

chocolate-colored wood. There are people who know everything. Some of

these had told us that continental shopkeepers always raise their prices

on English and Americans. Many people had told us it was expensive to

buy things through a courier, whereas I had supposed it was just the

reverse. When I saw this picture, I conjectured that it was worth more

than the friend I proposed to buy it for would like to pay, but still it

was worth while to inquire; so I told the courier to step in and ask

the price, as if he wanted it for himself; I told him not to speak in

English, 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, "It

is a hundred francs too much," and so dismissed the matter from my

mind. But in the afternoon I was passing that place with Harris, and the

picture attracted me again. We stepped in, to see how much higher

broken German would raise the price. The shopwoman named a figure just

a hundred francs lower than the courier had named. This was a pleasant

surprise. I said I would take it. After I had given directions as to

where 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 than

you 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 a

percentage."

"Undoubtedly. The courier always has his percentage. In this case it

would have been a hundred francs."

"Then the tradesman does not pay a part of it--the purchaser pays all of

it?"

"There are occasions when the tradesman and the courier agree upon a

price which is twice or thrice the value of the article, then the two

divide, and both get a percentage."

"I see. But it seems to me that the purchaser does all the paying, even

then."

"Oh, to be sure! It goes without saying."

"But I have bought this picture myself; therefore why shouldn't the

courier know it?"

The woman exclaimed, in distress:

"Ah, indeed it would take all my little profit! He would come and demand

his 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 would

divert custom from me, and my business would be injured."

I went away in a thoughtful frame of mind. I began to see why a courier

could afford to work for fifty-five dollars a month and his fares. A

month or two later I was able to understand why a courier did not have

to pay any board and lodging, and why my hotel bills were always larger

when I had him with me than when I left him behind, somewhere, for a few

days.

Another thing was also explained, now, apparently. In one town I had

taken the courier to the bank to do the translating when I drew some

money. 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 been

exceedingly polite, even going so far as to precede me to the door and

holding it open for me and bow me out as if I had been a distinguished

personage. It was a new experience. Exchange had been in my favor ever

since I had been in Europe, but just that one time. I got simply the

face of my draft, and no extra francs, whereas I had expected to get

quite a number of them. This was the first time I had ever used the

courier at the bank. I had suspected something then, and as long as he

remained with me afterward I managed bank matters by myself.

Still, if I felt that I could afford the tax, I would never travel

without a courier, for a good courier is a convenience whose value

cannot be estimated in dollars and cents. Without him, travel is a

bitter harassment, a purgatory of little exasperating annoyances, a

ceaseless and pitiless punishment--I mean to an irascible man who has no

business capacity and is confused by details.

Without a courier, travel hasn't a ray of pleasure in it, anywhere; but

with 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 it

seldom is--you have only to open the door and speak, the courier will

hear, 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--leave

all the rest to him. You need not inquire about trains, or fares, or car

changes, or hotels, or anything else. At the proper time he will put you

in a cab or an omnibus, and drive you to the train or the boat; he has

packed your luggage and transferred it, he has paid all the bills. Other

people have preceded you half an hour to scramble for impossible places

and lose their tempers, but you can take your time; the courier has

secured 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 get

the weigher's attention to their trunks; they dispute hotly with these

tyrants, who are cool and indifferent; they get their baggage billets,

at last, and then have another squeeze and another rage over the

disheartening business of trying to get them recorded and paid for, and

still another over the equally disheartening business of trying to get

near enough to the ticket office to buy a ticket; and now, with their

tempers gone to the dogs, they must stand penned up and packed together,

laden with wraps and satchels and shawl-straps, with the weary wife and

babies, in the waiting-room, till the doors are thrown open--and then

all hands make a grand final rush to the train, find it full, and have

to stand on the platform and fret until some more cars are put on. They

are in a condition to kill somebody by this time. Meantime, you have

been sitting in your car, smoking, and observing all this misery in the

extremest comfort.

On the journey the guard is polite and watchful--won't allow anybody to

get into your compartment--tells them you are just recovering from the

small-pox and do not like to be disturbed. For the courier has made

everything right with the guard. At way-stations the courier comes to

your 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 the

other people scramble and worry in the dining-rooms. If anything breaks

about the car you are in, and a station-master proposes to pack you and

your agent into a compartment with strangers, the courier reveals to him

confidentially that you are a French duke born deaf and dumb, and the

official comes and makes affable signs that he has ordered a choice car

to be added to the train for you.

At custom-houses the multitude file tediously through, hot and

irritated, and look on while the officers burrow into the trunks and

make a mess of everything; but you hand your keys to the courier and sit

still. Perhaps you arrive at your destination in a rain-storm at ten

at night--you generally do. The multitude spend half an hour verifying

their baggage and getting it transferred to the omnibuses; but the

courier puts you into a vehicle without a moment's loss of time, and

when you reach your hotel you find your rooms have been secured two or

three 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 three

hotels, in the rain, before they find accommodations.

I have not set down half of the virtues that are vested in a good

courier, but I think I have set down a sufficiency of them to show that

an irritable man who can afford one and does not employ him is not a

wise economist. My courier was the worst one in Europe, yet he was a

good deal better than none at all. It could not pay him to be a better

one 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 his

service. Yes, to travel with a courier is bliss, to travel without one

is the reverse.

I have had dealings with some very bad couriers; but I have also had

dealings with one who might fairly be called perfection. He was a young

Polander, named Joseph N. Verey. He spoke eight languages, and seemed

to be equally at home in all of them; he was shrewd, prompt, posted,

and punctual; he was fertile in resources, and singularly gifted in the

matter of overcoming difficulties; he not only knew how to do everything

in his line, but he knew the best ways and the quickest; he was handy

with children and invalids; all his employer needed to do was to take

life easy and leave everything to the courier. His address is, care of

Messrs. Gay & Son, Strand, London; he was formerly a conductor of Gay's

tourist parties. Excellent couriers are somewhat rare; if the reader is

about to travel, he will find it to his advantage to make a note of this

one.

CHAPTER XXXIII - [We Climb Far--by Buggy]

The beautiful Giesbach Fall is near Interlaken, on the other side of

the lake of Brienz, and is illuminated every night with those gorgeous

theatrical fires whose name I cannot call just at this moment. This was

said to be a spectacle which the tourist ought by no means to miss. I

was strongly tempted, but I could not go there with propriety, because

one goes in a boat. The task which I had set myself was to walk over

Europe on foot, not skim over it in a boat. I had made a tacit contract

with myself; it was my duty to abide by it. I was willing to make boat

trips for pleasure, but I could not conscientiously make them in the way

of business.

It cost me something of a pang to lose that fine sight, but I lived down

the desire, and gained in my self-respect through the triumph. I had

a finer and a grander sight, however, where I was. This was the mighty

dome of the Jungfrau softly outlined against the sky and faintly

silvered by the starlight. There was something subduing in the influence

of that silent and solemn and awful presence; one seemed to meet the

immutable, the indestructible, the eternal, face to face, and to feel

the trivial and fleeting nature of his own existence the more sharply

by the contrast. One had the sense of being under the brooding

contemplation of a spirit, not an inert mass of rocks and ice--a spirit

which had looked down, through the slow drift of the ages, upon a

million vanished races of men, and judged them; and would judge a

million more--and still be there, watching, unchanged and unchangeable,

after all life should be gone and the earth have become a vacant

desolation.

While I was feeling these things, I was groping, without knowing it,

toward an understanding of what the spell is which people find in the

Alps, and in no other mountains--that strange, deep, nameless influence,

which, once felt, cannot be forgotten--once felt, leaves always

behind it a restless longing to feel it again--a longing which is like

homesickness; a grieving, haunting yearning which will plead, implore,

and persecute till it has its will. I met dozens of people, imaginative

and unimaginative, cultivated and uncultivated, who had come from far

countries and roamed through the Swiss Alps year after year--they could

not explain why. They had come first, they said, out of idle curiosity,

because everybody talked about it; they had come since because they

could not help it, and they should keep on coming, while they lived, for

the same reason; they had tried to break their chains and stay away, but

it was futile; now, they had no desire to break them. Others came nearer

formulating what they felt; they said they could find perfect rest and

peace nowhere else when they were troubled: all frets and worries and

chafings sank to sleep in the presence of the benignant serenity of the

Alps; the Great Spirit of the Mountain breathed his own peace upon their

hurt minds and sore hearts, and healed them; they could not think base

thoughts or do mean and sordid things here, before the visible throne of

God.

Down the road a piece was a Kursaal--whatever that may be--and we joined

the human tide to see what sort of enjoyment it might afford. It was the

usual open-air concert, in an ornamental garden, with wines, beer, milk,

whey, grapes, etc.--the whey and the grapes being necessaries of life to

certain invalids whom physicians cannot repair, and who only continue to

exist by the grace of whey or grapes. One of these departed spirits told

me, in a sad and lifeless way, that there is no way for him to live but

by whey, and dearly, dearly loved whey, he didn't know whey he did, but

he 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 in

their nature, and that they were counted out and administered by the

grape-doctors as methodically as if they were pills. The new patient,

if very feeble, began with one grape before breakfast, took three

during breakfast, a couple between meals, five at luncheon, three in the

afternoon, seven at dinner, four for supper, and part of a grape just

before going to bed, by way of a general regulator. The quantity was

gradually and regularly increased, according to the needs and capacities

of the patient, until by and by you would find him disposing of his one

grape 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 grape

system, never afterward got over the habit of talking as if they were

dictating to a slow amanuensis, because they always made a pause between

each two words while they sucked the substance out of an imaginary

grape. He said these were tedious people to talk with. He said that men

who had been cured by the other process were easily distinguished from

the rest of mankind because they always tilted their heads back, between

every two words, and swallowed a swig of imaginary whey. He said it was

an impressive thing to observe two men, who had been cured by the two

processes, engaged in conversation--said their pauses and accompanying

movements were so continuous and regular that a stranger would think

himself in the presence of a couple of automatic machines. One finds

out a great many wonderful things, by traveling, if he stumbles upon the

right person.

I did not remain long at the Kursaal; the music was good enough, but it

seemed rather tame after the cyclone of that Arkansaw expert. Besides,

my adventurous spirit had conceived a formidable enterprise--nothing

less than a trip from Interlaken, by the Gemmi and Visp, clear to

Zermatt, on foot! So it was necessary to plan the details, and get ready

for an early start. The courier (this was not the one I have just been

speaking of) thought that the portier of the hotel would be able to tell

us how to find our way. And so it turned out. He showed us the whole

thing, on a relief-map, and we could see our route, with all its

elevations and depressions, its villages and its rivers, as clearly as

if 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 on

a piece of paper, and made our course so plain that we should never be

able 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 and

putting them into condition for instant occupation in the morning.

However, when we came down to breakfast at 8 A.M., it looked so much

like rain that I hired a two-horse top-buggy for the first third of the

journey. For two or three hours we jogged along the level road which

skirts the beautiful lake of Thun, with a dim and dreamlike picture of

watery expanses and spectral Alpine forms always before us, veiled in

a mellowing mist. Then a steady downpour set in, and hid everything but

the 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 the

driver sat unsheltered and placidly soaked the weather in and seemed

to like it. We had the road to ourselves, and I never had a pleasanter

excursion.

The weather began to clear while we were driving up a valley called the

Kienthal, and presently a vast black cloud-bank in front of us dissolved

away and uncurtained the grand proportions and the soaring loftiness of

the Blumis Alp. It was a sort of breath-taking surprise; for we had not

supposed there was anything behind that low-hung blanket of sable cloud

but level valley. What we had been mistaking for fleeting glimpses of

sky away aloft there, were really patches of the Blumis's snowy crest

caught through shredded rents in the drifting pall of vapor.

We dined in the inn at Frutigen, and our driver ought to have dined

there, too, but he would not have had time to dine and get drunk

both, so he gave his mind to making a masterpiece of the latter, and

succeeded. A German gentleman and his two young-lady daughters had been

taking 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 happy

and good-natured, too, which was saying a good deal. These rascals

overflowed with attentions and information for their guests, and with

brotherly love for each other. They tied their reins, and took off

their coats and hats, so that they might be able to give unencumbered

attention to conversation and to the gestures necessary for its

illustration.

The road was smooth; it led up and over and down a continual succession

of hills; but it was narrow, the horses were used to it, and could

not well get out of it anyhow; so why shouldn't the drivers entertain

themselves and us? The noses of our horses projected sociably into the

rear of the forward carriage, and as we toiled up the long hills our

driver stood up and talked to his friend, and his friend stood up and

talked back to him, with his rear to the scenery. When the top was

reached and we went flying down the other side, there was no change

in the program. I carry in my memory yet the picture of that forward

driver, 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, and

jolly red face, and offering his card to the old German gentleman while

he praised his hack and horses, and both teams were whizzing down a

long hill with nobody in a position to tell whether we were bound to

destruction or an undeserved safety.

Toward sunset we entered a beautiful green valley dotted with chalets, a

cozy little domain hidden away from the busy world in a cloistered nook

among giant precipices topped with snowy peaks that seemed to float like

islands above the curling surf of the sea of vapor that severed them

from the lower world. Down from vague and vaporous heights, little

ruffled zigzag milky currents came crawling, and found their way to the

verge of one of those tremendous overhanging walls, whence they plunged,

a shaft of silver, shivered to atoms in mid-descent and turned to an air

puff of luminous dust. Here and there, in grooved depressions among the

snowy desolations of the upper altitudes, one glimpsed the extremity of

a glacier, with its sea-green and honeycombed battlements of ice.

Up the valley, under a dizzy precipice, nestled the village of

Kandersteg, our halting-place for the night. We were soon there, and

housed in the hotel. But the waning day had such an inviting influence

that we did not remain housed many moments, but struck out and followed

a roaring torrent of ice-water up to its far source in a sort of little

grass-carpeted parlor, walled in all around by vast precipices and

overlooked by clustering summits of ice. This was the snuggest little

croquet-ground imaginable; it was perfectly level, and not more than a

mile long by half a mile wide. The walls around it were so gigantic, and

everything about it was on so mighty a scale that it was belittled, by

contrast, to what I have likened it to--a cozy and carpeted parlor. It

was so high above the Kandersteg valley that there was nothing between

it and the snowy-peaks. I had never been in such intimate relations with

the high altitudes before; the snow-peaks had always been remote and

unapproachable grandeurs, hitherto, but now we were hob-a-nob--if one

may use such a seemingly irreverent expression about creations so august

as these.

We could see the streams which fed the torrent we had followed issuing

from under the greenish ramparts of glaciers; but two or three of these,

instead of flowing over the precipices, sank down into the rock and

sprang 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 rushing

brook to a narrow cleft between lofty precipices; here the rushing

brook becomes a mad torrent and goes booming and thundering down

toward Kandersteg, lashing and thrashing its way over and among monster

boulders, and hurling chance roots and logs about like straws. There

was no lack of cascades along this route. The path by the side of

the torrent was so narrow that one had to look sharp, when he heard a

cow-bell, and hunt for a place that was wide enough to accommodate a cow

and a Christian side by side, and such places were not always to be had

at an instant's notice. The cows wear church-bells, and that is a

good idea in the cows, for where that torrent is, you couldn't hear

an ordinary cow-bell any further than you could hear the ticking of a

watch.

I needed exercise, so I employed my agent in setting stranded logs and

dead trees adrift, and I sat on a boulder and watched them go whirling

and leaping head over heels down the boiling torrent. It was a

wonderfully exhilarating spectacle. When I had had enough exercise, I

made the agent take some, by running a race with one of those logs. I

made a trifle by betting on the log.

After dinner we had a walk up and down the Kandersteg valley, in the

soft gloaming, with the spectacle of the dying lights of day playing

about the crests and pinnacles of the still and solemn upper realm

for contrast, and text for talk. There were no sounds but the dulled

complaining of the torrent and the occasional tinkling of a distant

bell. The spirit of the place was a sense of deep, pervading peace; one

might dream his life tranquilly away there, and not miss it or mind it

when it was gone.

The summer departed with the sun, and winter came with the stars. It

grew to be a bitter night in that little hotel, backed up against a

precipice that had no visible top to it, but we kept warm, and woke in

time in the morning to find that everybody else had left for Gemmi

three 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 over

seventy, but he could have given me nine-tenths of his strength and

still had all his age entitled him to. He shouldered our satchels,

overcoats, and alpenstocks, and we set out up the steep path. It was hot

work. The old man soon begged us to hand over our coats and waistcoats

to him to carry, too, and we did it; one could not refuse so little a

thing to a poor old man like that; he should have had them if he had

been a hundred and fifty.

When we began that ascent, we could see a microscopic chalet perched

away up against heaven on what seemed to be the highest mountain near

us. It was on our right, across the narrow head of the valley. But when

we got up abreast it on its own level, mountains were towering high

above on every hand, and we saw that its altitude was just about that of

the little Gasternthal which we had visited the evening before. Still it

seemed a long way up in the air, in that waste and lonely wilderness of

rocks. It had an unfenced grass-plot in front of it which seemed about

as big as a billiard-table, and this grass-plot slanted so sharply

downward, and was so brief, and ended so exceedingly soon at the verge

of the absolute precipice, that it was a shuddery thing to think of a

person'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 be

nothing for him to seize; nothing could keep him from rolling; five

revolutions would bring him to the edge, and over he would go.

What a frightful distance he would fall!--for there are very few birds

that fly as high as his starting-point. He would strike and bounce, two

or 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 such

a front yard. I would rather, in fact, for the distance down would be

about the same, and it is pleasanter to slide than to bounce. I could

not see how the peasants got up to that chalet--the region seemed too

steep for anything but a balloon.

As we strolled on, climbing up higher and higher, we were continually

bringing neighboring peaks into view and lofty prominence which had been

hidden behind lower peaks before; so by and by, while standing before a

group of these giants, we looked around for the chalet again; there it

was, away down below us, apparently on an inconspicuous ridge in the

valley! It was as far below us, now, as it had been above us when we

were beginning the ascent.

After a while the path led us along a railed precipice, and we looked

over--far beneath us was the snug parlor again, the little Gasternthal,

with its water jets spouting from the face of its rock walls. We could

have dropped a stone into it. We had been finding the top of the world

all along--and always finding a still higher top stealing into view in

a disappointing way just ahead; when we looked down into the Gasternthal

we felt pretty sure that we had reached the genuine top at last, but it

was not so; there were much higher altitudes to be scaled yet. We were

still in the pleasant shade of forest trees, we were still in a region

which was cushioned with beautiful mosses and aglow with the many-tinted

luster of innumerable wild flowers.

We found, indeed, more interest in the wild flowers than in anything

else. We gathered a specimen or two of every kind which we were

unacquainted with; so we had sumptuous bouquets. But one of the chief

interests lay in chasing the seasons of the year up the mountain, and

determining them by the presence of flowers and berries which we were

acquainted with. For instance, it was the end of August at the level

of the sea; in the Kandersteg valley at the base of the pass, we found

flowers which would not be due at the sea-level for two or three weeks;

higher up, we entered October, and gathered fringed gentians. I made

no notes, and have forgotten the details, but the construction of the

floral calendar was very entertaining while it lasted.

In the high regions we found rich store of the splendid red flower

called the Alpine rose, but we did not find any examples of the ugly

Swiss favorite called Edelweiss. Its name seems to indicate that it is a

noble flower and that it is white. It may be noble enough, but it is not

attractive, and it is not white. The fuzzy blossom is the color of bad

cigar ashes, and appears to be made of a cheap quality of gray plush. It

has a noble and distant way of confining itself to the high altitudes,

but that is probably on account of its looks; it apparently has no

monopoly of those upper altitudes, however, for they are sometimes

intruded upon by some of the loveliest of the valley families of wild

flowers. Everybody in the Alps wears a sprig of Edelweiss in his hat. It

is the native's pet, and also the tourist's.

All the morning, as we loafed along, having a good time, other

pedestrians went staving by us with vigorous strides, and with the

intent and determined look of men who were walking for a wager. These

wore loose knee-breeches, long yarn stockings, and hobnailed high-laced

walking-shoes. They were gentlemen who would go home to England or

Germany and tell how many miles they had beaten the guide-book every

day. But I doubted if they ever had much real fun, outside of the mere

magnificent exhilaration of the tramp through the green valleys and the

breezy heights; for they were almost always alone, and even the finest

scenery loses incalculably when there is no one to enjoy it with.

All the morning an endless double procession of mule-mounted tourists

filed past us along the narrow path--the one procession going, the

other coming. We had taken a good deal of trouble to teach ourselves the

kindly German custom of saluting all strangers with doffed hat, and we

resolutely clung to it, that morning, although it kept us bareheaded

most of the time and was not always responded to. Still we found an

interest in the thing, because we naturally liked to know who were

English and Americans among the passers-by. All continental natives

responded of course; so did some of the English and Americans, but, as

a general thing, these two races gave no sign. Whenever a man or a woman

showed us cold neglect, we spoke up confidently in our own tongue and

asked for such information as we happened to need, and we always got a

reply in the same language. The English and American folk are not less

kindly than other races, they are only more reserved, and that comes of

habit and education. In one dreary, rocky waste, away above the line of

vegetation, we met a procession of twenty-five mounted young men, all

from America. We got answering bows enough from these, of course, for

they were of an age to learn to do in Rome as Rome does, without much

effort.

At one extremity of this patch of desolation, overhung by bare and

forbidding crags which husbanded drifts of everlasting snow in their

shaded cavities, was a small stretch of thin and discouraged grass, and

a man and a family of pigs were actually living here in some shanties.

Consequently this place could be really reckoned as "property"; it had

a money value, and was doubtless taxed. I think it must have marked

the limit of real estate in this world. It would be hard to set a money

value upon any piece of earth that lies between that spot and the empty

realm of space. That man may claim the distinction of owning the end

of the world, for if there is any definite end to the world he has

certainly found it.

From here forward we moved through a storm-swept and smileless

desolation. All about us rose gigantic masses, crags, and ramparts of

bare and dreary rock, with not a vestige or semblance of plant or tree

or flower anywhere, or glimpse of any creature that had life. The frost

and the tempests of unnumbered ages had battered and hacked at these

cliffs, with a deathless energy, destroying them piecemeal; so all the

region about their bases was a tumbled chaos of great fragments which

had been split off and hurled to the ground. Soiled and aged banks of

snow lay close about our path. The ghastly desolation of the place was

as tremendously complete as if Doré had furnished the working-plans

for it. But every now and then, through the stern gateways around us

we caught a view of some neighboring majestic dome, sheathed with

glittering ice, and displaying its white purity at an elevation compared

to which ours was groveling and plebeian, and this spectacle always

chained one's interest and admiration at once, and made him forget there

was anything ugly in the world.

I have just said that there was nothing but death and desolation in

these hideous places, but I forgot. In the most forlorn and arid and

dismal one of all, where the racked and splintered debris was thickest,

where the ancient patches of snow lay against the very path, where

the winds blew bitterest and the general aspect was mournfulest and

dreariest, and furthest from any suggestion of cheer or hope, I found

a solitary wee forget-me-not flourishing away, not a droop about it

anywhere, but holding its bright blue star up with the prettiest and

gallantest air in the world, the only happy spirit, the only smiling

thing, in all that grisly desert. She seemed to say, "Cheer up!--as long

as we are here, let us make the best of it." I judged she had earned a

right to a more hospitable place; so I plucked her up and sent her to

America 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 desolation

stop breaking its heart over the unalterable, and hold up its head and

look at the bright side of things for once.

We stopped for a nooning at a strongly built little inn called the

Schwarenbach. It sits in a lonely spot among the peaks, where it is

swept by the trailing fringes of the cloud-rack, and is rained on, and

snowed on, and pelted and persecuted by the storms, nearly every day of

its 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 topknot

in the sky and daring us to an ascent. I was fired with the idea, and

immediately made up my mind to procure the necessary guides, ropes,

etc., and undertake it. I instructed Harris to go to the landlord of the

inn and set him about our preparations. Meantime, I went diligently to

work to read up and find out what this much-talked-of mountain-climbing

was like, and how one should go about it--for in these matters I

was 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 evening

before a grand expedition--"

I saw that I was too calm; so I walked the room a while and worked

myself into a high excitement; but the book's next remark --that the

adventurer must get up at two in the morning--came as near as anything

to flatting it all out again. However, I reinforced it, and read on,

about how Mr. Hinchliff dressed by candle-light and was "soon down among

the guides, who were bustling about in the passage, packing provisions,

and making every preparation for the start"; and how he glanced out into

the cold clear night and saw that--

"The whole sky was blazing with stars, larger and brighter than they

appear through the dense atmosphere breathed by inhabitants of the lower

parts of the earth. They seemed actually suspended from the dark vault

of heaven, and their gentle light shed a fairylike gleam over the

snow-fields around the foot of the Matterhorn, which raised its

stupendous pinnacle on high, penetrating to the heart of the Great Bear,

and crowning itself with a diadem of his magnificent stars. Not a sound

disturbed the deep tranquillity of the night, except the distant roar

of streams which rush from the high plateau of the St. Theodule glacier,

and fall headlong over precipitous rocks till they lose themselves in

the mazes of the Gorner glacier."

He took his hot toast and coffee, and then about half past three his

caravan of ten men filed away from the Riffel Hotel, and began the steep

climb. At half past five he happened to turn around, and "beheld the

glorious spectacle of the Matterhorn, just touched by the rosy-fingered

morning, and looking like a huge pyramid of fire rising out of the

barren ocean of ice and rock around it." Then the Breithorn and the Dent

Blanche caught the radiant glow; but "the intervening mass of Monte Rosa

made it necessary for us to climb many long hours before we could hope

to see the sun himself, yet the whole air soon grew warmer after the

splendid birth of the day."

He gazed at the lofty crown of Monte Rosa and the wastes of snow that

guarded its steep approaches, and the chief guide delivered the opinion

that no man could conquer their awful heights and put his foot upon that

summit. 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 to

its rugged face; and now they were confronted by a tremendous wall

from which great blocks of ice and snow were evidently in the habit of

falling. They turned aside to skirt this wall, and gradually ascended

until their way was barred by a "maze of gigantic snow crevices,"--so

they turned aside again, and "began a long climb of sufficient steepness

to make a zigzag course necessary."

Fatigue compelled them to halt frequently, for a moment or two. At one

of these halts somebody called out, "Look at Mont Blanc!" and "we were

at once made aware of the very great height we had attained by actually

seeing the monarch of the Alps and his attendant satellites right over

the 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 those

giddy heights, the others could brace themselves on their alpenstocks

and save him from darting into the valley, thousands of feet below. By

and by they came to an ice-coated ridge which was tilted up at a sharp

angle, and had a precipice on one side of it. They had to climb this, so

the guide in the lead cut steps in the ice with his hatchet, and as fast

as he took his toes out of one of these slight holes, the toes of the

man behind him occupied it.

"Slowly and steadily we kept on our way over this dangerous part of the

ascent, and I dare say it was fortunate for some of us that attention

was distracted from the head by the paramount necessity of looking after

the feet; FOR, WHILE ON THE LEFT THE INCLINE OF ICE WAS SO STEEP THAT

IT 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 PEBBLE

FROM THE HAND OVER PRECIPICES OF UNKNOWN EXTENT DOWN UPON THE TREMENDOUS

GLACIER BELOW.

"Great caution, therefore, was absolutely necessary, and in this exposed

situation we were attacked by all the fury of that grand enemy of

aspirants to Monte Rosa--a severe and bitterly cold wind from the north.

The fine powdery snow was driven past us in the clouds, penetrating the

interstices of our clothes, and the pieces of ice which flew from the

blows of Peter's ax were whisked into the air, and then dashed over the

precipice. We had quite enough to do to prevent ourselves from being

served in the same ruthless fashion, and now and then, in the more

violent gusts of wind, were glad to stick our alpenstocks into the ice

and hold on hard."

Having surmounted this perilous steep, they sat down and took a brief

rest with their backs against a sheltering rock and their heels dangling

over a bottomless abyss; then they climbed to the base of another

ridge--a more difficult and dangerous one still:

"The whole of the ridge was exceedingly narrow, and the fall on each

side desperately steep, but the ice in some of these intervals between

the masses of rock assumed the form of a mere sharp edge, almost like a

knife; these places, though not more than three or four short paces

in length, looked uncommonly awkward; but, like the sword leading true

believers to the gates of Paradise, they must needs be passed before

we could attain to the summit of our ambition. These were in one or two

places so narrow, that in stepping over them with toes well turned

out for greater security, ONE END OF THE FOOT PROJECTED OVER THE AWFUL

PRECIPICE ON THE RIGHT, WHILE THE OTHER WAS ON THE BEGINNING OF THE

ICE SLOPE ON THE LEFT, WHICH WAS SCARCELY LESS STEEP THAN THE ROCKS. On

these occasions Peter would take my hand, and each of us stretching as

far as we could, he was thus enabled to get a firm footing two paces

or rather more from me, whence a spring would probably bring him to the

rock 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 his

outstretched hand ready to clasp mine, and in a moment stood by his

side. The others followed in much the same fashion. Once my right foot

slipped on the side toward the precipice, but I threw out my left arm in

a moment so that it caught the icy edge under my armpit as I fell, and

supported me considerably; at the same instant I cast my eyes down the

side on which I had slipped, and contrived to plant my right foot on

a piece of rock as large as a cricket-ball, which chanced to protrude

through the ice, on the very edge of the precipice. Being thus anchored

fore and aft, as it were, I believe I could easily have recovered

myself, even if I had been alone, though it must be confessed the

situation would have been an awful one; as it was, however, a jerk from

Peter settled the matter very soon, and I was on my legs all right in an

instant. 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 ice

and powdered with snow--the utmost, summit, the last bit of solidity

between them and the hollow vault of heaven. They set to work with their

hatchets, and were soon creeping, insectlike, up its surface, with their

heels projecting over the thinnest kind of nothingness, thickened up a

little with a few wandering shreds and films of cloud moving in a lazy

procession 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, till

his friends above hauled him into place again.

A little bit later, the party stood upon the wee pedestal of the very

summit, in a driving wind, and looked out upon the vast green expanses

of Italy and a shoreless ocean of billowy Alps.

When I had read thus far, Harris broke into the room in a noble

excitement and said the ropes and the guides were secured, and asked if

I was ready. I said I believed I wouldn't ascend the Altels this time. I

said 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 we

went definitely into it. But I told him to retain the guides and order

them to follow us to Zermatt, because I meant to use them there. I said

I could feel the spirit of adventure beginning to stir in me, and was

sure that the fell fascination of Alp-climbing would soon be upon me. I

said he could make up his mind to it that we would do a deed before

we were a week older which would make the hair of the timid curl with

fright.

This made Harris happy, and filled him with ambitious anticipations. He

went at once to tell the guides to follow us to Zermatt and bring all

their paraphernalia with them.

CHAPTER XXXV - [Swindling the Coroner]

A great and priceless thing is a new interest! How it takes possession

of a man! how it clings to him, how it rides him! I strode onward from

the Schwarenbach hostelry a changed man, a reorganized personality. I

walked into a new world, I saw with new eyes. I had been looking

aloft at the giant show-peaks only as things to be worshiped for their

grandeur and magnitude, and their unspeakable grace of form; I looked

up at them now, as also things to be conquered and climbed. My sense of

their grandeur and their noble beauty was neither lost nor impaired; I

had 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 the

possibility or impossibility of following them with my feet. When I saw

a shining helmet of ice projecting above the clouds, I tried to imagine

I saw files of black specks toiling up it roped together with a gossamer

thread.

We skirted the lonely little lake called the Daubensee, and presently

passed close by a glacier on the right--a thing like a great river

frozen 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 in

building a stone house; so the Schwarenbach was soon to have a rival. We

bought a bottle or so of beer here; at any rate they called it beer, but

I knew by the price that it was dissolved jewelry, and I perceived by

the taste that dissolved jewelry is not good stuff to drink.

We were surrounded by a hideous desolation. We stepped forward to a sort

of jumping-off place, and were confronted by a startling contrast: we

seemed to look down into fairyland. Two or three thousand feet below us

was a bright green level, with a pretty town in its midst, and a silvery

stream winding among the meadows; the charming spot was walled in on all

sides by gigantic precipices clothed with pines; and over the pines, out

of the softened distances, rose the snowy domes and peaks of the Monte

Rosa region. How exquisitely green and beautiful that little valley down

there was! The distance was not great enough to obliterate details, it

only made them little, and mellow, and dainty, like landscapes and towns

seen 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-baize

bench were a lot of black and white sheep which looked merely like

oversized 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--a

narrow way, with always the solid rock wall at one elbow, and

perpendicular nothingness at the other. We met an everlasting procession

of guides, porters, mules, litters, and tourists climbing up this steep

and muddy path, and there was no room to spare when you had to pass a

tolerably fat mule. I always took the inside, when I heard or saw the

mule coming, and flattened myself against the wall. I preferred the

inside, of course, but I should have had to take it anyhow, because

the mule prefers the outside. A mule's preference--on a precipice--is a

thing to be respected. Well, his choice is always the outside. His life

is mostly devoted to carrying bulky panniers and packages which rest

against his body--therefore he is habituated to taking the outside edge

of mountain paths, to keep his bundles from rubbing against rocks or

banks on the other. When he goes into the passenger business he absurdly

clings to his old habit, and keeps one leg of his passenger always

dangling over the great deeps of the lower world while that passenger's

heart is in the highlands, so to speak. More than once I saw a mule's

hind foot cave over the outer edge and send earth and rubbish into the

bottom abyss; and I noticed that upon these occasions the rider, whether

male or female, looked tolerably unwell.

There was one place where an eighteen-inch breadth of light masonry had

been added to the verge of the path, and as there was a very sharp

turn here, a panel of fencing had been set up there at some time, as

a protection. This panel was old and gray and feeble, and the light

masonry had been loosened by recent rains. A young American girl came

along on a mule, and in making the turn the mule's hind foot caved all

the loose masonry and one of the fence-posts overboard; the mule gave a

violent lurch inboard to save himself, and succeeded in the effort, but

that 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; there

was a four-foot breadth of solid rock under the traveler, and four-foot

breadth of solid rock just above his head, like the roof of a narrow

porch; he could look out from this gallery and see a sheer summitless

and bottomless wall of rock before him, across a gorge or crack a

biscuit's toss in width--but he could not see the bottom of his own

precipice unless he lay down and projected his nose over the edge. I did

not do this, because I did not wish to soil my clothes.

Every few hundred yards, at particularly bad places, one came across

a 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 rash

promises to hold up people who might need support. There was one of

these panels which had only its upper board left; a pedestrianizing

English youth came tearing down the path, was seized with an impulse to

look over the precipice, and without an instant's thought he threw his

weight upon that crazy board. It bent outward a foot! I never made a

gasp before that came so near suffocating me. The English youth's face

simply showed a lively surprise, but nothing more. He went swinging

along valleyward again, as if he did not know he had just swindled a

coroner by the closest kind of a shave.

The Alpine litter is sometimes like a cushioned box made fast between

the middles of two long poles, and sometimes it is a chair with a back

to it and a support for the feet. It is carried by relays of strong

porters. The motion is easier than that of any other conveyance. We met

a few men and a great many ladies in litters; it seemed to me that most

of the ladies looked pale and nauseated; their general aspect gave me

the idea that they were patiently enduring a horrible suffering. As a

rule, they looked at their laps, and left the scenery to take care of

itself.

But the most frightened creature I saw, was a led horse that overtook

us. Poor fellow, he had been born and reared in the grassy levels of the

Kandersteg valley and had never seen anything like this hideous place

before. Every few steps he would stop short, glance wildly out from

the dizzy height, and then spread his red nostrils wide and pant as

violently as if he had been running a race; and all the while he quaked

from head to heel as with a palsy. He was a handsome fellow, and he

made a fine statuesque picture of terror, but it was pitiful to see him

suffer so.

This dreadful path has had its tragedy. Baedeker, with his customary

over terseness, begins and ends the tale thus:

"The descent on horseback should be avoided. In 1861 a Comtesse

d'Herlincourt fell from her saddle over the precipice and was killed on

the spot."

We looked over the precipice there, and saw the monument which

commemorates the event. It stands in the bottom of the gorge, in a place

which has been hollowed out of the rock to protect it from the torrent

and the storms. Our old guide never spoke but when spoken to, and then

limited himself to a syllable or two, but when we asked him about this

tragedy he showed a strong interest in the matter. He said the Countess

was 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 was

riding 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 the

precipice; and her face began to bend downward a little, and she put

up her two hands slowly and met it--so,--and put them flat against her

eyes--so--and then she sank out of the saddle, with a sharp shriek, and

one 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 them

all, 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 he

had forgotten no detail connected with it. We listened to all he had to

say about what was done and what happened and what was said after the

sorrowful occurrence, and a painful story it was.

When we had wound down toward the valley until we were about on the last

spiral of the corkscrew, Harris's hat blew over the last remaining

bit of precipice--a small cliff a hundred or hundred and fifty feet

high--and sailed down toward a steep slant composed of rough chips and

fragments which the weather had flaked away from the precipices. We went

leisurely down there, expecting to find it without any trouble, but we

had made a mistake, as to that. We hunted during a couple of hours--not

because the old straw hat was valuable, but out of curiosity to find

out how such a thing could manage to conceal itself in open ground where

there was nothing left for it to hide behind. When one is reading in

bed, and lays his paper-knife down, he cannot find it again if it is

smaller than a saber; that hat was as stubborn as any paper-knife could

have been, and we finally had to give it up; but we found a fragment

that had once belonged to an opera-glass, and by digging around and

turning over the rocks we gradually collected all the lenses and the

cylinders and the various odds and ends that go to making up a complete

opera-glass. We afterward had the thing reconstructed, and the owner can

have his adventurous lost-property by submitting proofs and paying costs

of rehabilitation. We had hopes of finding the owner there, distributed

around 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 a

day at Leuk and come back and get him.

Then we sat down to polish off the perspiration and arrange about what

we would do with him when we got him. Harris was for contributing him to

the British Museum; but I was for mailing him to his widow. That is the

difference between Harris and me: Harris is all for display, I am all

for the simple right, even though I lose money by it. Harris argued in

favor of his proposition against mine, I argued in favor of mine and

against his. The discussion warmed into a dispute; the dispute warmed

into 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 see

that 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 these

remains. 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 if

I hadn't found their opera-glass. The corpse belongs to me, and I'll do

as I please with him."

I was leader of the Expedition, and all discoveries achieved by it

naturally belonged to me. I was entitled to these remains, and could

have 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 a

barren victory, for although we spent all the next day searching, we

never found a bone. I cannot imagine what could ever have become of that

fellow.

The town in the valley is called Leuk or Leukerbad. We pointed our

course toward it, down a verdant slope which was adorned with fringed

gentians and other flowers, and presently entered the narrow alleys of

the outskirts and waded toward the middle of the town through liquid

"fertilizer." They ought to either pave that village or organize a

ferry.

Harris's body was simply a chamois-pasture; his person was populous with

the little hungry pests; his skin, when he stripped, was splotched like

a scarlet-fever patient's; so, when we were about to enter one of the

Leukerbad inns, and he noticed its sign, "Chamois Hotel," he refused to

stop there. He said the chamois was plentiful enough, without hunting

up hotels where they made a specialty of it. I was indifferent, for the

chamois is a creature that will neither bite me nor abide with me; but

to calm Harris, we went to the Hôtel des Alpes.

At the table d'hôte, we had this, for an incident. A very grave man--in

fact his gravity amounted to solemnity, and almost to austerity--sat

opposite us and he was "tight," but doing his best to appear sober. He

took up a CORKED bottle of wine, tilted it over his glass awhile, then

set it out of the way, with a contented look, and went on with his

dinner.

Presently he put his glass to his mouth, and of course found it empty.

He looked puzzled, and glanced furtively and suspiciously out of the

corner of his eye at a benignant and unconscious old lady who sat at his

right. Shook his head, as much as to say, "No, she couldn't have

done it." He tilted the corked bottle over his glass again, meantime

searching 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 it

was still empty. He bent an injured and accusing side-glance upon that

unconscious old lady, which was a study to see. She went on eating and

gave no sign. He took up his glass and his bottle, with a wise private

nod of his head, and set them gravely on the left-hand side of his

plate--poured himself another imaginary drink--went to work with

his knife and fork once more--presently lifted his glass with good

confidence, and found it empty, as usual.

This was almost a petrifying surprise. He straightened himself up in his

chair and deliberately and sorrowfully inspected the busy old ladies at

his elbows, first one and then the other. At last he softly pushed his

plate away, set his glass directly in front of him, held on to it

with his left hand, and proceeded to pour with his right. This time

he observed that nothing came. He turned the bottle clear upside down;

still nothing issued from it; a plaintive look came into his face, and

he said, as if to himself,

"'IC! THEY'VE GOT IT ALL!" Then he set the bottle down, resignedly, and

took the rest of his dinner dry.

It was at that table d'hôte, too, that I had under inspection the

largest lady I have ever seen in private life. She was over seven feet

high, and magnificently proportioned. What had first called my attention

to 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 attention

to her the second time was, that at a table beyond ours were two very

pretty girls, and this great lady came in and sat down between them and

me and blotted out my view. She had a handsome face, and she was very

finely formed--perfectly formed, I should say. But she made everybody

around her look trivial and commonplace. Ladies near her looked like

children, 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. I

never saw such a back in my life. I would have so liked to see the

moon rise over it. The whole congregation waited, under one pretext or

another, till she finished her dinner and went out; they wanted to see

her at full altitude, and they found it worth tarrying for. She filled

one's idea of what an empress ought to be, when she rose up in her

unapproachable grandeur and moved superbly out of that place.

We were not at Leuk in time to see her at her heaviest weight. She had

suffered from corpulence and had come there to get rid of her extra

flesh in the baths. Five weeks of soaking--five uninterrupted hours of

it every day--had accomplished her purpose and reduced her to the right

proportions.

Those baths remove fat, and also skin-diseases. The patients remain in

the great tanks for hours at a time. A dozen gentlemen and ladies occupy

a tank together, and amuse themselves with rompings and various games.

They have floating desks and tables, and they read or lunch or play

chess in water that is breast-deep. The tourist can step in and view

this novel spectacle if he chooses. There's a poor-box, and he will have

to contribute. There are several of these big bathing-houses, and you

can always tell when you are near one of them by the romping noises and

shouts of laughter that proceed from it. The water is running water, and

changes all the time, else a patient with a ringworm might take the bath

with only a partial success, since, while he was ridding himself of the

ringworm, he might catch the itch.

The next morning we wandered back up the green valley, leisurely, with

the curving walls of those bare and stupendous precipices rising

into the clouds before us. I had never seen a clean, bare precipice

stretching up five thousand feet above me before, and I never shall

expect to see another one. They exist, perhaps, but not in places where

one can easily get close to them. This pile of stone is peculiar. From

its base to the soaring tops of its mighty towers, all its lines and all

its details vaguely suggest human architecture. There are rudimentary

bow-windows, cornices, chimneys, demarcations of stories, etc. One could

sit and stare up there and study the features and exquisite graces of

this grand structure, bit by bit, and day after day, and never weary his

interest. The termination, toward the town, observed in profile, is the

perfection of shape. It comes down out of the clouds in a succession of

rounded, colossal, terracelike projections--a stairway for the gods; at

its head spring several lofty storm-scarred towers, one after another,

with faint films of vapor curling always about them like spectral

banners. If there were a king whose realms included the whole world,

here would be the place meet and proper for such a monarch. He would

only need to hollow it out and put in the electric light. He could give

audience to a nation at a time under its roof.

Our search for those remains having failed, we inspected with a glass

the dim and distant track of an old-time avalanche that once swept down

from some pine-grown summits behind the town and swept away the houses

and buried the people; then we struck down the road that leads toward

the Rhone, to see the famous Ladders. These perilous things are built

against the perpendicular face of a cliff two or three hundred feet

high. The peasants, of both sexes, were climbing up and down them, with

heavy loads on their backs. I ordered Harris to make the ascent, so I

could put the thrill and horror of it in my book, and he accomplished

the feat successfully, through a subagent, for three francs, which I

paid. It makes me shudder yet when I think of what I felt when I was

clinging there between heaven and earth in the person of that proxy. At

times 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 up

and descended, but I stuck to my task, and would not yield until I had

accomplished it. I felt a just pride in my exploit, but I would not have

repeated it for the wealth of the world. I shall break my neck yet with

some such foolhardy performance, for warnings never seem to have any

lasting effect on me. When the people of the hotel found that I had

been climbing those crazy Ladders, it made me an object of considerable

attention.

Next morning, early, we drove to the Rhone valley and took the train for

Visp. There we shouldered our knapsacks and things, and set out on foot,

in a tremendous rain, up the winding gorge, toward Zermatt. Hour after

hour we slopped along, by the roaring torrent, and under noble Lesser

Alps which were clothed in rich velvety green all the way up and

had little atomy Swiss homes perched upon grassy benches along their

mist-dimmed heights.

The rain continued to pour and the torrent to boom, and we continued

to enjoy both. At the one spot where this torrent tossed its white mane

highest, and thundered loudest, and lashed the big boulders fiercest,

the canton had done itself the honor to build the flimsiest wooden

bridge that exists in the world. While we were walking over it, along

with a party of horsemen, I noticed that even the larger raindrops made

it 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 I

thought a good deal of him, I would think twice before I would ride him

over that bridge.

We climbed up to the village of St. Nicholas, about half past four

in the afternoon, waded ankle-deep through the fertilizer-juice, and

stopped at a new and nice hotel close by the little church. We stripped

and went to bed, and sent our clothes down to be baked. And the horde

of soaked tourists did the same. That chaos of clothing got mixed in the

kitchen, and there were consequences.

I did not get back the same drawers I sent down, when our things came up

at six-fifteen; I got a pair on a new plan. They were merely a pair

of white ruffle-cuffed absurdities, hitched together at the top with

a narrow band, and they did not come quite down to my knees. They were

pretty enough, but they made me feel like two people, and disconnected

at that. The man must have been an idiot that got himself up like

that, to rough it in the Swiss mountains. The shirt they brought me

was shorter than the drawers, and hadn't any sleeves to it--at least

it hadn't anything more than what Mr. Darwin would call "rudimentary"

sleeves; these had "edging" around them, but the bosom was ridiculously

plain. The knit silk undershirt they brought me was on a new plan, and

was really a sensible thing; it opened behind, and had pockets in it to

put your shoulder-blades in; but they did not seem to fit mine, and so

I found it a sort of uncomfortable garment. They gave my bobtail coat

to somebody else, and sent me an ulster suitable for a giraffe. I had

to tie my collar on, because there was no button behind on that foolish

little shirt which I described a while ago.

When I was dressed for dinner at six-thirty, I was too loose in some

places and too tight in others, and altogether I felt slovenly and

ill-conditioned. However, the people at the table d'hôte were no better

off than I was; they had everybody's clothes but their own on. A

long stranger recognized his ulster as soon as he saw the tail of it

following me in, but nobody claimed my shirt or my drawers, though I

described them as well as I was able. I gave them to the chambermaid

that night when I went to bed, and she probably found the owner, for my

own things were on a chair outside my door in the morning.

There was a lovable English clergyman who did not get to the table

d'hôte at all. His breeches had turned up missing, and without any

equivalent. He said he was not more particular than other people, but he

had noticed that a clergyman at dinner without any breeches was almost

sure 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 of

Profanity--A Magnificent Glacier--Fault Finding by Harris--Almost

an Accident--Selfishness of Harris--Approaching Zermatt--The

Matterhorn--Zermatt--Home of Mountain Climbers--Fitted out for

Climbing--A Fearful Adventure --Never Satisfied

CHAPTER XXXVII A Calm Decision--"I Will Ascend the

Riffelberg"--Preparations for the Trip--All Zermatt on the

Alert--Schedule of Persons and Things--An Unprecedented Display--A

General Turn--out--Ready for a Start--The Post of Danger--The Advance

Directed--Grand Display of Umbrellas--The First Camp--Almost a

Panic--Supposed to be Lost--The First Accident--A Chaplain Disabled--An

Experimenting Mule--Good Effects of a Blunder--Badly Lost--A

Reconnoiter--Mystery and Doubt--Stern Measures Taken--A Black Ram--Saved

by a Miracle--The Guide's Guide

CHAPTER XXXVIII Our Expedition Continued--Experiments with the

Barometer--Boiling Thermometer--Barometer Soup--An Interesting

Scientific Discovery--Crippling a Latinist--A Chaplain Injured--Short

of Barkeepers--Digging a Mountain Cellar--A Young American

Specimen--Somebody's Grandson--Arrival at Riffelberg Botel--Ascent of

Gorner Grat--Faith in Thermometers--The Matterhorn

CHAPTER XXXIX Guide Books--Plans for the Return of the Expedition--A

Glacier Train--Parachute Descent from Gorner Grat--Proposed Honors

to Harris Declined--All had an Excuse--A Magnificent Idea

Abandoned--Descent to the Glacier--A Supposed Leak--A Slow Train--The

Glacier Abandoned--Journey to Zermatt--A Scientific Question

CHAPTER XL Glaciers--Glacier Perils--Moraines--Terminal

Moraines--Lateral Moraines--Immense Size of Glacier--Traveling

Glacier----General Movements of Glaciers--Ascent of Mont Blacc--Loss

of Guides--Finding of Remains--Meeting of Old Friends--The Dead and

Living--Proposed Museum--The Relics at Chamonix

CHAPTER XLI The Matterhorn Catastrophe of 1563--Mr Whymper's

Narrative--Ascent of the Matterhorn--The Summit--The Matterhorn

Conquered--The Descent Commenced--A Fearful Disaster--Death of Lord

Douglas and Two Others--The Graves of the Two

CHAPTER XLII Switzerland--Graveyard at Zermatt--Balloting for

Marriage--Farmers as Heroes--Falling off a Farm--From St Nicholas to

Visp--Dangerous Traveling--Children's Play--The Parson's Children--A

Landlord's Daughter--A Rare Combination--Ch iIIon--Lost Sympathy--Mont

Blanc and its Neighbors--Beauty of Soap Bubbles--A Wild Drive--The King

of 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 at

four-thirty in the morning, and from the length of time it continued

to ring I judged that it takes the Swiss sinner a good while to get the

invitation through his head. Most church-bells in the world are of poor

quality, and have a harsh and rasping sound which upsets the temper and

produces much sin, but the St. Nicholas bell is a good deal the worst

one that has been contrived yet, and is peculiarly maddening in its

operation. Still, it may have its right and its excuse to exist, for the

community is poor and not every citizen can afford a clock, perhaps; but

there cannot be any excuse for our church-bells at home, for there is

no family in America without a clock, and consequently there is no fair

pretext for the usual Sunday medley of dreadful sounds that issues from

our steeples. There is much more profanity in America on Sunday than in

all in the other six days of the week put together, and it is of a more

bitter and malignant character than the week-day profanity, too. It is

produced by the cracked-pot clangor of the cheap church-bells.

We build our churches almost without regard to cost; we rear an edifice

which is an adornment to the town, and we gild it, and fresco it, and

mortgage it, and do everything we can think of to perfect it, and then

spoil it all by putting a bell on it which afflicts everybody who hears

it, giving some the headache, others St. Vitus's dance, and the rest the

blind staggers.

An American village at ten o'clock on a summer Sunday is the quietest

and peacefulest and holiest thing in nature; but it is a pretty

different thing half an hour later. Mr. Poe's poem of the "Bells" stands

incomplete to this day; but it is well enough that it is so, for the

public reciter or "reader" who goes around trying to imitate the sounds

of the various sorts of bells with his voice would find himself "up a

stump" when he got to the church-bell--as Joseph Addison would say. The

church is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not be

a bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example. It is still

clinging to one or two things which were useful once, but which are

not useful now, neither are they ornamental. One is the bell-ringing

to remind a clock-caked town that it is church-time, and another is the

reading from the pulpit of a tedious list of "notices" which everybody

who is interested has already read in the newspaper. The clergyman even

reads the hymn through--a relic of an ancient time when hymn-books are

scarce and costly; but everybody has a hymn-book, now, and so the public

reading is no longer necessary. It is not merely unnecessary, it is

generally painful; for the average clergyman could not fire into his

congregation with a shotgun and hit a worse reader than himself, unless

the weapon scattered shamefully. I am not meaning to be flippant and

irreverent, I am only meaning to be truthful. The average clergyman, in

all countries and of all denominations, is a very bad reader. One would

think 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 quicker

he got it in, the sooner it would be answered. A person who does not

appreciate the exceeding value of pauses, and does not know how to

measure their duration judiciously, cannot render the grand simplicity

and dignity of a composition like that effectively.

We took a tolerably early breakfast, and tramped off toward Zermatt

through the reeking lanes of the village, glad to get away from that

bell. By and by we had a fine spectacle on our right. It was the

wall-like butt end of a huge glacier, which looked down on us from an

Alpine height which was well up in the blue sky. It was an astonishing

amount of ice to be compacted together in one mass. We ciphered upon it

and decided that it was not less than several hundred feet from the base

of the wall of solid ice to the top of it--Harris believed it was

really twice that. We judged that if St. Paul's, St. Peter's, the Great

Pyramid, the Strasburg Cathedral and the Capitol in Washington were

clustered against that wall, a man sitting on its upper edge could not

hang his hat on the top of any one of them without reaching down three

or four hundred feet--a thing which, of course, no man could do.

To me, that mighty glacier was very beautiful. I did not imagine that

anybody could find fault with it; but I was mistaken. Harris had been

snarling for several days. He was a rabid Protestant, and he was always

saying:

"In the Protestant cantons you never see such poverty and dirt and

squalor as you do in this Catholic one; you never see the lanes and

alleys flowing with foulness; you never see such wretched little sties

of houses; you never see an inverted tin turnip on top of a church for

a dome; and as for a church-bell, why, you never hear a church-bell at

all."

All this morning he had been finding fault, straight along. First it was

with the mud. He said, "It ain't muddy in a Protestant canton when it

rains." Then it was with the dogs: "They don't have those lop-eared dogs

in a Protestant canton." Then it was with the roads: "They don't leave

the roads to make themselves in a Protestant canton, the people make

them--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 the

chamois: "You never see a Protestant chamois act like one of these--they

take 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 get

lost if you wanted to, but you never see a guide-board in a Catholic

canton." Next, "You never see any flower-boxes in the windows,

here--never anything but now and then a cat--a torpid one; but you take

a Protestant canton: windows perfectly lovely with flowers--and as for

cats, there's just acres of them. These folks in this canton leave a

road to make itself, and then fine you three francs if you 'trot' over

it--as if a horse could trot over such a sarcasm of a road." Next about

the goiter: "THEY talk about goiter!--I haven't seen a goiter in this

whole canton that I couldn't put in a hat."

He had growled at everything, but I judged it would puzzle him to find

anything the matter with this majestic glacier. I intimated as much; but

he was ready, and said with surly discontent: "You ought to see them in

the 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 any

care 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 Rhone

glacier. It is fifteen miles long, and seven hundred feet thick. If this

was a Protestant glacier you wouldn't see it looking like this, I can

tell 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 it

go; for it is a waste of breath to argue with a bigot. I even doubted if

the Rhone glacier WAS in a Protestant canton; but I did not know, so I

could not make anything by contradicting a man who would probably put me

down at once with manufactured evidence.

About nine miles from St. Nicholas we crossed a bridge over the raging

torrent of the Visp, and came to a log strip of flimsy fencing which

was pretending to secure people from tumbling over a perpendicular wall

forty feet high and into the river. Three children were approaching; one

of them, a little girl, about eight years old, was running; when pretty

close to us she stumbled and fell, and her feet shot under the rail of

the fence and for a moment projected over the stream. It gave us a

sharp shock, for we thought she was gone, sure, for the ground slanted

steeply, and to save herself seemed a sheer impossibility; but she

managed to scramble up, and ran by us laughing.

We went forward and examined the place and saw the long tracks which her

feet had made in the dirt when they darted over the verge. If she had

finished her trip she would have struck some big rocks in the edge of

the water, and then the torrent would have snatched her downstream among

the half-covered boulders and she would have been pounded to pulp in two

minutes. We had come exceedingly near witnessing her death.

And now Harris's contrary nature and inborn selfishness were strikingly

manifested. He has no spirit of self-denial. He began straight off, and

continued for an hour, to express his gratitude that the child was not

destroyed. 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. I

had noticed that trait in him, over and over again. Often, of course, it

was mere heedlessness, mere want of reflection. Doubtless this may have

been the case in most instances, but it was not the less hard to bar

on that account--and after all, its bottom, its groundwork, was

selfishness. There is no avoiding that conclusion. In the instance under

consideration, I did think the indecency of running on in that way might

occur to him; but no, the child was saved and he was glad, that was

sufficient--he cared not a straw for MY feelings, or my loss of such a

literary plum, snatched from my very mouth at the instant it was

ready to drop into it. His selfishness was sufficient to place his own

gratification in being spared suffering clear before all concern for

me, his friend. Apparently, he did not once reflect upon the valuable

details which would have fallen like a windfall to me: fishing the child

out--witnessing the surprise of the family and the stir the thing would

have made among the peasants--then a Swiss funeral--then the roadside

monument, to be paid for by us and have our names mentioned in it. And

we should have gone into Baedeker and been immortal. I was silent. I was

too much hurt to complain. If he could act so, and be so heedless and so

frivolous at such a time, and actually seem to glory in it, after all

I had done for him, I would have cut my hand off before I would let him

see that I was wounded.

We were approaching Zermatt; consequently, we were approaching the

renowned Matterhorn. A month before, this mountain had been only a name

to us, but latterly we had been moving through a steadily thickening

double row of pictures of it, done in oil, water, chromo, wood, steel,

copper, crayon, and photography, and so it had at length become a shape

to us--and a very distinct, decided, and familiar one, too. We were

expecting to recognize that mountain whenever or wherever we should run

across it. We were not deceived. The monarch was far away when we first

saw him, but there was no such thing as mistaking him. He has the rare

peculiarity of standing by himself; he is peculiarly steep, too, and is

also 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 broad

base of this monster wedge is planted upon a grand glacier-paved Alpine

platform whose elevation is ten thousand feet above sea-level; as the

wedge itself is some five thousand feet high, it follows that its apex

is about fifteen thousand feet above sea-level. So the whole bulk of

this stately piece of rock, this sky-cleaving monolith, is above the

line of eternal snow. Yet while all its giant neighbors have the look of

being built of solid snow, from their waists up, the Matterhorn stands

black and naked and forbidding, the year round, or merely powdered or

streaked with white in places, for its sides are so steep that the

snow cannot stay there. Its strange form, its august isolation, and its

majestic unkinship with its own kind, make it--so to speak--the Napoleon

of the mountain world. "Grand, gloomy, and peculiar," is a phrase which

fits 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, for

all time, will be to keep watch and ward over the secret resting-place

of the young Lord Douglas, who, in 1865, was precipitated from the

summit over a precipice four thousand feet high, and never seen again.

No man ever had such a monument as this before; the most imposing of

the world's other monuments are but atoms compared to it; and they will

perish, and their places will pass from memory, but this will remain.

[The accident which cost Lord Douglas his life (see Chapter xii) also

cost the lives of three other men. These three fell four-fifths of a

mile, and their bodies were afterward found, lying side by side, upon a

glacier, whence they were borne to Zermatt and buried in the churchyard.

The remains of Lord Douglas have never been found. The secret of his

sepulture, like that of Moses, must remain a mystery always.]

A walk from St. Nicholas to Zermatt is a wonderful experience. Nature

is built on a stupendous plan in that region. One marches continually

between walls that are piled into the skies, with their upper heights

broken into a confusion of sublime shapes that gleam white and cold

against the background of blue; and here and there one sees a big

glacier displaying its grandeurs on the top of a precipice, or a

graceful cascade leaping and flashing down the green declivities. There

is nothing tame, or cheap, or trivial--it is all magnificent. That

short valley is a picture-gallery of a notable kind, for it contains

no mediocrities; from end to end the Creator has hung it with His

masterpieces.

We made Zermatt at three in the afternoon, nine hours out from

St. Nicholas. Distance, by guide-book, twelve miles; by pedometer

seventy-two. We were in the heart and home of the mountain-climbers,

now, as all visible things testified. The snow-peaks did not hold

themselves aloof, in aristocratic reserve; they nestled close around,

in a friendly, sociable way; guides, with the ropes and axes and other

implements of their fearful calling slung about their persons, roosted

in a long line upon a stone wall in front of the hotel, and waited for

customers; sun-burnt climbers, in mountaineering costume, and followed

by their guides and porters, arrived from time to time, from breakneck

expeditions among the peaks and glaciers of the High Alps; male and

female tourists, on mules, filed by, in a continuous procession,

hotelward-bound from wild adventures which would grow in grandeur every

time they were described at the English or American fireside, and at

last outgrow the possible itself.

We were not dreaming; this was not a make-believe home of the

Alp-climber, created by our heated imaginations; no, for here was Mr.

Girdlestone himself, the famous Englishman who hunts his way to the most

formidable Alpine summits without a guide. I was not equal to imagining

a Girdlestone; it was all I could do to even realize him, while looking

straight at him at short range. I would rather face whole Hyde Parks of

artillery than the ghastly forms of death which he has faced among the

peaks and precipices of the mountains. There is probably no pleasure

equal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasure

which is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it. I have

not 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 am

right. A born climber's appetite for climbing is hard to satisfy; when

it comes upon him he is like a starving man with a feast before him; he

may have other business on hand, but it must wait. Mr. Girdlestone had

had his usual summer holiday in the Alps, and had spent it in his usual

way, hunting for unique chances to break his neck; his vacation was

over, and his luggage packed for England, but all of a sudden a hunger

had come upon him to climb the tremendous Weisshorn once more, for he

had heard of a new and utterly impossible route up it. His baggage

was 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, and

get up at two in the morning and finish the enterprise. I had a

strong 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 days

before our arrival, and she and her guides had lost their way in a

snow-storm high up among the peaks and glaciers and been forced to

wander around a good while before they could find a way down. When this

lady reached the bottom, she had been on her feet twenty-three hours!

Our guides, hired on the Gemmi, were already at Zermatt when we

reached there. So there was nothing to interfere with our getting up an

adventure whenever we should choose the time and the object. I resolved

to devote my first evening in Zermatt to studying up the subject of

Alpine climbing, by way of preparation.

I read several books, and here are some of the things I found out. One's

shoes must be strong and heavy, and have pointed hobnails in them. The

alpenstock must be of the best wood, for if it should break, loss of

life might be the result. One should carry an ax, to cut steps in the

ice with, on the great heights. There must be a ladder, for there are

steep bits of rock which can be surmounted with this instrument--or this

utensil--but could not be surmounted without it; such an obstruction

has compelled the tourist to waste hours hunting another route, when a

ladder would have saved him all trouble. One must have from one hundred

and fifty to five hundred feet of strong rope, to be used in lowering

the party down steep declivities which are too steep and smooth to

be traversed in any other way. One must have a steel hook, on another

rope--a very useful thing; for when one is ascending and comes to a low

bluff which is yet too high for the ladder, he swings this rope aloft

like a lasso, the hook catches at the top of the bluff, and then the

tourist climbs the rope, hand over hand--being always particular to try

and forget that if the hook gives way he will never stop falling till

he arrives in some part of Switzerland where they are not expecting him.

Another important thing--there must be a rope to tie the whole party

together with, so that if one falls from a mountain or down a bottomless

chasm 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, hail

and gale, and colored goggles to protect his eyes from that dangerous

enemy, snow-blindness. Finally, there must be some porters, to carry

provisions, wine and scientific instruments, and also blanket bags for

the party to sleep in.

I closed my readings with a fearful adventure which Mr. Whymper once had

on the Matterhorn when he was prowling around alone, five thousand

feet above the town of Breil. He was edging his way gingerly around

the corner of a precipice where the upper edge of a sharp declivity of

ice-glazed snow joined it. This declivity swept down a couple of hundred

feet, into a gully which curved around and ended at a precipice eight

hundred 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 rocks

about a dozen feet below; they caught something, and tumbled me off

the edge, head over heels, into the gully; the baton was dashed from my

hands, and I whirled downward in a series of bounds, each longer than

the last; now over ice, now into rocks, striking my head four or five

times, each time with increased force. The last bound sent me spinning

through the air in a leap of fifty or sixty feet, from one side of the

gully to the other, and I struck the rocks, luckily, with the whole of

my left side. They caught my clothes for a moment, and I fell back on to

the snow with motion arrested. My head fortunately came the right side

up, and a few frantic catches brought me to a halt, in the neck of the

gully and on the verge of the precipice. Baton, hat, and veil skimmed

by and disappeared, and the crash of the rocks--which I had started--as

they fell on to the glacier, told how narrow had been the escape from

utter destruction. As it was, I fell nearly two hundred feet in seven or

eight bounds. Ten feet more would have taken me in one gigantic leap of

eight hundred feet on to the glacier below.

"The situation was sufficiently serious. The rocks could not be let go

for 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 close

them 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 a

moment of inspiration, I kicked out a big lump of snow and struck it

as plaster on my head. The idea was a happy one, and the flow of blood

diminished. Then, scrambling up, I got, not a moment too soon, to

a place of safety, and fainted away. The sun was setting when

consciousness returned, and it was pitch-dark before the Great Staircase

was descended; but by a combination of luck and care, the whole four

thousand seven hundred feet of descent to Breil was accomplished without

a slip, or once missing the way."

His wounds kept him abed some days. Then he got up and climbed that

mountain again. That is the way with a true Alp-climber; the more fun he

has, 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 adventures

I had been following my authors through, and the triumphs I had been

sharing with them. I sat silent some time, then turned to Harris and

said:

"My mind is made up."

Something in my tone struck him: and when he glanced at my eye and

read what was written there, his face paled perceptibly. He hesitated a

moment, 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 chair

more suddenly. If I had been his father he could not have pleaded harder

to 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, he

ceased to urge, and for a while the deep silence was broken only by his

sobs. I sat in marble resolution, with my eyes fixed upon vacancy, for

in spirit I was already wrestling with the perils of the mountains, and

my friend sat gazing at me in adoring admiration through his tears.

At last he threw himself upon me in a loving embrace and exclaimed in

broken tones:

"Your Harris will never desert you. We will die together."

I cheered the noble fellow with praises, and soon his fears were

forgotten and he was eager for the adventure. He wanted to summon the

guides at once and leave at two in the morning, as he supposed the

custom was; but I explained that nobody was looking at that hour; and

that the start in the dark was not usually made from the village but

from the first night's resting-place on the mountain side. I said we

would leave the village at 3 or 4 P.M. on the morrow; meantime he could

notify the guides, and also let the public know of the attempt which we

proposed to make.

I went to bed, but not to sleep. No man can sleep when he is about to

undertake one of these Alpine exploits. I tossed feverishly all night

long, and was glad enough when I heard the clock strike half past eleven

and knew it was time to get up for dinner. I rose, jaded and rusty, and

went to the noon meal, where I found myself the center of interest and

curiosity; for the news was already abroad. It is not easy to eat calmly

when 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 up

a good position to observe the start. The expedition consisted of 198

persons, 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 was

entirely ready. At that hour it began to move. In point of numbers and

spectacular effect, it was the most imposing expedition that had ever

marched from Zermatt.

I commanded the chief guide to arrange the men and animals in single

file, twelve feet apart, and lash them all together on a strong rope. He

objected 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. But

I would not listen to that. My reading had taught me that many serious

accidents had happened in the Alps simply from not having the people

tied up soon enough; I was not going to add one to the list. The guide

then obeyed my order.

When the procession stood at ease, roped together, and ready to move, I

never saw a finer sight. It was 3,122 feet long--over half a mile; every

man 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 shoulder

and under the other, and his ice-ax in his belt, and carried his

alpenstock in his left hand, his umbrella (closed) in his right, and his

crutches slung at his back. The burdens of the pack-mules and the horns

of 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 of

danger in the extreme rear, and tied securely to five guides apiece. Our

armor-bearers carried our ice-axes, alpenstocks, and other implements

for 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 let

the donkey walk from under. Still, I cannot recommend this sort of

animal--at least for excursions of mere pleasure--because his

ears interrupt the view. I and my agent possessed the regulation

mountaineering costumes, but concluded to leave them behind. Out of

respect for the great numbers of tourists of both sexes who would be

assembled in front of the hotels to see us pass, and also out of respect

for 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 trough

near the end of the village, and soon afterward left the haunts of

civilization behind us. About half past five o'clock we arrived at a

bridge which spans the Visp, and after throwing over a detachment to see

if it was safe, the caravan crossed without accident. The way now led,

by a gentle ascent, carpeted with fresh green grass, to the church at

Winkelmatten. Without stopping to examine this edifice, I executed

a flank movement to the right and crossed the bridge over the

Findelenbach, after first testing its strength. Here I deployed to the

right again, and presently entered an inviting stretch of meadowland

which was unoccupied save by a couple of deserted huts toward the

furthest extremity. These meadows offered an excellent camping-place.

We pitched our tents, supped, established a proper grade, recorded the

events of the day, and then went to bed.

We rose at two in the morning and dressed by candle-light. It was a

dismal and chilly business. A few stars were shining, but the general

heavens were overcast, and the great shaft of the Matterhorn was draped

in a cable pall of clouds. The chief guide advised a delay; he said he

feared it was going to rain. We waited until nine o'clock, and then got

away in tolerably clear weather.

Our course led up some terrific steeps, densely wooded with larches and

cedars, and traversed by paths which the rains had guttered and which

were obstructed by loose stones. To add to the danger and inconvenience,

we were constantly meeting returning tourists on foot and horseback, and

as constantly being crowded and battered by ascending tourists who were

in a hurry and wanted to get by.

Our troubles thickened. About the middle of the afternoon the seventeen

guides called a halt and held a consultation. After consulting an hour

they said their first suspicion remained intact--that is to say, they

believed 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, because

none of them had ever been in that part of the country before. They had

a strong instinct that they were lost, but they had no proofs--except

that they did not know where they were. They had met no tourists for

some time, and they considered that a suspicious sign.

Plainly we were in an ugly fix. The guides were naturally unwilling to

go 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 was

very dense. We did not move up the mountain, but around it, hoping to

strike across the old trail. Toward nightfall, when we were about tired

out, we came up against a rock as big as a cottage. This barrier took

all the remaining spirit out of the men, and a panic of fear and despair

ensued. They moaned and wept, and said they should never see their homes

and their dear ones again. Then they began to upbraid me for bringing

them 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 I

said that other Alp-climbers had been in as perilous a position as this,

and yet by courage and perseverance had escaped. I promised to stand

by them, I promised to rescue them. I closed by saying we had plenty

of provisions to maintain us for quite a siege--and did they suppose

Zermatt would allow half a mile of men and mules to mysteriously

disappear during any considerable time, right above their noses, and

make no inquiries? No, Zermatt would send out searching-expeditions and

we should be saved.

This speech had a great effect. The men pitched the tents with some

little show of cheerfulness, and we were snugly under cover when the

night shut down. I now reaped the reward of my wisdom in providing one

article which is not mentioned in any book of Alpine adventure but this.

I refer to the paregoric. But for that beneficent drug, would have not

one of those men slept a moment during that fearful night. But for that

gentle persuader they must have tossed, unsoothed, the night through;

for the whiskey was for me. Yes, they would have risen in the morning

unfitted for their heavy task. As it was, everybody slept but my agent

and me--only we and the barkeepers. I would not permit myself to sleep

at such a time. I considered myself responsible for all those lives. I

meant to be on hand and ready, in case of avalanches up there, but I did

not know it then.

We watched the weather all through that awful night, and kept an eye on

the barometer, to be prepared for the least change. There was not the

slightest change recorded by the instrument, during the whole time.

Words cannot describe the comfort that that friendly, hopeful, steadfast

thing 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 know

that until afterward. If I should be in such a situation again, I should

not wish for any barometer but that one.

All hands rose at two in the morning and took breakfast, and as soon as

it was light we roped ourselves together and went at that rock. For some

time we tried the hook-rope and other means of scaling it, but without

success--that is, without perfect success. The hook caught once, and

Harris started up it hand over hand, but the hold broke and if there

had not happened to be a chaplain sitting underneath at the time, Harris

would certainly have been crippled. As it was, it was the chaplain. He

took to his crutches, and I ordered the hook-rope to be laid aside. It

was 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 tied

together in couples. Another ladder was sent up for use in descending.

At the end of half an hour everybody was over, and that rock was

conquered. We gave our first grand shout of triumph. But the joy was

short-lived, for somebody asked how we were going to get the animals

over.

This was a serious difficulty; in fact, it was an impossibility.

The courage of the men began to waver immediately; once more we were

threatened with a panic. But when the danger was most imminent, we were

saved in a mysterious way. A mule which had attracted attention from the

beginning by its disposition to experiment, tried to eat a five-pound

can of nitroglycerin. This happened right alongside the rock. The

explosion threw us all to the ground, and covered us with dirt and

debris; it frightened us extremely, too, for the crash it made was

deafening, and the violence of the shock made the ground tremble.

However, we were grateful, for the rock was gone. Its place was occupied

by a new cellar, about thirty feet across, by fifteen feet deep. The

explosion was heard as far as Zermatt; and an hour and a half afterward,

many citizens of that town were knocked down and quite seriously injured

by descending portions of mule meat, frozen solid. This shows, better

than 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 and

trim them for piers to support the bridge. This was a slow business, for

ice-axes are not good to cut wood with. I caused my piers to be firmly

set up in ranks in the cellar, and upon them I laid six of my forty-foot

ladders, side by side, and laid six more on top of them. Upon this

bridge I caused a bed of boughs to be spread, and on top of the boughs

a bed of earth six inches deep. I stretched ropes upon either side to

serve as railings, and then my bridge was complete. A train of elephants

could have crossed it in safety and comfort. By nightfall the caravan

was on the other side and the ladders were taken up.

Next morning we went on in good spirits for a while, though our way

was slow and difficult, by reason of the steep and rocky nature of the

ground and the thickness of the forest; but at last a dull despondency

crept into the men's faces and it was apparent that not only they, but

even the guides, were now convinced that we were lost. The fact that we

still met no tourists was a circumstance that was but too significant.

Another thing seemed to suggest that we were not only lost, but very

badly lost; for there must surely be searching-parties on the road

before 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 one

now which commended itself to all, for it promised well. I took

three-quarters of a mile of rope and fastened one end of it around the

waist of a guide, and told him to go find the road, while the caravan

waited. I instructed him to guide himself back by the rope, in case of

failure; in case of success, he was to give the rope a series of violent

jerks, whereupon the Expedition would go to him at once. He departed,

and in two minutes had disappeared among the trees. I payed out the rope

myself, while everybody watched the crawling thing with eager eyes.

The rope crept away quite slowly, at times, at other times with some

briskness. Twice or thrice we seemed to get the signal, and a shout was

just ready to break from the men's lips when they perceived it was a

false alarm. But at last, when over half a mile of rope had slidden

away, it stopped gliding and stood absolutely still--one minute--two

minutes--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 from

excess of fatigue and anxiety?

This thought gave us a shock. I was in the very first act of detailing

an Expedition to succor him, when the cord was assailed with a series of

such frantic jerks that I could hardly keep hold of it. The huzza that

went up, then, was good to hear. "Saved! saved!" was the word that rang

out, all down the long rank of the caravan.

We rose up and started at once. We found the route to be good enough

for a while, but it began to grow difficult, by and by, and this feature

steadily increased. When we judged we had gone half a mile, we momently

expected to see the guide; but no, he was not visible anywhere; neither

was he waiting, for the rope was still moving, consequently he was

doing the same. This argued that he had not found the road, yet, but

was marching to it with some peasant. There was nothing for us to do

but plod along--and this we did. At the end of three hours we were

still plodding. This was not only mysterious, but exasperating. And very

fatiguing, too; for we had tried hard, along at first, to catch up with

the guide, but had only fagged ourselves, in vain; for although he was

traveling slowly he was yet able to go faster than the hampered caravan

over such ground.

At three in the afternoon we were nearly dead with exhaustion--and still

the rope was slowly gliding out. The murmurs against the guide had been

growing steadily, and at last they were become loud and savage. A mutiny

ensued. The men refused to proceed. They declared that we had been

traveling 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 to

halt the guide until we could overtake him and kill him. This was not an

unreasonable requirement, so I gave the order.

As soon as the rope was tied, the Expedition moved forward with that

alacrity which the thirst for vengeance usually inspires. But after a

tiresome march of almost half a mile, we came to a hill covered thick

with a crumbly rubbish of stones, and so steep that no man of us all

was now in a condition to climb it. Every attempt failed, and ended in

crippling somebody. Within twenty minutes I had five men on crutches.

Whenever a climber tried to assist himself by the rope, it yielded and

let him tumble backward. The frequency of this result suggested an idea

to me. I ordered the caravan to 'bout face and form in marching order; I

then 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 a

battle-chant, and I said to myself, "Now, if the rope don't break I

judge THIS will fetch that guide into the camp." I watched the rope

gliding down the hill, and presently when I was all fixed for triumph

I was confronted by a bitter disappointment; there was no guide tied to

the rope, it was only a very indignant old black ram. The fury of the

baffled Expedition exceeded all bounds. They even wanted to wreak their

unreasoning vengeance on this innocent dumb brute. But I stood between

them and their prey, menaced by a bristling wall of ice-axes and

alpenstocks, 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 doom

was sealed, except a miracle supervened to divert these madmen from

their fell purpose. I see the sickening wall of weapons now; I see that

advancing host as I saw it then, I see the hate in those cruel eyes; I

remember how I drooped my head upon my breast, I feel again the

sudden earthquake shock in my rear, administered by the very ram I was

sacrificing myself to save; I hear once more the typhoon of laughter

that burst from the assaulting column as I clove it from van to rear

like a Sepoy shot from a Rodman gun.

I was saved. Yes, I was saved, and by the merciful instinct of

ingratitude which nature had planted in the breast of that treacherous

beast. The grace which eloquence had failed to work in those men's

hearts, had been wrought by a laugh. The ram was set free and my life

was spared.

We lived to find out that that guide had deserted us as soon as he had

placed a half-mile between himself and us. To avert suspicion, he had

judged it best that the line should continue to move; so he caught that

ram, and at the time that he was sitting on it making the rope fast to

it, we were imagining that he was lying in a swoon, overcome by fatigue

and distress. When he allowed the ram to get up it fell to plunging

around, trying to rid itself of the rope, and this was the signal which

we had risen up with glad shouts to obey. We had followed this ram round

and round in a circle all day--a thing which was proven by the discovery

that we had watered the Expedition seven times at one and same spring in

seven hours. As expert a woodman as I am, I had somehow failed to notice

this until my attention was called to it by a hog. This hog was always

wallowing there, and as he was the only hog we saw, his frequent

repetition, together with his unvarying similarity to himself, finally

caused me to reflect that he must be the same hog, and this led me to

the deduction that this must be the same spring, also--which indeed it

was.

I made a note of this curious thing, as showing in a striking manner the

relative difference between glacial action and the action of the hog.

It is now a well-established fact that glaciers move; I consider that

my observations go to show, with equal conclusiveness, that a hog in a

spring does not move. I shall be glad to receive the opinions of other

observers upon this point.

To return, for an explanatory moment, to that guide, and then I shall be

done with him. After leaving the ram tied to the rope, he had wandered

at large a while, and then happened to run across a cow. Judging that a

cow would naturally know more than a guide, he took her by the tail,

and the result justified his judgment. She nibbled her leisurely way

downhill till it was near milking-time, then she struck for home and

towed 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 was

forgotten in the cheer of a good supper, and before the reaction had a

chance 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 and

trying to think of a remedy, when Harris came to me with a Baedeker

map which showed conclusively that the mountain we were on was still in

Switzerland--yes, every part of it was in Switzerland. So we were not

lost, after all. This was an immense relief; it lifted the weight of two

such mountains from my breast. I immediately had the news disseminated

and the map was exhibited. The effect was wonderful. As soon as the men

saw with their own eyes that they knew where they were, and that it

was only the summit that was lost and not themselves, they cheered up

instantly 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 camp

and give the scientific department of the Expedition a chance. First,

I made a barometric observation, to get our altitude, but I could not

perceive that there was any result. I knew, by my scientific reading,

that either thermometers or barometers ought to be boiled, to make them

accurate; I did not know which it was, so I boiled them both. There was

still no result; so I examined these instruments and discovered that

they possessed radical blemishes: the barometer had no hand but the

brass 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 half

an hour in a pot of bean soup which the cooks were making. The result

was unexpected: the instrument was not affecting at all, but there was

such a strong barometer taste to the soup that the head cook, who was

a 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 have

barometer soup every day.

It was believed that the barometer might eventually be injured, but I

did not care for that. I had demonstrated to my satisfaction that it

could not tell how high a mountain was, therefore I had no real use for

it. Changes in the weather I could take care of without it; I did not

wish to know when the weather was going to be good, what I wanted to

know was when it was going to be bad, and this I could find out from

Harris's corns. Harris had had his corns tested and regulated at the

government observatory in Heidelberg, and one could depend upon them

with confidence. So I transferred the new barometer to the cooking

department, to be used for the official mess. It was found that even a

pretty 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; the

mercury went up to about 200 degrees Fahrenheit. In the opinion of the

other scientists of the Expedition, this seemed to indicate that we had

attained the extraordinary altitude of two hundred thousand feet above

sea-level. Science places the line of eternal snow at about ten thousand

feet above sea-level. There was no snow where we were, consequently

it was proven that the eternal snow-line ceases somewhere above the

ten-thousand-foot level and does not begin any more. This was an

interesting fact, and one which had not been observed by any observer

before. It was as valuable as interesting, too, since it would open up

the 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 pang

to reflect that but for that ram we might just as well have been two

hundred thousand feet higher.

The success of my last experiment induced me to try an experiment with

my 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 I

could 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 not

impair his usefulness. But I was not allowed to proceed. Guides have

no feeling for science, and this one would not consent to be made

uncomfortable in its interest.

In the midst of my scientific work, one of those needless accidents

happened 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 well

performed on crutches as otherwise--but the fact remained that if the

Latinist had not happened to be in the way a mule would have got that

load. That would have been quite another matter, for when it comes down

to a question of value there is a palpable difference between a Latinist

and a mule. I could not depend on having a Latinist in the right place

every time; so, to make things safe, I ordered that in the future the

chamois must not be hunted within limits of the camp with any other

weapon than the forefinger.

My nerves had hardly grown quiet after this affair when they got another

shake-up--one which utterly unmanned me for a moment: a rumor swept

suddenly through the camp that one of the barkeepers had fallen over a

precipice!

However, it turned out that it was only a chaplain. I had laid in an

extra force of chaplains, purposely to be prepared for emergencies

like this, but by some unaccountable oversight had come away rather

short-handed in the matter of barkeepers.

On the following morning we moved on, well refreshed and in good

spirits. I remember this day with peculiar pleasure, because it saw

our road restored to us. Yes, we found our road again, and in quite an

extraordinary way. We had plodded along some two hours and a half, when

we came up against a solid mass of rock about twenty feet high. I did

not need to be instructed by a mule this time. I was already beginning

to know more than any mule in the Expedition. I at once put in a blast

of dynamite, and lifted that rock out of the way. But to my surprise and

mortification, 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, and

subordinates of my corps collected the rest. None of these poor people

were injured, happily, but they were much annoyed. I explained to

the head chaleteer just how the thing happened, and that I was only

searching for the road, and would certainly have given him timely notice

if I had known he was up there. I said I had meant no harm, and hoped

I had not lowered myself in his estimation by raising him a few rods in

the air. I said many other judicious things, and finally when I offered

to rebuild his chalet, and pay for the breakages, and throw in the

cellar, 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 he

had lost in view he had gained in cellar, by exact measurement. He said

there wasn't another hole like that in the mountains--and he would have

been 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 chalet

from its own debris in fifteen minutes. It was a good deal more

picturesque than it was before, too. The man said we were now on the

Feil-Stutz, above the Schwegmatt--information which I was glad to get,

since it gave us our position to a degree of particularity which we had

not been accustomed to for a day or so. We also learned that we were

standing at the foot of the Riffelberg proper, and that the initial

chapter of our work was completed.

We had a fine view, from here, of the energetic Visp, as it makes its

first plunge into the world from under a huge arch of solid ice, worn

through the foot-wall of the great Gorner Glacier; and we could also see

the Furggenbach, which is the outlet of the Furggen Glacier.

The mule-road to the summit of the Riffelberg passed right in front of

the chalet, a circumstance which we almost immediately noticed, because

a 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 to

tourists. My blast had interrupted this trade for a few minutes, by

breaking all the bottles on the place; but I gave the man a lot of

whiskey to sell for Alpine champagne, and a lot of vinegar which would

answer for Rhine wine, consequently trade was soon as brisk as ever.

Leaving the Expedition outside to rest, I quartered myself in the

chalet, with Harris, proposing to correct my journals and scientific

observations before continuing the ascent. I had hardly begun my work

when a tall, slender, vigorous American youth of about twenty-three, who

was on his way down the mountain, entered and came toward me with that

breezy self-complacency which is the adolescent's idea of the well-bred

ease of the man of the world. His hair was short and parted accurately

in the middle, and he had all the look of an American person who would

be likely to begin his signature with an initial, and spell his middle

name out. He introduced himself, smiling a smirky smile borrowed from

the courtiers of the stage, extended a fair-skinned talon, and while he

gripped my hand in it he bent his body forward three times at the

hips, as the stage courtier does, and said in the airiest and most

condescending and patronizing way--I quite remember his exact language:

"Very glad to make your acquaintance, 'm sure; very glad indeed, assure

you. I've read all your little efforts and greatly admired them, and

when I heard you were here, I ..."

I indicated a chair, and he sat down. This grandee was the grandson of

an American of considerable note in his day, and not wholly forgotten

yet--a man who came so near being a great man that he was quite

generally accounted one while he lived.

I slowly paced the floor, pondering scientific problems, and heard this

conversation:

GRANDSON. First visit to Europe?

HARRIS. Mine? Yes.

G.S. (With a soft reminiscent sigh suggestive of bygone joys that may

be tasted in their freshness but once.) Ah, I know what it is to you. A

first 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 callow

enthusiasms, good friend.") Yes, I know, I know; you go to cathedrals,

and exclaim; and you drag through league-long picture-galleries and

exclaim; and you stand here, and there, and yonder, upon historic

ground, and continue to exclaim; and you are permeated with your first

crude conceptions of Art, and are proud and happy. Ah, yes, proud and

happy--that expresses it. Yes-yes, enjoy it--it is right--it is an

innocent 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 a

traveler as I am, you will not ask such a question as that. I visit

the regulation gallery, moon around the regulation cathedral, do the

worn 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 the

herd. Today I am in Paris, tomorrow in Berlin, anon in Rome; but you

would look for me in vain in the galleries of the Louvre or the common

resorts of the gazers in those other capitals. If you would find me, you

must look in the unvisited nooks and corners where others never think

of going. One day you will find me making myself at home in some obscure

peasant's cabin, another day you will find me in some forgotten castle

worshiping some little gem or art which the careless eye has overlooked

and which the unexperienced would despise; again you will find me as

guest in the inner sanctuaries of palaces while the herd is content to

get 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. I

have only to utter that name and every door is open to me. I flit from

court 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 your

relatives. I know every titled person in Europe, I think. I have my

pockets full of invitations all the time. I am under promise to go to

Italy, where I am to be the guest of a succession of the noblest houses

in the land. In Berlin my life is a continued round of gaiety in the

imperial palace. It is the same, wherever I go.

H. It must be very pleasant. But it must make Boston seem a little slow

when you are at home.

G.S. Yes, of course it does. But I don't go home much. There's no life

there--little to feed a man's higher nature. Boston's very narrow, you

know. She doesn't know it, and you couldn't convince her of it--so I say

nothing when I'm there: where's the use? Yes, Boston is very narrow, but

she has such a good opinion of herself that she can't see it. A man who

has traveled as much as I have, and seen as much of the world, sees it

plain enough, but he can't cure it, you know, so the best is to leave it

and 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 important

on 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 the

inclination of the day. I am limited by no ties, no requirements, I

am not bound in any way. I am too old a traveler to hamper myself with

deliberate purposes. I am simply a traveler--an inveterate traveler--a

man of the world, in a word--I can call myself by no other name. I do

not say, "I am going here, or I am going there"--I say nothing at all, I

only act. For instance, next week you may find me the guest of a grandee

of 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 be

surprised to learn that I'm away off yonder in India somewhere. I am

a constant surprise to people. They are always saying, "Yes, he was

in Jerusalem when we heard of him last, but goodness knows where he is

now."

Presently the Grandson rose to leave--discovered he had an appointment

with some Emperor, perhaps. He did his graces over again: gripped me

with one talon, at arm's-length, pressed his hat against his stomach

with 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 to

have a grandfather.

I have not purposed to misrepresent this boy in any way, for what little

indignation he excited in me soon passed and left nothing behind it but

compassion. One cannot keep up a grudge against a vacuum. I have tried

to repeat this lad's very words; if I have failed anywhere I have at

least 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 most

unique and interesting specimens of Young America I came across

during my foreign tramping. I have made honest portraits of them, not

caricatures.

The Grandson of twenty-three referred to himself five or six times as

an "old traveler," and as many as three times (with a serene complacency

which was maddening) as a "man of the world." There was something very

delicious about his leaving Boston to her "narrowness," unreproved and

uninstructed.

I formed the caravan in marching order, presently, and after riding down

the line to see that it was properly roped together, gave the command to

proceed. In a little while the road carried us to open, grassy land. We

were 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 to

the left, but always up, and always crowded and incommoded by going and

coming files of reckless tourists who were never, in a single instance,

tied together. I was obliged to exert the utmost care and caution, for

in many places the road was not two yards wide, and often the lower side

of 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 to

their unmanly fears.

We might have made the summit before night, but for a delay caused by

the loss of an umbrella. I was allowing the umbrella to remain lost, but

the men murmured, and with reason, for in this exposed region we stood

in peculiar need of protection against avalanches; so I went into camp

and detached a strong party to go after the missing article.

The difficulties of the next morning were severe, but our courage

was high, for our goal was near. At noon we conquered the last

impediment--we stood at last upon the summit, and without the loss of a

single man except the mule that ate the glycerin. Our great achievement

was achieved--the possibility of the impossible was demonstrated, and

Harris and I walked proudly into the great dining-room of the Riffelberg

Hotel and stood our alpenstocks up in the corner.

Yes, I had made the grand ascent; but it was a mistake to do it in

evening dress. The plug hats were battered, the swallow-tails were

fluttering rags, mud added no grace, the general effect was unpleasant

and even disreputable.

There were about seventy-five tourists at the hotel--mainly ladies and

little children--and they gave us an admiring welcome which paid us for

all our privations and sufferings. The ascent had been made, and the

names and dates now stand recorded on a stone monument there to prove it

to 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 I

HAD TAKEN THE FIRST ALTITUDE. Suspecting that I had made an important

discovery, I prepared to verify it. There happened to be a still higher

summit (called the Gorner Grat), above the hotel, and notwithstanding

the fact that it overlooks a glacier from a dizzy height, and that the

ascent is difficult and dangerous, I resolved to venture up there and

boil 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 all

the way up, and this I ascended, roped to the guides. This breezy height

was the summit proper--so I accomplished even more than I had originally

purposed to do. This foolhardy exploit is recorded on another stone

monument.

I boiled my thermometer, and sure enough, this spot, which purported to

be two thousand feet higher than the locality of the hotel, turned out

to be nine thousand feet LOWER. Thus the fact was clearly demonstrated

that, ABOVE A CERTAIN POINT, THE HIGHER A POINT SEEMS TO BE, THE LOWER

IT ACTUALLY IS. Our ascent itself was a great achievement, but this

contribution to science was an inconceivably greater matter.

Cavilers object that water boils at a lower and lower temperature the

higher and higher you go, and hence the apparent anomaly. I answer that

I do not base my theory upon what the boiling water does, but upon what

a boiled thermometer says. You can't go behind the thermometer.

I had a magnificent view of Monte Rosa, and apparently all the rest of

the Alpine world, from that high place. All the circling horizon was

piled high with a mighty tumult of snowy crests. One might have

imagined he saw before him the tented camps of a beleaguering host of

Brobdingnagians.

NOTE.--I had the very unusual luck to catch one little momentary glimpse

of the Matterhorn wholly unencumbered by clouds. I leveled my

photographic apparatus at it without the loss of an instant, and should

have got an elegant picture if my donkey had not interfered. It was my

purpose to draw this photograph all by myself for my book, but was

obliged to put the mountain part of it into the hands of the

professional 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, and

the upper half hidden in thick clouds which now and then dissolved to

cobweb films and gave brief glimpses of the imposing tower as through a

veil. A little later the Matterhorn took to himself the semblance of

a volcano; he was stripped naked to his apex--around this circled

vast wreaths of white cloud which strung slowly out and streamed away

slantwise toward the sun, a twenty-mile stretch of rolling and tumbling

vapor, and looking just as if it were pouring out of a crater. Later

again, one of the mountain's sides was clean and clear, and another

side densely clothed from base to summit in thick smokelike cloud which

feathered off and flew around the shaft's sharp edge like the smoke

around the corners of a burning building. The Matterhorn is always

experimenting, and always gets up fine effects, too. In the sunset, when

all the lower world is palled in gloom, it points toward heaven out of

the 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 snowy

Alpine magnitude, grandeur, and sublimity to be seen from any other

accessible point as the tourist may see from the summit of the

Riffelberg. Therefore, let the tourist rope himself up and go there; for

I have shown that with nerve, caution, and judgment, the thing can be

done.

I wish to add one remark, here--in parentheses, so to speak--suggested

by the word "snowy," which I have just used. We have all seen hills and

mountains and levels with snow on them, and so we think we know all the

aspects and effects produced by snow. But indeed we do not until we have

seen 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 snow

which one is accustomed to has a tint to it--painters usually give it a

bluish cast--but there is no perceptible tint to the distant Alpine snow

when it is trying to look its whitest. As to the unimaginable

splendor of it when the sun is blazing down on it--well, it simply IS

unimaginable.

CHAPTER XXXIX - [We Travel by Glacier]

A guide-book is a queer thing. The reader has just seen what a man who

undertakes the great ascent from Zermatt to the Riffelberg Hotel must

experience. Yet Baedeker makes these strange statements concerning this

matter:

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 the

following 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, from

the friction of sitting down so much. During two or three days, not

one of them was able to do more than lie down or walk about; yet so

effective 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 our

great 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 to

expose the brave fellows to the perils, fatigues, and hardships of that

fearful route again if it could be helped. First I thought of balloons;

but, of course, I had to give that idea up, for balloons were

not procurable. I thought of several other expedients, but upon

consideration discarded them, for cause. But at last I hit it. I was

aware that the movement of glaciers is an established fact, for I had

read it in Baedeker; so I resolved to take passage for Zermatt on the

great Gorner Glacier.

Very good. The next thing was, how to get down the glacier

comfortably--for the mule-road to it was long, and winding, and

wearisome. I set my mind at work, and soon thought out a plan. One looks

straight down upon the vast frozen river called the Gorner Glacier, from

the Gorner Grat, a sheer precipice twelve hundred feet high. We had

one hundred and fifty-four umbrellas--and what is an umbrella but a

parachute?

I mentioned this noble idea to Harris, with enthusiasm, and was about to

order 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 if

this method of descending the Alps had ever been tried before. I said

no, I had not heard of an instance. Then, in his opinion, it was a

matter of considerable gravity; in his opinion it would not be well to

send the whole command over the cliff at once; a better way would be to

send down a single individual, first, and see how he fared.

I saw the wisdom in this idea instantly. I said as much, and thanked

my agent cordially, and told him to take his umbrella and try the thing

right away, and wave his hat when he got down, if he struck in a soft

place, 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 he

said he did not feel himself worthy of so conspicuous a favor; that it

might cause jealousy in the command, for there were plenty who would not

hesitate to say he had used underhanded means to get the appointment,

whereas his conscience would bear him witness that he had not sought it

at all, nor even, in his secret heart, desired it.

I said these words did him extreme credit, but that he must not throw

away the imperishable distinction of being the first man to descend

an Alp per parachute, simply to save the feelings of some envious

underlings. No, I said, he MUST accept the appointment--it was no longer

an invitation, it was a command.

He thanked me with effusion, and said that putting the thing in this

form removed every objection. He retired, and soon returned with his

umbrella, his eye flaming with gratitude and his cheeks pallid with joy.

Just then the head guide passed along. Harris's expression changed to

one of infinite tenderness, and he said:

"That man did me a cruel injury four days ago, and I said in my heart

he should live to perceive and confess that the only noble revenge a

man can take upon his enemy is to return good for evil. I resign in his

favor. Appoint him."

I threw my arms around the generous fellow and said:

"Harris, you are the noblest soul that lives. You shall not regret this

sublime act, neither shall the world fail to know of it. You shall have

opportunity far transcending this one, too, if I live--remember that."

I called the head guide to me and appointed him on the spot. But the

thing 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 he

considered the project distinctly and decidedly dangerous. I was not

convinced, yet I was not willing to try the experiment in any risky

way--that is, in a way that might cripple the strength and efficiency

of the Expedition. I was about at my wits' end when it occurred to me to

try 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 he

ought to avoid exposure. Another could not jump well--never COULD jump

well--did not believe he could jump so far without long and patient

practice. Another was afraid it was going to rain, and his umbrella had

a hole in it. Everybody had an excuse. The result was what the reader

has by this time guessed: the most magnificent idea that was ever

conceived had to be abandoned, from sheer lack of a person with

enterprise enough to carry it out. Yes, I actually had to give that

thing up--while doubtless I should live to see somebody use it and take

all the credit from me.

Well, I had to go overland--there was no other way. I marched the

Expedition down the steep and tedious mule-path and took up as good a

position as I could upon the middle of the glacier--because Baedeker

said the middle part travels the fastest. As a measure of economy,

however, I put some of the heavier baggage on the shoreward parts, to go

as 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 me

then, that there might be a time-table in Baedeker; it would be well to

find out the hours of starting. I called for the book--it could not be

found. Bradshaw would certainly contain a time-table; but no Bradshaw

could be found.

Very well, I must make the best of the situation. So I pitched the

tents, picketed the animals, milked the cows, had supper, paregoricked

the men, established the watch, and went to bed--with orders to call me

as soon as we came in sight of Zermatt.

I awoke about half past ten next morning, and looked around. We hadn't

budged a peg! At first I could not understand it; then it occurred to me

that the old thing must be aground. So I cut down some trees and rigged

a spar on the starboard and another on the port side, and fooled away

upward of three hours trying to spar her off. But it was no use. She

was half a mile wide and fifteen or twenty miles long, and there was

no telling just whereabouts she WAS aground. The men began to show

uneasiness, 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 another

panic. I ordered them to show me the place. They led me to a spot where

a huge boulder lay in a deep pool of clear and brilliant water. It did

look like a pretty bad leak, but I kept that to myself. I made a pump

and set the men to work to pump out the glacier. We made a success of

it. I perceived, then, that it was not a leak at all. This boulder had

descended from a precipice and stopped on the ice in the middle of the

glacier, and the sun had warmed it up, every day, and consequently it

had melted its way deeper and deeper into the ice, until at last it

reposed, as we had found it, in a deep pool of the clearest and coldest

water.

Presently Baedeker was found again, and I hunted eagerly for the

time-table. There was none. The book simply said the glacier was moving

all the time. This was satisfactory, so I shut up the book and chose a

good position to view the scenery as we passed along. I stood there some

time enjoying the trip, but at last it occurred to me that we did

not seem to be gaining any on the scenery. I said to myself, "This

confounded old thing's aground again, sure,"--and opened Baedeker to

see 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 less

than an inch a day." I have seldom felt so outraged. I have seldom had

my confidence so wantonly betrayed. I made a small calculation: One inch

a day, say thirty feet a year; estimated distance to Zermatt, three and

one-eighteenth miles. Time required to go by glacier, A LITTLE OVER FIVE

HUNDRED YEARS! I said to myself, "I can WALK it quicker--and before I

will patronize such a fraud as this, I will do it."

When I revealed to Harris the fact that the passenger part of this

glacier--the central part--the lightning-express part, so to speak--was

not due in Zermatt till the summer of 2378, and that the baggage, coming

along the slow edge, would not arrive until some generations later, he

burst 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 bit

surprised. It's a Catholic glacier. You can tell by the look of it. And

the management."

I said, no, I believed nothing but the extreme end of it was in a

Catholic canton.

"Well, then, it's a government glacier," said Harris. "It's all the

same. Over here the government runs everything--so everything's slow;

slow, and ill-managed. But with us, everything's done by private

enterprise--and then there ain't much lolling around, you can depend

on it. I wish Tom Scott could get his hands on this torpid old slab

once--you'd see it take a different gait from this."

I said I was sure he would increase the speed, if there was trade enough

to justify it.

"He'd MAKE trade," said Harris. "That's the difference between

governments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do. Tom

Scott would take all the trade; in two years Gorner stock would go to

two hundred, and inside of two more you would see all the other glaciers

under the hammer for taxes." After a reflective pause, Harris added, "A

little 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 comes

down to good solid honest slow motion, I bet my money on the glacier. As

a means of passenger transportation, I consider the glacier a failure;

but as a vehicle of slow freight, I think she fills the bill. In the

matter of putting the fine shades on that line of business, I judge she

could teach the Germans something.

I ordered the men to break camp and prepare for the land journey to

Zermatt. 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 proved

to be a piece of the undressed skin of some animal--a hair trunk,

perhaps; but a close inspection disabled the hair-trunk theory, and

further discussion and examination exploded it entirely--that is, in the

opinion of all the scientists except the one who had advanced it. This

one clung to his theory with affectionate fidelity characteristic of

originators of scientific theories, and afterward won many of the first

scientists of the age to his view, by a very able pamphlet which he

wrote, entitled, "Evidences going to show that the hair trunk, in a wild

state, belonged to the early glacial period, and roamed the wastes of

chaos in the company with the cave-bear, primeval man, and the other

Ooelitics of the Old Silurian family."

Each of our scientists had a theory of his own, and put forward

an animal of his own as a candidate for the skin. I sided with the

geologist of the Expedition in the belief that this patch of skin had

once helped to cover a Siberian elephant, in some old forgotten age--but

we divided there, the geologist believing that this discovery proved

that Siberia had formerly been located where Switzerland is now, whereas

I held the opinion that it merely proved that the primeval Swiss was not

the dull savage he is represented to have been, but was a being of high

intellectual development, who liked to go to the menagerie.

We arrived that evening, after many hardships and adventures, in some

fields close to the great ice-arch where the mad Visp boils and surges

out 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 the

most lavish honors and applause. A document, signed and sealed by the

authorities, was given to me which established and endorsed the fact

that I had made the ascent of the Riffelberg. This I wear around my

neck, 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 took

passage on the Gorner Glacier. I have "read up" since. I am aware that

these vast bodies of ice do not travel at the same rate of speed; while

the Gorner Glacier makes less than an inch a day, the Unter-Aar Glacier

makes 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 slowest

glacier 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 which

occupies the bed of a winding gorge or gully between mountains. But that

gives no notion of its vastness. For it is sometimes six hundred feet

thick, and we are not accustomed to rivers six hundred feet deep; no,

our rivers are six feet, twenty feet, and sometimes fifty feet deep; we

are not quite able to grasp so large a fact as an ice-river six hundred

feet deep.

The glacier's surface is not smooth and level, but has deep swales and

swelling elevations, and sometimes has the look of a tossing sea whose

turbulent billows were frozen hard in the instant of their most violent

motion; the glacier's surface is not a flawless mass, but is a river

with cracks or crevices, some narrow, some gaping wide. Many a man, the

victim of a slip or a misstep, has plunged down one of these and met his

death. Men have been fished out of them alive; but it was when they

did not go to a great depth; the cold of the great depths would quickly

stupefy a man, whether he was hurt or unhurt. These cracks do not go

straight down; one can seldom see more than twenty to forty feet down

them; consequently men who have disappeared in them have been sought

for, in the hope that they had stopped within helping distance, whereas

their case, in most instances, had really been hopeless from the

beginning.

In 1864 a party of tourists was descending Mont Blanc, and while picking

their way over one of the mighty glaciers of that lofty region, roped

together, as was proper, a young porter disengaged himself from the line

and started across an ice-bridge which spanned a crevice. It broke under

him with a crash, and he disappeared. The others could not see how deep

he had gone, so it might be worthwhile to try and rescue him. A brave

young guide named Michel Payot volunteered.

Two ropes were made fast to his leather belt and he bore the end of a

third one in his hand to tie to the victim in case he found him. He was

lowered into the crevice, he descended deeper and deeper between the

clear blue walls of solid ice, he approached a bend in the crack and

disappeared under it. Down, and still down, he went, into this profound

grave; when he had reached a depth of eighty feet he passed under

another bend in the crack, and thence descended eighty feet lower, as

between perpendicular precipices. Arrived at this stage of one hundred

and sixty feet below the surface of the glacier, he peered through the

twilight dimness and perceived that the chasm took another turn and

stretched away at a steep slant to unknown deeps, for its course was

lost in darkness. What a place that was to be in--especially if that

leather belt should break! The compression of the belt threatened to

suffocate 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 friends

understood, 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--evidence

enough that even if the poor porter reached the bottom with unbroken

bones, a swift death from cold was sure, anyway.

A glacier is a stupendous, ever-progressing, resistless plow. It pushes

ahead of it masses of boulders which are packed together, and they

stretch across the gorge, right in front of it, like a long grave or a

long, sharp roof. This is called a moraine. It also shoves out a moraine

along each side of its course.

Imposing as the modern glaciers are, they are not so huge as were some

that once existed. For instance, Mr. Whymper says:

"At some very remote period the Valley of Aosta was occupied by a vast

glacier, which flowed down its entire length from Mont Blanc to the

plain of Piedmont, remained stationary, or nearly so, at its mouth

for many centuries, and deposited there enormous masses of debris. The

length of this glacier exceeded EIGHTY MILES, and it drained a basin

twenty-five to thirty-five miles across, bounded by the highest

mountains in the Alps.

"The great peaks rose several thousand feet above the glaciers, and

then, as now, shattered by sun and frost, poured down their showers of

rocks and stones, in witness of which there are the immense piles of

angular fragments that constitute the moraines of Ivrea.

"The moraines around Ivrea are of extraordinary dimensions. That which

was on the left bank of the glacier is about THIRTEEN MILES long, and

in some places rises to a height of TWO THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY

FEET above the floor of the valley! The terminal moraines (those which

are pushed in front of the glaciers) cover something like twenty square

miles of country. At the mouth of the Valley of Aosta, the thickness of

the glacier must have been at least TWO THOUSAND feet, and its width, at

that part, FIVE MILES AND A QUARTER."

It is not easy to get at a comprehension of a mass of ice like that. If

one could cleave off the butt end of such a glacier--an oblong block

two or three miles wide by five and a quarter long and two thousand

feet 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 a

shingle-nail would stick up into the bottom of a Saratoga trunk.

"The boulders from Mont Blanc, upon the plain below Ivrea, assure us

that the glacier which transported them existed for a prodigious length

of time. Their present distance from the cliffs from which they were

derived is about 420,000 feet, and if we assume that they traveled at

the rate of 400 feet per annum, their journey must have occupied them no

less 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 case

which occurred in Iceland in 1721:

"It seems that in the neighborhood of the mountain Kotlugja, large

bodies of water formed underneath, or within the glaciers (either on

account of the interior heat of the earth, or from other causes), and at

length acquired irresistible power, tore the glaciers from their mooring

on the land, and swept them over every obstacle into the sea. Prodigious

masses of ice were thus borne for a distance of about ten miles over

land in the space of a few hours; and their bulk was so enormous that

they covered the sea for seven miles from the shore, and remained

aground in six hundred feet of water! The denudation of the land was

upon a grand scale. All superficial accumulations were swept away, and

the bedrock was exposed. It was described, in graphic language, how all

irregularities and depressions were obliterated, and a smooth surface of

several miles' area laid bare, and that this area had the appearance of

having been PLANED BY A PLANE."

The account translated from the Icelandic says that the mountainlike

ruins of this majestic glacier so covered the sea that as far as the eye

could reach no open water was discoverable, even from the highest peaks.

A monster wall or barrier of ice was built across a considerable stretch

of land, too, by this strange irruption:

"One can form some idea of the altitude of this barrier of ice when it

is mentioned that from Hofdabrekka farm, which lies high up on a fjeld,

one could not see Hjorleifshofdi opposite, which is a fell six hundred

and forty feet in height; but in order to do so had to clamber up a

mountain slope east of Hofdabrekka twelve hundred feet high."

These things will help the reader to understand why it is that a man who

keeps company with glaciers comes to feel tolerably insignificant by

and by. The Alps and the glaciers together are able to take every bit of

conceit out of a man and reduce his self-importance to zero if he will

only remain within the influence of their sublime presence long enough

to give it a fair and reasonable chance to do its work.

The Alpine glaciers move--that is granted, now, by everybody. But there

was a time when people scoffed at the idea; they said you might as well

expect leagues of solid rock to crawl along the ground as expect leagues

of ice to do it. But proof after proof was furnished, and the finally

the world had to believe.

The wise men not only said the glacier moved, but they timed its

movement. They ciphered out a glacier's gait, and then said confidently

that it would travel just so far in so many years. There is record of

a striking and curious example of the accuracy which may be attained in

these reckonings.

In 1820 the ascent of Mont Blanc was attempted by a Russian and two

Englishmen, with seven guides. They had reached a prodigious altitude,

and were approaching the summit, when an avalanche swept several of the

party 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 one

of the five was saved by a long barometer which was strapped to his

back--it bridged the crevice and suspended him until help came. The

alpenstock or baton of another saved its owner in a similar way. Three

men were lost--Pierre Balmat, Pierre Carrier, and Auguste Tairraz. They

had been hurled down into the fathomless great deeps of the crevice.

Dr. Forbes, the English geologist, had made frequent visits to the Mont

Blanc region, and had given much attention to the disputed question of

the movement of glaciers. During one of these visits he completed his

estimates of the rate of movement of the glacier which had swallowed

up the three guides, and uttered the prediction that the glacier would

deliver up its dead at the foot of the mountain thirty-five years from

the time of the accident, or possibly forty.

A dull, slow journey--a movement imperceptible to any eye--but it was

proceeding, nevertheless, and without cessation. It was a journey

which a rolling stone would make in a few seconds--the lofty point of

departure was visible from the village below in the valley.

The prediction cut curiously close to the truth; forty-one years after

the catastrophe, the remains were cast forth at the foot of the glacier.

I find an interesting account of the matter in the HISTOIRE DU MONT

BLANC, 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 guide

arrived out of breath at the mairie of Chamonix, and bearing on his

shoulders a very lugubrious burden. It was a sack filled with human

remains which he had gathered from the orifice of a crevice in the

Glacier des Bossons. He conjectured that these were remains of the

victims of the catastrophe of 1820, and a minute inquest, immediately

instituted by the local authorities, soon demonstrated the correctness

of his supposition. The contents of the sack were spread upon a long

table, 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, all

the fingers of the latter intact. The flesh was white and fresh,

and both the arm and hand preserved a degree of flexibility in the

articulations.

The ring-finger had suffered a slight abrasion, and the stain of the

blood was still visible and unchanged after forty-one years. A left

foot, the flesh white and fresh.

Along with these fragments were portions of waistcoats, hats, hobnailed

shoes, and other clothing; a wing of a pigeon, with black feathers; a

fragment of an alpenstock; a tin lantern; and lastly, a boiled leg of

mutton, the only flesh among all the remains that exhaled an unpleasant

odor. The guide said that the mutton had no odor when he took it from

the glacier; an hour's exposure to the sun had already begun the work of

decomposition upon it.

Persons were called for, to identify these poor pathetic relics, and a

touching scene ensued. Two men were still living who had witnessed the

grim catastrophe of nearly half a century before--Marie Couttet (saved

by his baton) and Julien Davouassoux (saved by the barometer). These

aged men entered and approached the table. Davouassoux, more than eighty

years old, contemplated the mournful remains mutely and with a vacant

eye, for his intelligence and his memory were torpid with age; but

Couttet's faculties were still perfect at seventy-two, and he exhibited

strong emotion. He said:

"Pierre Balmat was fair; he wore a straw hat. This bit of skull, with

the tuft of blond hair, was his; this is his hat. Pierre Carrier was

very dark; this skull was his, and this felt hat. This is Balmat's

hand, I remember it so well!" and the old man bent down and kissed it

reverently, then closed his fingers upon it in an affectionate grasp,

crying out, "I could never have dared to believe that before quitting

this world it would be granted me to press once more the hand of one of

those brave comrades, the hand of my good friend Balmat."

There is something weirdly pathetic about the picture of that

white-haired veteran greeting with his loving handshake this friend

who had been dead forty years. When these hands had met last, they were

alike in the softness and freshness of youth; now, one was brown and

wrinkled and horny with age, while the other was still as young and fair

and blemishless as if those forty years had come and gone in a single

moment, leaving no mark of their passage. Time had gone on, in the one

case; it had stood still in the other. A man who has not seen a friend

for a generation, keeps him in mind always as he saw him last, and is

somehow surprised, and is also shocked, to see the aging change the

years have wrought when he sees him again. Marie Couttet's experience,

in finding his friend's hand unaltered from the image of it which he

had carried in his memory for forty years, is an experience which stands

alone in the history of man, perhaps.

Couttet identified other relics:

"This hat belonged to Auguste Tairraz. He carried the cage of pigeons

which we proposed to set free upon the summit. Here is the wing of one

of those pigeons. And here is the fragment of my broken baton; it was by

grace of that baton that my life was saved. Who could have told me that

I should one day have the satisfaction to look again upon this bit of

wood that supported me above the grave that swallowed up my unfortunate

companions!"

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 were

discovered; also, part of a lantern, and a green veil with blood-stains

on it. But the interesting feature was this:

One of the searchers came suddenly upon a sleeved arm projecting from

a crevice in the ice-wall, with the hand outstretched as if offering

greeting! "The nails of this white hand were still rosy, and the pose

of the extended fingers seemed to express an eloquent welcome to the

long-lost light of day."

The hand and arm were alone; there was no trunk. After being removed

from the ice the flesh-tints quickly faded out and the rosy nails took

on the alabaster hue of death. This was the third RIGHT hand found;

therefore, all three of the lost men were accounted for, beyond cavil or

question.

Dr. Hamel was the Russian gentleman of the party which made the ascent

at the time of the famous disaster. He left Chamonix as soon as he

conveniently could after the descent; and as he had shown a chilly

indifference about the calamity, and offered neither sympathy nor

assistance to the widows and orphans, he carried with him the cordial

execrations of the whole community. Four months before the first remains

were found, a Chamonix guide named Balmat--a relative of one of the lost

men--was in London, and one day encountered a hale old gentleman in the

British 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 glacier

will sooner or later restore to us the remains of the unfortunate

victims."

"Without a doubt, without a doubt. And it will be a great thing for

Chamonix, in the matter of attracting tourists. You can get up a museum

with those remains that will draw!"

This savage idea has not improved the odor of Dr. Hamel's name in

Chamonix by any means. But after all, the man was sound on human nature.

His idea was conveyed to the public officials of Chamonix, and they

gravely discussed it around the official council-table. They were only

prevented from carrying it into execution by the determined opposition

of the friends and descendants of the lost guides, who insisted on

giving 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. Rags

and scraps of the coarse clothing were parted with at the rate equal to

about twenty dollars a yard; a piece of a lantern and one or two other

trifles brought nearly their weight in gold; and an Englishman offered a

pound 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 of

July, 1865, on the Matterhorn--already slightly referred to, a few

pages back. The details of it are scarcely known in America. To the vast

majority of readers they are not known at all. Mr. Whymper's account is

the only authentic one. I will import the chief portion of it into this

book, partly because of its intrinsic interest, and partly because it

gives such a vivid idea of what the perilous pastime of Alp-climbing

is. This was Mr. Whymper's NINTH attempt during a series of years, to

vanquish that steep and stubborn pillar or rock; it succeeded, the other

eight 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, at

half past five, on a brilliant and perfectly cloudless morning. We were

eight in number--Croz (guide), old Peter Taugwalder (guide) and his

two sons; Lord F. Douglas, Mr. Hadow, Rev. Mr. Hudson, and I. To insure

steady motion, one tourist and one native walked together. The youngest

Taugwalder fell to my share. The wine-bags also fell to my lot to carry,

and throughout the day, after each drink, I replenished them secretly

with 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 we

mounted, accordingly, very leisurely. Before twelve o'clock we had found

a good position for the tent, at a height of eleven thousand feet. We

passed the remaining hours of daylight--some basking in the sunshine,

some sketching, some collecting; Hudson made tea, I coffee, and at

length we retired, each one to his blanket bag.

We assembled together before dawn on the 14th and started directly

it was light enough to move. One of the young Taugwalders returned to

Zermatt. In a few minutes we turned the rib which had intercepted the

view of the eastern face from our tent platform. The whole of this

great slope was now revealed, rising for three thousand feet like a huge

natural staircase. Some parts were more, and others were less easy, but

we were not once brought to a halt by any serious impediment, for when

an obstruction was met in front it could always be turned to the right

or to the left. For the greater part of the way there was no occasion,

indeed, for the rope, and sometimes Hudson led, sometimes myself. At

six-twenty we had attained a height of twelve thousand eight hundred

feet, and halted for half an hour; we then continued the ascent without

a break until nine-fifty-five, when we stopped for fifty minutes, at a

height of fourteen thousand feet.

We had now arrived at the foot of that part which, seen from the

Riffelberg, seems perpendicular or overhanging. We could no longer

continue on the eastern side. For a little distance we ascended by snow

upon the ARÊTE--that is, the ridge--then turned over to the right, or

northern side. The work became difficult, and required caution. In some

places there was little to hold; the general slope of the mountain was

LESS than forty degrees, and snow had accumulated in, and had filled

up, the interstices of the rock-face, leaving only occasional fragments

projecting here and there. These were at times covered with a thin film

of ice. It was a place which any fair mountaineer might pass in safety.

We bore away nearly horizontally for about four hundred feet, then

ascended directly toward the summit for about sixty feet, then doubled

back to the ridge which descends toward Zermatt. A long stride round

a rather awkward corner brought us to snow once more. That last doubt

vanished! The Matterhorn was ours! Nothing but two hundred feet of easy

snow remained to be surmounted.

The higher we rose, the more intense became the excitement. The slope

eased 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., the

world was at our feet, and the Matterhorn was conquered!

The others arrived. Croz now took the tent-pole, and planted it in the

highest snow. "Yes," we said, "there is the flag-staff, but where is the

flag?" "Here it is," he answered, pulling off his blouse and fixing it

to the stick. It made a poor flag, and there was no wind to float

it out, yet it was seen all around. They saw it at Zermatt--at the

Riffel--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 the

party. We agreed that it was best for Croz to go first, and Hadow

second; Hudson, who was almost equal to a guide in sureness of foot,

wished to be third; Lord Douglas was placed next, and old Peter, the

strongest of the remainder, after him. I suggested to Hudson that we

should attach a rope to the rocks on our arrival at the difficult bit,

and hold it as we descended, as an additional protection. He approved

the idea, but it was not definitely decided that it should be done. The

party was being arranged in the above order while I was sketching the

summit, and they had finished, and were waiting for me to be tied in

line, when some one remembered that our names had not been left in a

bottle. They requested me to write them down, and moved off while it was

being done.

A few minutes afterward I tied myself to young Peter, ran down after the

others, and caught them just as they were commencing the descent of the

difficult part. Great care was being taken. Only one man was moving at a

time; when he was firmly planted the next advanced, and so on. They had

not, however, attached the additional rope to rocks, and nothing was

said about it. The suggestion was not made for my own sake, and I am not

sure that it ever occurred to me again. For some little distance we two

followed the others, detached from them, and should have continued so

had not Lord Douglas asked me, about 3 P.M., to tie on to old Peter, as

he feared, he said, that Taugwalder would not be able to hold his ground

if a slip occurred.

A few minutes later, a sharp-eyed lad ran into the Monte Rosa Hotel, at

Zermatt, saying that he had seen an avalanche fall from the summit of

the Matterhorn onto the Matterhorn glacier. The boy was reproved for

telling idle stories; he was right, nevertheless, and this was what he

saw.

Michel Croz had laid aside his ax, and in order to give Mr. Hadow

greater security, was absolutely taking hold of his legs, and putting

his feet, one by one, into their proper positions. As far as I know, no

one was actually descending. I cannot speak with certainty, because the

two leading men were partially hidden from my sight by an intervening

mass of rock, but it is my belief, from the movements of their

shoulders, that Croz, having done as I said, was in the act of turning

round to go down a step or two himself; at this moment Mr. Hadow

slipped, fell against him, and knocked him over. I heard one startled

exclamation from Croz, then saw him and Mr. Hadow flying downward;

in another moment Hudson was dragged from his steps, and Lord Douglas

immediately after him. All this was the work of a moment. Immediately we

heard Croz's exclamation, old Peter and I planted ourselves as firmly as

the rocks would permit; the rope was taut between us, and the jerk came

on us both as on one man. We held; but the rope broke midway between

Taugwalder and Lord Francis Douglas. For a few seconds we saw our

unfortunate companions sliding downward on their backs, and spreading

out their hands, endeavoring to save themselves. They passed from our

sight uninjured, disappeared one by one, and fell from the precipice to

precipice onto the Matterhorn glacier below, a distance of nearly

four thousand feet in height. From the moment the rope broke it was

impossible to help them. So perished our comrades!

For more than two hours afterward I thought almost every moment that the

next would be my last; for the Taugwalders, utterly unnerved, were not

only incapable of giving assistance, but were in such a state that a

slip might have been expected from them at any moment. After a time we

were able to do that which should have been done at first, and fixed

rope to firm rocks, in addition to being tied together. These ropes were

cut from time to time, and were left behind. Even with their assurance

the men were afraid to proceed, and several times old Peter turned,

with ashy face and faltering limbs, and said, with terrible emphasis, "I

CANNOT!"

About 6 P.M., we arrived at the snow upon the ridge descending toward

Zermatt, and all peril was over. We frequently looked, but in vain, for

traces of our unfortunate companions; we bent over the ridge and cried

to them, but no sound returned. Convinced at last that they were neither

within sight nor hearing, we ceased from our useless efforts; and, too

cast down for speech, silently gathered up our things, and the little

effects of those who were lost, and then completed the descent. Such

is Mr. Whymper's graphic and thrilling narrative. Zermatt gossip

darkly hints that the elder Taugwalder cut the rope, when the accident

occurred, in order to preserve himself from being dragged into the

abyss; but Mr. Whymper says that the ends of the rope showed no evidence

of cutting, but only of breaking. He adds that if Taugwalder had had the

disposition to cut the rope, he would not have had time to do it, the

accident was so sudden and unexpected.

Lord Douglas' body has never been found. It probably lodged upon some

inaccessible shelf in the face of the mighty precipice. Lord Douglas was

a youth of nineteen. The three other victims fell nearly four thousand

feet, and their bodies lay together upon the glacier when found by

Mr. Whymper and the other searchers the next morning. Their graves are

beside 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 of

grass stretched over it. Consequently, they do not dig graves, they

blast them out with powder and fuse. They cannot afford to have large

graveyards, the grass skin is too circumscribed and too valuable. It is

all 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; but

occupation of them is only temporary; the occupant can only stay till

his grave is needed by a later subject, he is removed, then, for they do

not bury one body on top of another. As I understand it, a family owns

a grave, just as it owns a house. A man dies and leaves his house to his

son--and at the same time, this dead father succeeds to his own father's

grave. He moves out of the house and into the grave, and his predecessor

moves out of the grave and into the cellar of the chapel. I saw a black

box 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 former

citizens 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 the

receptacles of this kind in the Swiss villages, the skulls were all

marked, and if a man wished to find the skulls of his ancestors for

several generations back, he could do it by these marks, preserved in

the family records.

An English gentleman who had lived some years in this region, said it

was the cradle of compulsory education. But he said that the English

idea that compulsory education would reduce bastardy and intemperance

was an error--it has not that effect. He said there was more seduction

in the Protestant than in the Catholic cantons, because the confessional

protected the girls. I wonder why it doesn't protect married women in

France and Spain?

This gentleman said that among the poorer peasants in the Valais, it was

common for the brothers in a family to cast lots to determine which

of them should have the coveted privilege of marrying, and his

brethren--doomed bachelors--heroically banded themselves together to

help support the new family.

We left Zermatt in a wagon--and in a rain-storm, too--for St. Nicholas

about ten o'clock one morning. Again we passed between those grass-clad

prodigious cliffs, specked with wee dwellings peeping over at us from

velvety green walls ten and twelve hundred feet high. It did not seem

possible that the imaginary chamois even could climb those precipices.

Lovers on opposite cliffs probably kiss through a spy-glass, and

correspond with a rifle.

In Switzerland the farmer's plow is a wide shovel, which scrapes up and

turns over the thin earthy skin of his native rock--and there the man of

the plow is a hero. Now here, by our St. Nicholas road, was a grave, and

it had a tragic story. A plowman was skinning his farm one morning--not

the steepest part of it, but still a steep part--that is, he was not

skinning the front of his farm, but the roof of it, near the eaves--when

he absent-mindedly let go of the plow-handles to moisten his hands, in

the usual way; he lost his balance and fell out of his farm backward;

poor fellow, he never touched anything till he struck bottom, fifteen

hundred feet below. [This was on a Sunday.--M.T.] We throw a halo of

heroism around the life of the soldier and the sailor, because of the

deadly dangers they are facing all the time. But we are not used to

looking upon farming as a heroic occupation. This is because we have not

lived in Switzerland.

From St. Nicholas we struck out for Visp--or Vispach--on foot. The

rain-storms had been at work during several days, and had done a deal of

damage in Switzerland and Savoy. We came to one place where a stream had

changed its course and plunged down a mountain in a new place, sweeping

everything before it. Two poor but precious farms by the roadside were

ruined. One was washed clear away, and the bed-rock exposed; the other

was buried out of sight under a tumbled chaos of rocks, gravel, mud,

and rubbish. The resistless might of water was well exemplified. Some

saplings which had stood in the way were bent to the ground, stripped

clean of their bark, and buried under rocky debris. The road had been

swept away, too.

In another place, where the road was high up on the mountain's face, and

its outside edge protected by flimsy masonry, we frequently came across

spots where this masonry had carved off and left dangerous gaps for

mules to get over; and with still more frequency we found the masonry

slightly crumbled, and marked by mule-hoofs, thus showing that there had

been danger of an accident to somebody. When at last we came to a

badly ruptured bit of masonry, with hoof-prints evidencing a desperate

struggle to regain the lost foothold, I looked quite hopefully over the

dizzy precipice. But there was nobody down there.

They take exceedingly good care of their rivers in Switzerland and other

portions of Europe. They wall up both banks with slanting solid stone

masonry--so that from end to end of these rivers the banks look like the

wharves at St. Louis and other towns on the Mississippi River.

It was during this walk from St. Nicholas, in the shadow of the majestic

Alps, that we came across some little children amusing themselves in

what seemed, at first, a most odd and original way--but it wasn't; it

was in simply a natural and characteristic way. They were roped together

with a string, they had mimic alpenstocks and ice-axes, and were

climbing a meek and lowly manure-pile with a most blood-curdling amount

of care and caution. The "guide" at the head of the line cut imaginary

steps, in a laborious and painstaking way, and not a monkey budged till

the step above was vacated. If we had waited we should have witnessed an

imaginary accident, no doubt; and we should have heard the intrepid band

hurrah when they made the summit and looked around upon the "magnificent

view," and seen them throw themselves down in exhausted attitudes for a

rest 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 the

daring hero who was lowered into the depths to bring him up. I knew one

small chap who always insisted on playing BOTH of these parts--and he

carried his point. He would tumble into the shaft and die, and then come

to the surface and go back after his own remains.

It is the smartest boy that gets the hero part everywhere; he is head

guide in Switzerland, head miner in Nevada, head bull-fighter in Spain,

etc.; but I knew a preacher's son, seven years old, who once selected

a part for himself compared to which those just mentioned are tame

and unimpressive. Jimmy's father stopped him from driving imaginary

horse-cars one Sunday--stopped him from playing captain of an imaginary

steamboat next Sunday--stopped him from leading an imaginary army to

battle 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 suitable

to the Sabbath-day."

Next Sunday the preacher stepped softly to a back-room door to see if

the children were rightly employed. He peeped in. A chair occupied the

middle of the room, and on the back of it hung Jimmy's cap; one of

his little sisters took the cap down, nibbled at it, then passed it to

another small sister and said, "Eat of this fruit, for it is good." The

Reverend took in the situation--alas, they were playing the Expulsion

from 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, I

did not believe there was so much modesty in him; I should have expected

him to be either Adam or Eve." This crumb of comfort lasted but a very

little while; he glanced around and discovered Jimmy standing in an

imposing 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 of

the 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 it

was all downhill, too, and very muddy at that. We stayed all night at

the Hotel de Soleil; I remember it because the landlady, the portier,

the waitress, and the chambermaid were not separate persons, but were

all contained in one neat and chipper suit of spotless muslin, and she

was the prettiest young creature I saw in all that region. She was the

landlord's daughter. And I remember that the only native match to her

I saw in all Europe was the young daughter of the landlord of a village

inn in the Black Forest. Why don't more people in Europe marry and keep

hotel?

Next morning we left with a family of English friends and went by train

to Brevet, and thence by boat across the lake to Ouchy (Lausanne).

Ouchy is memorable to me, not on account of its beautiful situation and

lovely surroundings--although these would make it stick long in one's

memory--but as the place where I caught the London TIMES dropping into

humor. 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 the

reprehensible paragraph for me. Think of encountering a grin like this

on the face of that grim journal:

ERRATUM.--We are requested by Reuter's Telegram Company to correct an

erroneous announcement made in their Brisbane telegram of the 2d inst.,

published in our impression of the 5th inst., stating that "Lady Kennedy

had given birth to twins, the eldest being a son." The Company explain

that the message they received contained the words "Governor of

Queensland, TWINS FIRST SON." Being, however, subsequently informed that

Sir Arthur Kennedy was unmarried and that there must be some mistake, a

telegraphic repetition was at once demanded. It has been received today

(11th inst.) and shows that the words really telegraphed by Reuter's

agent were "Governor Queensland TURNS FIRST SOD," alluding to the

Maryborough-Gympic Railway in course of construction. The words in

italics were mutilated by the telegraph in transmission from Australia,

and reaching the company in the form mentioned above gave rise to the

mistake.

I had always had a deep and reverent compassion for the sufferings of

the "prisoner of Chillon," whose story Byron had told in such moving

verse; so I took the steamer and made pilgrimage to the dungeons of the

Castle of Chillon, to see the place where poor Bonnivard endured his

dreary captivity three hundred years ago. I am glad I did that, for it

took away some of the pain I was feeling on the prisoner's account. His

dungeon was a nice, cool, roomy place, and I cannot see why he should

have been dissatisfied with it. If he had been imprisoned in a St.

Nicholas private dwelling, where the fertilizer prevails, and the goat

sleeps with the guest, and the chickens roost on him and the cow comes

in and bothers him when he wants to muse, it would have been another

matter altogether; but he surely could not have had a very cheerless

time of it in that pretty dungeon. It has romantic window-slits that

let in generous bars of light, and it has tall, noble columns, carved

apparently from the living rock; and what is more, they are written

all over with thousands of names; some of them--like Byron's and Victor

Hugo's--of the first celebrity. Why didn't he amuse himself reading

these names? Then there are the couriers and tourists--swarms of them

every day--what was to hinder him from having a good time with them? I

think 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 of

company, in the way of wagon-loads and mule-loads of tourists--and dust.

This scattering procession of travelers was perhaps a mile long. The

road was uphill--interminable uphill--and tolerably steep. The weather

was blisteringly hot, and the man or woman who had to sit on a creeping

mule, or in a crawling wagon, and broil in the beating sun, was an

object to be pitied. We could dodge among the bushes, and have the

relief 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 ground

there was no lack of fine scenery. In one place the road was tunneled

through a shoulder of the mountain; from there one looked down into a

gorge with a rushing torrent in it, and on every hand was a charming

view of rocky buttresses and wooded heights. There was a liberal

allowance of pretty waterfalls, too, on the Tête Noir route.

About half an hour before we reached the village of Argentière a vast

dome of snow with the sun blazing on it drifted into view and framed

itself in a strong V-shaped gateway of the mountains, and we recognized

Mont Blanc, the "monarch of the Alps." With every step, after that,

this stately dome rose higher and higher into the blue sky, and at last

seemed to occupy the zenith.

Some of Mont Blanc's neighbors--bare, light-brown, steeplelike

rocks--were very peculiarly shaped. Some were whittled to a sharp point,

and slightly bent at the upper end, like a lady's finger; one monster

sugar-loaf resembled a bishop's hat; it was too steep to hold snow on

its sides, but had some in the division.

While we were still on very high ground, and before the descent toward

Argentière began, we looked up toward a neighboring mountain-top, and

saw exquisite prismatic colors playing about some white clouds which

were so delicate as to almost resemble gossamer webs. The faint pinks

and greens were peculiarly beautiful; none of the colors were deep, they

were the lightest shades. They were bewitching commingled. We sat down

to study and enjoy this singular spectacle. The tints remained during

several minutes--flitting, changing, melting into each other; paling

almost away for a moment, then reflushing--a shifting, restless,

unstable succession of soft opaline gleams, shimmering over that air

film of white cloud, and turning it into a fabric dainty enough to

clothe an angel with.

By and by we perceived what those super-delicate colors, and their

continuous play and movement, reminded us of; it is what one sees in a

soap-bubble that is drifting along, catching changes of tint from the

objects it passes. A soap-bubble is the most beautiful thing, and the

most exquisite, in nature; that lovely phantom fabric in the sky was

suggestive of a soap-bubble split open, and spread out in the sun. I

wonder how much it would take to buy a soap-bubble, if there was only

one in the world? One could buy a hatful of Koh-i-Noors with the same

money, no doubt.

We made the tramp from Martigny to Argentière in eight hours. We beat

all the mules and wagons; we didn't usually do that. We hired a sort of

open baggage-wagon for the trip down the valley to Chamonix, and then

devoted an hour to dining. This gave the driver time to get drunk. He

had 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 and

gone by while we were at dinner; "but," said he, impressively, "be not

disturbed by that--remain tranquil--give yourselves no uneasiness--their

dust rises far before us--rest you tranquil, leave all to me--I am the

king of drivers. Behold!"

Down came his whip, and away we clattered. I never had such a shaking up

in my life. The recent flooding rains had washed the road clear away in

places, but we never stopped, we never slowed down for anything. We tore

right along, over rocks, rubbish, gullies, open fields--sometimes with

one or two wheels on the ground, but generally with none. Every now and

then that calm, good-natured madman would bend a majestic look over his

shoulder at us and say, "Ah, you perceive? It is as I have said--I am

the king of drivers." Every time we just missed going to destruction,

he would say, with tranquil happiness, "Enjoy it, gentlemen, it is very

rare, it is very unusual--it is given to few to ride with the king of

drivers--and observe, it is as I have said, I am he."

He spoke in French, and punctuated with hiccoughs. His friend was

French, too, but spoke in German--using the same system of punctuation,

however. The friend called himself the "Captain of Mont Blanc," and

wanted us to make the ascent with him. He said he had made more ascents

than 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 title

belonged to none other.

The "king" was as good as his word--he overtook that long procession

of tourists and went by it like a hurricane. The result was that we got

choicer rooms at the hotel in Chamonix than we should have done if

his majesty had been a slower artist--or rather, if he hadn't most

providentially 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 Guild

of Guides--The Guide--in--Chief--The Returned Tourist--Getting

Diploma--Rigid Rules--Unsuccessful Efforts to Procure a Diploma--The

Record-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 Proposed

Trip--Determination and Courage--The Cost all counted----Ascent of

Mont Blanc by Telescope--Safe and Rapid Return--Diplomas Asked for and

Refused--Disaster of 1866--The Brave Brothers--Wonderful Endurance and

Pluck--Love Making on Mont Blanc--First Ascent of a Woman--Sensible

Attire

CHAPTER XLV A Catastrophe which Cost Eleven Lives--Accident of 1870--A

Party of Eleven--A Fearful Storm--Note-books of the Victims--Within Five

Minutes of Safety--Facing Death Resignedly

CHAPTER XLVI The Hotel des Pyramids--The Glacier des Bossons--One of

the Shows--Premeditated Crime--Saved Again--Tourists Warned--Advice

to Tourists--The Two Empresses--The Glacier Toll Collector--Pure

Ice Water--Death Rate of the World--Of Various Cities--A Pleasure

Excursionist--A Diligence Ride--A Satisfied Englishman

CHAPTER XLVII Geneva--Shops of Geneva--Elasticity of Prices--Persistency

of Shop-Women--The High Pressure System--How a Dandy was brought to

Grief--American Manners--Gallantry--Col Baker of London--Arkansaw

Justice--Safety of Women in America--Town of Chambery--A Lively

Place--At Turin--A Railroad Companion--An Insulted Woman--City of

Turin--Italian Honesty--A Small Mistake --Robbing a Beggar Woman

CHAPTER XLVIII In Milan--The Arcade--Incidents we Met With--The

Pedlar--Children--The Honest Conductor--Heavy Stocks of Clothing--The

Quarrelsome Italians--Great Smoke and Little Fire--The Cathedral--Style

in Church--The Old Masters--Tintoretto's great Picture--Emotional

Tourists--Basson's Famed Picture--The Hair Trunk

CHAPTER XLIX In Venice--St Mark's Cathedral--Discovery of an

Antique--The Riches of St Mark's--A Church Robber--Trusting Secrets to a

Friend --The Robber Hanged--A Private Dinner--European Food

CHAPTER L Why Some things Are--Art in Rome and Florence--The Fig Leaf

Mania--Titian's Venus--Difference between Seeing and Describing A Real

work 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 the

village--not on the sidewalks, but all over the street; everybody was

lounging, loafing, chatting, waiting, alert, expectant, interested--for

it was train-time. That is to say, it was diligence-time--the half-dozen

big diligences would soon be arriving from Geneva, and the village was

interested, in many ways, in knowing how many people were coming and

what sort of folk they might be. It was altogether the livest-looking

street we had seen in any village on the continent.

The hotel was by the side of a booming torrent, whose music was loud

and strong; we could not see this torrent, for it was dark, now, but

one could locate it without a light. There was a large enclosed yard in

front of the hotel, and this was filled with groups of villagers waiting

to see the diligences arrive, or to hire themselves to excursionists for

the morrow. A telescope stood in the yard, with its huge barrel canted

up toward the lustrous evening star. The long porch of the hotel was

populous with tourists, who sat in shawls and wraps under the vast

overshadowing bulk of Mont Blanc, and gossiped or meditated.

Never did a mountain seem so close; its big sides seemed at one's very

elbow, and its majestic dome, and the lofty cluster of slender minarets

that were its neighbors, seemed to be almost over one's head. It was

night in the streets, and the lamps were sparkling everywhere; the broad

bases and shoulders of the mountains were in a deep gloom, but their

summits swam in a strange rich glow which was really daylight, and yet

had a mellow something about it which was very different from the hard

white glare of the kind of daylight I was used to. Its radiance was

strong and clear, but at the same time it was singularly soft, and

spiritual, and benignant. No, it was not our harsh, aggressive,

realistic daylight; it seemed properer to an enchanted land--or to

heaven.

I had seen moonlight and daylight together before, but I had not seen

daylight and black night elbow to elbow before. At least I had not seen

the 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 of

those sky-piercing fingers or pinnacles of bare rock of which I have

spoken--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 enough

toward heaven to get entirely above them. She would show the glittering

arch of her upper third, occasionally, and scrape it along behind the

comblike row; sometimes a pinnacle stood straight up, like a statuette

of ebony, against that glittering white shield, then seemed to glide out

of it by its own volition and power, and become a dim specter, while the

next pinnacle glided into its place and blotted the spotless disk with

the black exclamation-point of its presence. The top of one pinnacle

took the shapely, clean-cut form of a rabbit's head, in the inkiest

silhouette, while it rested against the moon. The unillumined peaks and

minarets, hovering vague and phantom-like above us while the others

were painfully white and strong with snow and moonlight, made a peculiar

effect.

But when the moon, having passed the line of pinnacles, was hidden

behind the stupendous white swell of Mont Blanc, the masterpiece of the

evening was flung on the canvas. A rich greenish radiance sprang into

the sky from behind the mountain, and in this some airy shreds and

ribbons of vapor floated about, and being flushed with that strange

tint, went waving to and fro like pale green flames. After a while,

radiating bars--vast broadening fan-shaped shadows--grew up and

stretched away to the zenith from behind the mountain. It was a

spectacle to take one's breath, for the wonder of it, and the sublimity.

Indeed, those mighty bars of alternate light and shadow streaming up

from behind that dark and prodigious form and occupying the half of the

dull and opaque heavens, was the most imposing and impressive marvel I

had ever looked upon. There is no simile for it, for nothing is like

it. If a child had asked me what it was, I should have said, "Humble

yourself, in this presence, it is the glory flowing from the hidden head

of the Creator." One falls shorter of the truth than that, sometimes, in

trying to explain mysteries to the little people. I could have found

out the cause of this awe-compelling miracle by inquiring, for it is not

infrequent at Mont Blanc,--but I did not wish to know. We have not the

reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, because we know how

it 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 four

streets met and the principal shops were clustered, found the groups

of men in the roadway thicker than ever--for this was the Exchange of

Chamonix. These men were in the costumes of guides and porters, and were

there to be hired.

The office of that great personage, the Guide-in-Chief of the Chamonix

Guild of Guides, was near by. This guild is a close corporation, and is

governed by strict laws. There are many excursion routes, some dangerous

and some not, some that can be made safely without a guide, and some

that cannot. The bureau determines these things. Where it decides that a

guide is necessary, you are forbidden to go without one. Neither are you

allowed 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 take

your life into his hands, you must take the worst in the lot, if it is

his turn. A guide's fee ranges all the way up from a half-dollar (for

some trifling excursion of a few rods) to twenty dollars, according to

the distance traversed and the nature of the ground. A guide's fee

for taking a person to the summit of Mont Blanc and back, is twenty

dollars--and he earns it. The time employed is usually three days, and

there is enough early rising in it to make a man far more "healthy and

wealthy and wise" than any one man has any right to be. The porter's

fee for the same trip is ten dollars. Several fools--no, I mean several

tourists--usually go together, and divide up the expense, and thus make

it light; for if only one f--tourist, I mean--went, he would have to

have several guides and porters, and that would make the matter costly.

We went into the Chief's office. There were maps of mountains on the

walls; also one or two lithographs of celebrated guides, and a portrait

of the scientist De Saussure.

In glass cases were some labeled fragments of boots and batons, and

other 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 De

Saussure, in 1787, and ending with No. 685, which wasn't cold yet. In

fact No. 685 was standing by the official table waiting to receive the

precious official diploma which should prove to his German household and

to his descendants that he had once been indiscreet enough to climb to

the top of Mont Blanc. He looked very happy when he got his document; in

fact, he spoke up and said he WAS happy.

I tried to buy a diploma for an invalid friend at home who had never

traveled, 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 was

very much offended. I said I did not propose to be discriminated against

on the account of my nationality; that he had just sold a diploma to

this German gentleman, and my money was a good as his; I would see to

it that he couldn't keep his shop for Germans and deny his produce to

Americans; I would have his license taken away from him at the dropping

of a handkerchief; if France refused to break him, I would make an

international matter of it and bring on a war; the soil should be

drenched with blood; and not only that, but I would set up an opposition

show and sell diplomas at half price.

For two cents I would have done these things, too; but nobody offered me

two cents. I tried to move that German's feelings, but it could not be

done; 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 said

he did not care a VERDAMMTES PFENNIG, he wanted his diploma for

himself--did I suppose he was going to risk his neck for that thing and

then give it to a sick stranger? Indeed he wouldn't, so he wouldn't. I

resolved, 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 happened

on 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 it

recorded the delivery of the remains in the valley by the slow-moving

glacier forty-one years later. The latest catastrophe bore the date

1877.

We stepped out and roved about the village awhile. In front of the

little church was a monument to the memory of the bold guide Jacques

Balmat, the first man who ever stood upon the summit of Mont Blanc. He

made that wild trip solitary and alone. He accomplished the ascent

a number of times afterward. A stretch of nearly half a century lay

between his first ascent and his last one. At the ripe old age of

seventy-two he was climbing around a corner of a lofty precipice of the

Pic du Midi--nobody with him--when he slipped and fell. So he died in

the harness.

He had grown very avaricious in his old age, and used to go off

stealthily to hunt for non-existent and impossible gold among those

perilous peaks and precipices. He was on a quest of that kind when he

lost his life. There was a statue to him, and another to De Saussure, in

the hall of our hotel, and a metal plate on the door of a room upstairs

bore an inscription to the effect that that room had been occupied

by Albert Smith. Balmat and De Saussure discovered Mont Blanc--so to

speak--but it was Smith who made it a paying property. His articles in

BLACKWOOD and his lectures on Mont Blanc in London advertised it and

made 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-light

glowing in the darkness of the mountainside. It seemed but a trifling

way up--perhaps a hundred yards, a climb of ten minutes. It was a lucky

piece of sagacity in us that we concluded to stop a man whom we met and

get a light for our pipes from him instead of continuing the climb to

that lantern to get a light, as had been our purpose. The man said that

that lantern was on the Grands Mulets, some sixty-five hundred feet

above the valley! I know by our Riffelberg experience, that it would

have taken us a good part of a week to go up there. I would sooner not

smoke at all, than take all that trouble for a light.

Even in the daytime the foreshadowing effect of this mountain's close

proximity creates curious deceptions. For instance, one sees with the

naked eye a cabin up there beside the glacier, and a little above and

beyond he sees the spot where that red light was located; he thinks he

could 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 thousand

feet. It looks impossible, from below, that this can be true, but it is

true, nevertheless.

While strolling around, we kept the run of the moon all the time, and we

still kept an eye on her after we got back to the hotel portico. I had

a theory that the gravitation of refraction, being subsidiary to

atmospheric compensation, the refrangibility of the earth's surface

would emphasize this effect in regions where great mountain ranges

occur, and possibly so even-handed impact the odic and idyllic forces

together, the one upon the other, as to prevent the moon from rising

higher than 12,200 feet above sea-level. This daring theory had been

received with frantic scorn by some of my fellow-scientists, and with

an eager silence by others. Among the former I may mention Prof. H----y;

and among the latter Prof. T----l. Such is professional jealousy; a

scientist will never show any kindness for a theory which he did not

start himself. There is no feeling of brotherhood among these people.

Indeed, they always resent it when I call them brother. To show how far

their ungenerosity can carry them, I will state that I offered to let

Prof. H----y publish my great theory as his own discovery; I even begged

him to do it; I even proposed to print it myself as his theory. Instead

of thanking me, he said that if I tried to fasten that theory on him he

would sue me for slander. I was going to offer it to Mr. Darwin, whom

I understood to be a man without prejudices, but it occurred to me

that perhaps he would not be interested in it since it did not concern

heraldry.

But I am glad now, that I was forced to father my intrepid theory

myself, for, on the night of which I am writing, it was triumphantly

justified and established. Mont Blanc is nearly sixteen thousand feet

high; he hid the moon utterly; near him is a peak which is 12,216 feet

high; the moon slid along behind the pinnacles, and when she approached

that one I watched her with intense interest, for my reputation as a

scientist must stand or fall by its decision. I cannot describe the

emotions which surged like tidal waves through my breast when I saw the

moon glide behind that lofty needle and pass it by without exposing more

than 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 all

the peaks and never succeeded in hoisting her disk above a single one of

them.

While the moon was behind one of those sharp fingers, its shadow was

flung athwart the vacant heavens--a long, slanting, clean-cut, dark

ray--with a streaming and energetic suggestion of FORCE about it, such

as the ascending jet of water from a powerful fire-engine affords. It

was curious to see a good strong shadow of an earthly object cast upon

so 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 was

physically 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 has

always the roar of the torrent in his ears. He imagines it is music, and

he thinks poetic things about it; he lies in his comfortable bed and is

lulled to sleep by it. But by and by he begins to notice that his

head is very sore--he cannot account for it; in solitudes where the

profoundest silence reigns, he notices a sullen, distant, continuous

roar in his ears, which is like what he would experience if he had

sea-shells pressed against them--he cannot account for it; he is drowsy

and absent-minded; there is no tenacity to his mind, he cannot keep hold

of a thought and follow it out; if he sits down to write, his vocabulary

is empty, no suitable words will come, he forgets what he started to do,

and remains there, pen in hand, head tilted up, eyes closed, listening

painfully to the muffled roar of a distant train in his ears; in his

soundest sleep the strain continues, he goes on listening, always

listening 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 persecuting

torrents that have been making all the mischief. It is time for him

to get out of Switzerland, then, for as soon as he has discovered the

cause, the misery is magnified several fold. The roar of the torrent is

maddening, then, for his imagination is assisting; the physical pain

it inflicts is exquisite. When he finds he is approaching one of those

streams, his dread is so lively that he is disposed to fly the track and

avoid the implacable foe.

Eight or nine months after the distress of the torrents had departed

from me, the roar and thunder of the streets of Paris brought it all

back 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 joyous

lunatic 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 minutes

he smoothly shuffled away--a pause followed, then something fell with

a thump on the floor. I said to myself "There--he is pulling off his

boots--thank heavens he is done." Another slight pause--he went to

shuffling again! I said to myself, "Is he trying to see what he can do

with only one boot on?" Presently came another pause and another thump

on the floor. I said "Good, he has pulled off his other boot--NOW he is

done." 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 that

same old pause, and right after it that thump on the floor once more. I

said, "Hang him, he had on TWO pair of boots!" For an hour that magician

went on shuffling and pulling off boots till he had shed as many as

twenty-five pair, and I was hovering on the verge of lunacy. I got

my gun and stole up there. The fellow was in the midst of an acre of

sprawling boots, and he had a boot in his hand, shuffling it--no, I mean

POLISHING it. The mystery was explained. He hadn't been dancing. He was

the "Boots" of the hotel, and was attending to business.

CHAPTER XLIV - Hunting The Deceitful Turkey - [I Scale Mont Blanc--by Telescope]

After breakfast, that next morning in Chamonix, we went out in the yard

and watched the gangs of excursioning tourists arriving and departing

with their mules and guides and porters; then we took a look through

the telescope at the snowy hump of Mont Blanc. It was brilliant with

sunshine, and the vast smooth bulge seemed hardly five hundred yards

away. With the naked eye we could dimly make out the house at the Pierre

Pointue, which is located by the side of the great glacier, and is more

than three thousand feet above the level of the valley; but with the

telescope we could see all its details. While I looked, a woman rode by

the house on a mule, and I saw her with sharp distinctness; I could have

described her dress. I saw her nod to the people of the house, and rein

up her mule, and put her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. I was

not used to telescopes; in fact, I had never looked through a good one

before; 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 naked

eye; but when I tried it, that mule and those vivid people had wholly

vanished, and the house itself was become small and vague. I tried

the telescope again, and again everything was vivid. The strong black

shadows of the mule and the woman were flung against the side of the

house, and I saw the mule's silhouette wave its ears.

The telescopulist--or the telescopulariat--I do not know which is

right--said a party were making a grand ascent, and would come in sight

on the remote upper heights, presently; so we waited to observe this

performance. Presently I had a superb idea. I wanted to stand with a

party on the summit of Mont Blanc, merely to be able to say I had done

it, and I believed the telescope could set me within seven feet of the

uppermost man. The telescoper assured me that it could. I then asked him

how much I owed him for as far as I had got? He said, one franc. I asked

him how much it would cost to make the entire ascent? Three francs. I at

once determined to make the entire ascent. But first I inquired if there

was any danger? He said no--not by telescope; said he had taken a great

many parties to the summit, and never lost a man. I asked what he would

charge to let my agent go with me, together with such guides and porters

as might be necessary. He said he would let Harris go for two francs;

and that unless we were unusually timid, he should consider guides and

porters unnecessary; it was not customary to take them, when going by

telescope, for they were rather an encumbrance than a help. He said that

the party now on the mountain were approaching the most difficult part,

and if we hurried we should overtake them within ten minutes, and could

then join them and have the benefit of their guides and porters without

their 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 of

the nature of the exploit I was so unreflectingly engaged in. But the

old daredevil spirit was upon me, and I said that as I had committed

myself I would not back down; I would ascend Mont Blanc if it cost me

my life. I told the man to slant his machine in the proper direction and

let us be off.

Harris was afraid and did not want to go, but I heartened him up and

said I would hold his hand all the way; so he gave his consent, though

he trembled a little at first. I took a last pathetic look upon the

pleasant summer scene about me, then boldly put my eye to the glass and

prepared to mount among the grim glaciers and the everlasting snows.

We took our way carefully and cautiously across the great Glacier des

Bossons, over yawning and terrific crevices and among imposing crags

and buttresses of ice which were fringed with icicles of gigantic

proportions. The desert of ice that stretched far and wide about us was

wild and desolate beyond description, and the perils which beset us were

so great that at times I was minded to turn back. But I pulled my pluck

together and pushed on.

We passed the glacier safely and began to mount the steeps beyond, with

great alacrity. When we were seven minutes out from the starting-point,

we reached an altitude where the scene took a new aspect; an apparently

limitless continent of gleaming snow was tilted heavenward before our

faces. As my eye followed that awful acclivity far away up into the

remote skies, it seemed to me that all I had ever seen before of

sublimity and magnitude was small and insignificant compared to this.

We rested a moment, and then began to mount with speed. Within three

minutes we caught sight of the party ahead of us, and stopped to observe

them. They were toiling up a long, slanting ridge of snow--twelve

persons, roped together some fifteen feet apart, marching in single

file, 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 swing

their alpenstocks forward in unison, like so many pendulums, and then

bear their weight upon them; we saw the lady wave her handkerchief. They

dragged themselves upward in a worn and weary way, for they had been

climbing steadily from the Grand Mulets, on the Glacier des Bossons,

since three in the morning, and it was eleven, now. We saw them sink

down in the snow and rest, and drink something from a bottle. After a

while they moved on, and as they approached the final short dash of the

home-stretch we closed up on them and joined them.

Presently we all stood together on the summit! What a view was spread

out below! Away off under the northwestern horizon rolled the silent

billows of the Farnese Oberland, their snowy crests glinting softly in

the subdued lights of distance; in the north rose the giant form of the

Wobblehorn, draped from peak to shoulder in sable thunder-clouds; beyond

him, to the right, stretched the grand processional summits of the

Cisalpine Cordillera, drowned in a sensuous haze; to the east loomed the

colossal masses of the Yodelhorn, the Fuddelhorn, and the Dinnerhorn,

their cloudless summits flashing white and cold in the sun; beyond

them shimmered the faint far line of the Ghauts of Jubbelpore and the

Aiguilles des Alleghenies; in the south towered the smoking peak

of Popocatapetl and the unapproachable altitudes of the peerless

Scrabblehorn; in the west-south the stately range of the Himalayas lay

dreaming in a purple gloom; and thence all around the curving horizon

the eye roved over a troubled sea of sun-kissed Alps, and noted,

here and there, the noble proportions and the soaring domes of the

Bottlehorn, 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, in

unison. A startled man at my elbow said:

"Confound you, what do you yell like that for, right here in the

street?"

That brought me down to Chamonix, like a flirt. I gave that man some

spiritual advice and disposed of him, and then paid the telescope man

his full fee, and said that we were charmed with the trip and would

remain down, and not reascend and require him to fetch us down by

telescope. This pleased him very much, for of course we could have

stepped back to the summit and put him to the trouble of bringing us

home if we wanted to.

I judged we could get diplomas, now, anyhow; so we went after them, but

the Chief Guide put us off, with one pretext or another, during all the

time we stayed in Chamonix, and we ended by never getting them at all.

So much for his prejudice against people's nationality. However, we

worried him enough to make him remember us and our ascent for some

time. He even said, once, that he wished there was a lunatic asylum

in Chamonix. This shows that he really had fears that we were going to

drive him mad. It was what we intended to do, but lack of time defeated

it.

I cannot venture to advise the reader one way or the other, as to

ascending Mont Blanc. I say only this: if he is at all timid, the

enjoyments of the trip will hardly make up for the hardships and

sufferings he will have to endure. But, if he has good nerve, youth,

health, and a bold, firm will, and could leave his family comfortably

provided for in case the worst happened, he would find the ascent a

wonderful 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 not

advise him against it. But if he elects to attempt it, let him be warily

careful of two things: chose a calm, clear day; and do not pay the

telescope man in advance. There are dark stories of his getting advance

payers 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 disaster

on the Matterhorn. Three adventurous English gentlemen, [1] of great

experience in mountain-climbing, made up their minds to ascend Mont

Blanc without guides or porters. All endeavors to dissuade them from

their project failed. Powerful telescopes are numerous in Chamonix.

These huge brass tubes, mounted on their scaffoldings and pointed

skyward from every choice vantage-ground, have the formidable look of

artillery, and give the town the general aspect of getting ready

to repel a charge of angels. The reader may easily believe that the

telescopes had plenty of custom on that August morning in 1866, for

everybody knew of the dangerous undertaking which was on foot, and

all had fears that misfortune would result. All the morning the tubes

remained directed toward the mountain heights, each with its anxious

group 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 the

telescopes cried out "There they are!"--and sure enough, far up, on

the 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 summit

of Mont Blanc. So, all was well. They remained a few minutes on that

highest point of land in Europe, a target for all the telescopes, and

were then seen to begin descent. Suddenly all three vanished. An instant

after, they appeared again, TWO THOUSAND FEET BELOW!

Evidently, they had tripped and been shot down an almost perpendicular

slope of ice to a point where it joined the border of the upper glacier.

Naturally, the distant witness supposed they were now looking upon three

corpses; so they could hardly believe their eyes when they presently saw

two of the men rise to their feet and bend over the third. During

two hours and a half they watched the two busying themselves over the

extended form of their brother, who seemed entirely inert. Chamonix's

affairs stood still; everybody was in the street, all interest was

centered upon what was going on upon that lofty and isolated stage

five miles away. Finally the two--one of them walking with great

difficulty--were seen to begin descent, abandoning the third, who was no

doubt lifeless. Their movements were followed, step by step, until they

reached the "Corridor" and disappeared behind its ridge. Before they had

had time to traverse the "Corridor" and reappear, twilight was come, and

the power of the telescope was at an end.

The survivors had a most perilous journey before them in the gathering

darkness, for they must get down to the Grands Mulets before they would

find a safe stopping-place--a long and tedious descent, and perilous

enough even in good daylight. The oldest guides expressed the opinion

that they could not succeed; that all the chances were that they would

lose their lives.

Yet those brave men did succeed. They reached the Grands Mulets in

safety. Even the fearful shock which their nerves had sustained was not

sufficient to overcome their coolness and courage. It would appear from

the official account that they were threading their way down through

those dangers from the closing in of twilight until two o'clock in the

morning, or later, because the rescuing party from Chamonix reached

the Grand Mulets about three in the morning and moved thence toward the

scene of the disaster under the leadership of Sir George Young, "who had

only just arrived."

After having been on his feet twenty-four hours, in the exhausting work

of mountain-climbing, Sir George began the reascent at the head of the

relief party of six guides, to recover the corpse of his brother. This

was considered a new imprudence, as the number was too few for the

service required. Another relief party presently arrived at the cabin

on the Grands Mulets and quartered themselves there to await events. Ten

hours after Sir George's departure toward the summit, this new relief

were still scanning the snowy altitudes above them from their own high

perch among the ice deserts ten thousand feet above the level of the

sea, but the whole forenoon had passed without a glimpse of any living

thing appearing up there.

This was alarming. Half a dozen of their number set out, then early in

the afternoon, to seek and succor Sir George and his guides. The persons

remaining at the cabin saw these disappear, and then ensued another

distressing wait. Four hours passed, without tidings. Then at five

o'clock another relief, consisting of three guides, set forward from

the cabin. They carried food and cordials for the refreshment of their

predecessors; 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, the

official Guide-in-Chief of the Mont Blanc region undertook the dangerous

descent to Chamonix, all alone, to get reinforcements. However, a couple

of hours later, at 7 P.M., the anxious solicitude came to an end, and

happily. A bugle note was heard, and a cluster of black specks was

distinguishable against the snows of the upper heights. The watchers

counted these specks eagerly--fourteen--nobody was missing. An hour and

a half later they were all safe under the roof of the cabin. They had

brought the corpse with them. Sir George Young tarried there but a few

minutes, and then began the long and troublesome descent from the cabin

to Chamonix. He probably reached there about two or three o'clock in the

morning, after having been afoot among the rocks and glaciers during two

days and two nights. His endurance was equal to his daring.

The cause of the unaccountable delay of Sir George and the relief

parties among the heights where the disaster had happened was a thick

fog--or, partly that and partly the slow and difficult work of conveying

the dead body down the perilous steeps.

The corpse, upon being viewed at the inquest, showed no bruises, and it

was 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 two

thousand feet, almost perpendicularly, and live afterward, is a most

strange 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, of

attempting the ascent in the middle of winter. She tried it--and she

succeeded. Moreover, she froze two of her fingers on the way up, she

fell in love with her guide on the summit, and she married him when she

got to the bottom again. There is nothing in romance, in the way of a

striking "situation," which can beat this love scene in midheaven on

an isolated ice-crest with the thermometer at zero and an Artic gale

blowing.

The first woman who ascended Mont Blanc was a girl aged

twenty-two--Mlle. Maria Paradis--1809. Nobody was with her but her

sweetheart, and he was not a guide. The sex then took a rest for about

thirty years, when a Mlle. d'Angeville made the ascent --1838. In

Chamonix I picked up a rude old lithograph of that day which pictured

her "in the act."

However, I value it less as a work of art than as a fashion-plate. Miss

d'Angeville put on a pair of men's pantaloons to climb it, which was

wise; but she cramped their utility by adding her petticoat, which was

idiotic.

One of the mournfulest calamities which men's disposition to climb

dangerous mountains has resulted in, happened on Mont Blanc in September

1870. 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 departed

from Chamonix to make the ascent of Mont Blanc. Three of the party

were tourists; Messrs. Randall and Bean, Americans, and Mr. George

Corkindale, a Scotch gentleman; there were three guides and five

porters. The cabin on the Grands Mulets was reached that day; the ascent

was resumed early the next morning, September 6th. The day was fine

and clear, and the movements of the party were observed through the

telescopes of Chamonix; at two o'clock in the afternoon they were seen

to reach the summit. A few minutes later they were seen making the first

steps of the descent; then a cloud closed around them and hid them from

view.

Eight hours passed, the cloud still remained, night came, no one had

returned to the Grands Mulets. Sylvain Couttet, keeper of the cabin

there, suspected a misfortune, and sent down to the valley for help. A

detachment of guides went up, but by the time they had made the tedious

trip 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 the

17th, Couttet, with several guides, left the cabin and succeeded in

making the ascent. In the snowy wastes near the summit they came upon

five bodies, lying upon their sides in a reposeful attitude which

suggested that possibly they had fallen asleep there, while exhausted

with fatigue and hunger and benumbed with cold, and never knew when

death stole upon them. Couttet moved a few steps further and discovered

five 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-book

in which had been penciled some sentences which admit us, in flesh and

spirit, as it were, to the presence of these men during their last hours

of life, and to the grisly horrors which their fading vision looked upon

and their failing consciousness took cognizance of:

TUESDAY, SEPT. 6. I have made the ascent of Mont Blanc, with ten

persons--eight guides, and Mr. Corkindale and Mr. Randall. We reached

the summit at half past 2. Immediately after quitting it, we were

enveloped in clouds of snow. We passed the night in a grotto hollowed in

the snow, which afforded us but poor shelter, and I was ill all night.

SEPT. 7--MORNING. The cold is excessive. The snow falls heavily and

without interruption. The guides take no rest.

EVENING. My Dear Hessie, we have been two days on Mont Blanc, in the

midst of a terrible hurricane of snow, we have lost our way, and are

in a hole scooped in the snow, at an altitude of 15,000 feet. I have no

longer 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 cold

and fatigue vanquished them at last, they scooped their cave and lay

down there to die by inches, UNAWARE THAT FIVE STEPS MORE WOULD HAVE

BROUGHT THEM INTO THE TRUTH PATH. They were so near to life and safety

as that, and did not suspect it. The thought of this gives the sharpest

pang that the tragic story conveys.

The author of the HISTOIRE DU MONT BLANC introduced the closing

sentences of Mr. Bean's pathetic record thus:

"Here the characters are large and unsteady; the hand which traces them

is become chilled and torpid; but the spirit survives, and the faith and

resignation of the dying man are expressed with a sublime simplicity."

Perhaps this note-book will be found and sent to you. We have nothing to

eat, my feet are already frozen, and I am exhausted; I have strength to

write only a few words more. I have left means for C's education; I know

you will employ them wisely. I die with faith in God, and with loving

thoughts of you. Farewell to all. We shall meet again, in Heaven. ... I

think of you always.

It is the way of the Alps to deliver death to their victims with a

merciful swiftness, but here the rule failed. These men suffered

the bitterest death that has been recorded in the history of those

mountains, 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 Hotel

des Pyramides, which is perched on the high moraine which borders the

Glacier des Bossons. The road led sharply uphill, all the way, through

grass and flowers and woods, and was a pleasant walk, barring the

fatigue of the climb.

From the hotel we could view the huge glacier at very close range. After

a rest we followed down a path which had been made in the steep inner

frontage of the moraine, and stepped upon the glacier itself. One of the

shows of the place was a tunnel-like cavern, which had been hewn in the

glacier. The proprietor of this tunnel took candles and conducted us

into it. It was three or four feet wide and about six feet high. Its

walls of pure and solid ice emitted a soft and rich blue light that

produced a lovely effect, and suggested enchanted caves, and that sort

of thing. When we had proceeded some yards and were entering darkness,

we turned about and had a dainty sunlit picture of distant woods and

heights framed in the strong arch of the tunnel and seen through the

tender blue radiance of the tunnel's atmosphere.

The cavern was nearly a hundred yards long, and when we reached its

inner limit the proprietor stepped into a branch tunnel with his candles

and 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 matches

and prepared to sell our lives as dearly as possible by setting the

glacier on fire if the worst came to the worst--but we soon perceived

that 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 he

came 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 exercise

of the swift sagacity and cool courage which had saved us so often, we

had added another escape to the long list. The tourist should visit that

ice-cavern, by all means, for it is well worth the trouble; but I would

advise him to go only with a strong and well-armed force. I do not

consider artillery necessary, yet it would not be unadvisable to take

it along, if convenient. The journey, going and coming, is about three

miles and a half, three of which are on level ground. We made it in

less than a day, but I would counsel the unpracticed--if not pressed

for time--to allow themselves two. Nothing is gained in the Alps by

over-exertion; nothing is gained by crowding two days' work into one for

the poor sake of being able to boast of the exploit afterward. It will

be found much better, in the long run, to do the thing in two days, and

then subtract one of them from the narrative. This saves fatigue, and

does not injure the narrative. All the more thoughtful among the Alpine

tourists do this.

We now called upon the Guide-in-Chief, and asked for a squadron of

guides and porters for the ascent of the Montanvert. This idiot glared

at 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 feet

above the level of the sea. Here we camped and breakfasted. There was

a cabin there--the spot is called the Caillet--and a spring of ice-cold

water. On the door of the cabin was a sign, in French, to the effect

that "One may here see a living chamois for fifty centimes." We did not

invest; what we wanted was to see a dead one.

A little after noon we ended the ascent and arrived at the new hotel on

the 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 deep

swales and long, rolling swells have been caught in mid-movement and

frozen solid; but further up it is broken up into wildly tossing billows

of ice.

We descended a ticklish path in the steep side of the moraine, and

invaded the glacier. There were tourists of both sexes scattered far and

wide over it, everywhere, and it had the festive look of a skating-rink.

The Empress Josephine came this far, once. She ascended the Montanvert

in 1810--but not alone; a small army of men preceded her to clear the

path--and carpet it, perhaps--and she followed, under the protection of

SIXTY-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 Marie

Louise, 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 still

girdling her brow," and implored admittance--and was refused! A few days

before, the adulations and applauses of a nation were sounding in her

ears, and now she was come to this!

We crossed the Mer de Glace in safety, but we had misgivings. The

crevices in the ice yawned deep and blue and mysterious, and it made one

nervous to traverse them. The huge round waves of ice were slippery and

difficult to climb, and the chances of tripping and sliding down them

and darting into a crevice were too many to be comfortable.

In the bottom of a deep swale between two of the biggest of the

ice-waves, we found a fraud who pretended to be cutting steps to insure

the safety of tourists. He was "soldiering" when we came upon him, but

he hopped up and chipped out a couple of steps about big enough for a

cat, and charged us a franc or two for it. Then he sat down again, to

doze 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 glacier

perceptibly. I have heard of a good many soft sinecures, but it seems

to me that keeping toll-bridge on a glacier is the softest one I have

encountered yet.

That was a blazing hot day, and it brought a persistent and persecuting

thirst with it. What an unspeakable luxury it was to slake that thirst

with the pure and limpid ice-water of the glacier! Down the sides of

every great rib of pure ice poured limpid rills in gutters carved by

their own attrition; better still, wherever a rock had lain, there was

now a bowl-shaped hole, with smooth white sides and bottom of ice, and

this bowl was brimming with water of such absolute clearness that the

careless observer would not see it at all, but would think the bowl was

empty. These fountains had such an alluring look that I often stretched

myself out when I was not thirsty and dipped my face in and drank till

my teeth ached. Everywhere among the Swiss mountains we had at hand the

blessing--not to be found in Europe EXCEPT in the mountains--of water

capable of quenching thirst. Everywhere in the Swiss highlands brilliant

little rills of exquisitely cold water went dancing along by the

roadsides, and my comrade and I were always drinking and always

delivering our deep gratitude.

But in Europe everywhere except in the mountains, the water is flat and

insipid beyond the power of words to describe. It is served lukewarm;

but no matter, ice could not help it; it is incurably flat, incurably

insipid. It is only good to wash with; I wonder it doesn't occur to

the average inhabitant to try it for that. In Europe the people say

contemptuously, "Nobody drinks water here." Indeed, they have a sound

and sufficient reason. In many places they even have what may be called

prohibitory reasons. In Paris and Munich, for instance, they say, "Don't

drink 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-rate

as sharply as Europe does. I think we do keep up the death statistics

accurately; and if we do, our cities are healthier than the cities of

Europe. Every month the German government tabulates the death-rate of

the world and publishes it. I scrap-booked these reports during several

months, and it was curious to see how regular and persistently each city

repeated its same death-rate month after month. The tables might as well

have been stereotyped, they varied so little. These tables were

based upon weekly reports showing the average of deaths in each 1,000

population for a year. Munich was always present with her 33 deaths in

each 1,000 of her population (yearly average), Chicago was as constant

with her 15 or 17, Dublin with her 48--and so on.

Only a few American cities appear in these tables, but they are

scattered so widely over the country that they furnish a good general

average of CITY health in the United States; and I think it will be

granted that our towns and villages are healthier than our cities.

Here is the average of the only American cities reported in the German

tables:

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 transatlantic

list:

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 the

entire list which is healthier, except Frankfort-on-the-Main--20. But

Frankfort is not as healthy as Chicago, San Francisco, St. Louis, or

Philadelphia.

Perhaps a strict average of the world might develop the fact that where

one in 1,000 of America's population dies, two in 1,000 of the other

populations of the earth succumb.

I do not like to make insinuations, but I do think the above statistics

darkly 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 then

crept along its sharp ridge a hundred yards or so, in pretty constant

danger of a tumble to the glacier below. The fall would have been only

one hundred feet, but it would have closed me out as effectually as one

thousand, therefore I respected the distance accordingly, and was

glad when the trip was done. A moraine is an ugly thing to assault

head-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 be

made mainly of rough boulders of all sizes, from that of a man's head to

that of a cottage.

By and by we came to the Mauvais Pas, or the Villainous Road, to

translate it feelingly. It was a breakneck path around the face of a

precipice forty or fifty feet high, and nothing to hang on to but some

iron railings. I got along, slowly, safely, and uncomfortably, and

finally reached the middle. My hopes began to rise a little, but they

were quickly blighted; for there I met a hog--a long-nosed, bristly

fellow, that held up his snout and worked his nostrils at me

inquiringly. A hog on a pleasure excursion in Switzerland--think of it!

It is striking and unusual; a body might write a poem about it. He

could not retreat, if he had been disposed to do it. It would have been

foolish to stand upon our dignity in a place where there was hardly room

to stand upon our feet, so we did nothing of the sort. There were twenty

or thirty ladies and gentlemen behind us; we all turned about and went

back, and the hog followed behind. The creature did not seem set up by

what he had done; he had probably done it before.

We reached the restaurant on the height called the Chapeau at four in

the 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 branded

on my alpenstock; then we descended to the valley and walked home

without being tied together. This was not dangerous, for the valley was

five miles wide, and quite level.

We reached the hotel before nine o'clock. Next morning we left for

Geneva on top of the diligence, under shelter of a gay awning. If I

remember rightly, there were more than twenty people up there. It was

so high that the ascent was made by ladder. The huge vehicle was full

everywhere, 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 the

company were wiser; they had trusted Baedeker, and waited; consequently

some of them got their seats for one or two dollars. Baedeker knows

all about hotels, railway and diligence companies, and speaks his mind

freely. He is a trustworthy friend of the traveler.

We never saw Mont Blanc at his best until we were many miles away; then

he lifted his majestic proportions high into the heavens, all white

and cold and solemn, and made the rest of the world seem little and

plebeian, and cheap and trivial.

As he passed out of sight at last, an old Englishman settled himself in

his seat and said:

"Well, I am satisfied, I have seen the principal features of Swiss

scenery--Mont Blanc and the goiter--now for home!"

CHAPTER XLVII - [Queer European Manners]

We spent a few pleasant restful days at Geneva, that delightful city

where accurate time-pieces are made for all the rest of the world, but

whose own clocks never give the correct time of day by any accident.

Geneva is filled with pretty shops, and the shops are filled with the

most enticing gimcrackery, but if one enters one of these places he is

at 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 the

smaller sort, in Geneva, are as troublesome and persistent as are

the salesmen of that monster hive in Paris, the Grands Magasins du

Louvre--an establishment where ill-mannered pestering, pursuing, and

insistence have been reduced to a science.

In Geneva, prices in the smaller shops are very elastic--that is another

bad feature. I was looking in at a window at a very pretty string of

beads, suitable for a child. I was only admiring them; I had no use for

them; I hardly ever wear beads. The shopwoman came out and offered them

to me for thirty-five francs. I said it was cheap, but I did not need

them.

"Ah, but monsieur, they are so beautiful!"

I confessed it, but said they were not suitable for one of my age and

simplicity of character. She darted in and brought them out and tried to

force 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 is

a loss, but one must live."

I dropped my hands, and tried to move her to respect my unprotected

situation. But no, she dangled the beads in the sun before my face,

exclaiming, "Ah, monsieur CANNOT resist them!" She hung them on my coat

button, folded her hand resignedly, and said: "Gone,--and for thirty

francs, the lovely things--it is incredible!--but the good God will

sanctify the sacrifice to me."

I removed them gently, returned them, and walked away, shaking my head

and smiling a smile of silly embarrassment while the passers-by halted

to observe. The woman leaned out of her door, shook the beads, and

screamed 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 take

them."

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 been

near 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--he

shall send me the money tomorrow--next day--when he likes." Then to the

child: "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 squarely

and firmly, and that ended the matter.

The "sights" of Geneva are not numerous. I made one attempt to hunt up

the houses once inhabited by those two disagreeable people, Rousseau and

Calvin, but I had no success. Then I concluded to go home. I found

it was easier to propose to do that than to do it; for that town is a

bewildering 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 which

looked somewhat familiar, and said to myself, "Now I am at home, I

judge." But I was wrong; this was "HELL street." Presently I found

another place which had a familiar look, and said to myself, "Now I am

at home, sure." It was another error. This was "PURGATORY street." After

a 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 a

curious performance. A lady passed by, and a trim dandy lounged across

the walk in such an apparently carefully timed way as to bring himself

exactly in front of her when she got to him; he made no offer to step

out of the way; he did not apologize; he did not even notice her. She

had to stop still and let him lounge by. I wondered if he had done that

piece of brutality purposely. He strolled to a chair and seated himself

at a small table; two or three other males were sitting at similar

tables sipping sweetened water. I waited; presently a youth came by, and

this fellow got up and served him the same trick. Still, it did not seem

possible that any one could do such a thing deliberately. To satisfy my

curiosity I went around the block, and, sure enough, as I approached, at

a good round speed, he got up and lounged lazily across my path, fouling

my course exactly at the right moment to receive all my weight. This

proved that his previous performances had not been accidental, but

intentional.

I saw that dandy's curious game played afterward, in Paris, but not

for amusement; not with a motive of any sort, indeed, but simply from a

selfish indifference to other people's comfort and rights. One does not

see it as frequently in Paris as he might expect to, for there the law

says, in effect, "It is the business of the weak to get out of the way

of the strong." We fine a cabman if he runs over a citizen; Paris fines

the citizen for being run over. At least so everybody says--but I saw

something which caused me to doubt; I saw a horseman run over an old

woman one day--the police arrested him and took him away. That looked as

if they meant to punish him.

It will not do for me to find merit in American manners--for are they

not the standing butt for the jests of critical and polished Europe?

Still, I must venture to claim one little matter of superiority in our

manners; a lady may traverse our streets all day, going and coming as

she 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, she

will be pretty likely to be accosted and insulted--and not by drunken

sailors, 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 lower

sort, disguised as gentlemen. The case of Colonel Valentine Baker

obstructs that argument, for a man cannot become an officer in the

British army except he hold the rank of gentleman. This person, finding

himself alone in a railway compartment with an unprotected girl--but

it is an atrocious story, and doubtless the reader remembers it well

enough. London must have been more or less accustomed to Bakers, and the

ways of Bakers, else London would have been offended and excited. Baker

was "imprisoned"--in a parlor; and he could not have been more visited,

or more overwhelmed with attentions, if he had committed six murders and

then--while the gallows was preparing--"got religion"--after the manner

of the holy Charles Peace, of saintly memory. Arkansaw--it seems a

little indelicate to be trumpeting forth our own superiorities, and

comparisons are always odious, but still--Arkansaw would certainly have

hanged Baker. I do not say she would have tried him first, but she would

have hanged him, anyway.

Even the most degraded woman can walk our streets unmolested, her sex

and her weakness being her sufficient protection. She will encounter

less polish than she would in the old world, but she will run across

enough humanity to make up for it.

The music of a donkey awoke us early in the morning, and we rose up and

made ready for a pretty formidable walk--to Italy; but the road was so

level that we took the train.. We lost a good deal of time by this, but

it was no matter, we were not in a hurry. We were four hours going to

Chamb`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 as

Heilbronn. A drowsy reposeful quiet reigned in the back streets which

made strolling through them very pleasant, barring the almost unbearable

heat of the sun. In one of these streets, which was eight feet wide,

gracefully curved, and built up with small antiquated houses, I saw

three fat hogs lying asleep, and a boy (also asleep) taking care of

them.

From queer old-fashioned windows along the curve projected boxes of

bright flowers, and over the edge of one of these boxes hung the head

and shoulders of a cat--asleep. The five sleeping creatures were the

only living things visible in that street. There was not a sound;

absolute stillness prevailed. It was Sunday; one is not used to

such dreamy Sundays on the continent. In our part of the town it was

different that night. A regiment of brown and battered soldiers had

arrived 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 was

profusely decorated with tunnels. We forgot to take a lantern along,

consequently we missed all the scenery. Our compartment was full. A

ponderous tow-headed Swiss woman, who put on many fine-lady airs, but

was evidently more used to washing linen than wearing it, sat in a

corner seat and put her legs across into the opposite one, propping them

intermediately with her up-ended valise. In the seat thus pirated, sat

two Americans, greatly incommoded by that woman's majestic coffin-clad

feet. One of them begged, politely, to remove them. She opened her wide

eyes and gave him a stare, but answered nothing. By and by he proferred

his request again, with great respectfulness. She said, in good English,

and in a deeply offended tone, that she had paid her passage and was not

going to be bullied out of her "rights" by ill-bred foreigners, even if

she was alone and unprotected.

"But I have rights, also, madam. My ticket entitles me to a seat, but

you are occupying half of it."

"I will not talk with you, sir. What right have you to speak to me? I

do not know you. One would know you came from a land where there are no

gentlemen. No GENTLEMAN would treat a lady as you have treated me."

"I come from a region where a lady would hardly give me the same

provocation."

"You have insulted me, sir! You have intimated that I am not a lady--and

I 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 at

the same time I must insist--always respectfully--that you let me have

my seat."

Here the fragile laundress burst into tears and sobs.

"I never was so insulted before! Never, never! It is shameful, it is

brutal, it is base, to bully and abuse an unprotected lady who has

lost the use of her limbs and cannot put her feet to the floor without

agony!"

"Good heavens, madam, why didn't you say that at first! I offer a

thousand pardons. And I offer them most sincerely. I did not know--I

COULD not know--anything was the matter. You are most welcome to the

seat, and would have been from the first if I had only known. I am truly

sorry it all happened, I do assure you."

But he couldn't get a word of forgiveness out of her. She simply sobbed

and sniffed in a subdued but wholly unappeasable way for two long hours,

meantime crowding the man more than ever with her undertaker-furniture

and paying no sort of attention to his frequent and humble little

efforts to do something for her comfort. Then the train halted at the

Italian line and she hopped up and marched out of the car with as firm a

leg as any washerwoman of all her tribe! And how sick I was, to see how

she had fooled me.

Turin is a very fine city. In the matter of roominess it transcends

anything that was ever dreamed of before, I fancy. It sits in the midst

of a vast dead-level, and one is obliged to imagine that land may be

had for the asking, and no taxes to pay, so lavishly do they use it. The

streets are extravagantly wide, the paved squares are prodigious, the

houses are huge and handsome, and compacted into uniform blocks that

stretch away as straight as an arrow, into the distance. The sidewalks

are about as wide as ordinary European STREETS, and are covered over

with a double arcade supported on great stone piers or columns. One

walks from one end to the other of these spacious streets, under shelter

all the time, and all his course is lined with the prettiest of shops

and the most inviting dining-houses.

There is a wide and lengthy court, glittering with the most wickedly

enticing shops, which is roofed with glass, high aloft overhead, and

paved with soft-toned marbles laid in graceful figures; and at night

when the place is brilliant with gas and populous with a sauntering and

chatting and laughing multitude of pleasure-seekers, it is a spectacle

worth seeing.

Everything is on a large scale; the public buildings, for instance--and

they are architecturally imposing, too, as well as large. The big

squares have big bronze monuments in them. At the hotel they gave us

rooms that were alarming, for size, and parlor to match. It was well the

weather required no fire in the parlor, for I think one might as well

have tried to warm a park. The place would have a warm look, though, in

any weather, for the window-curtains were of red silk damask, and the

walls were covered with the same fire-hued goods--so, also, were the

four sofas and the brigade of chairs. The furniture, the ornaments, the

chandeliers, the carpets, were all new and bright and costly. We did not

need a parlor at all, but they said it belonged to the two bedrooms and

we might use it if we chose. Since it was to cost nothing, we were not

averse to using it, of course.

Turin must surely read a good deal, for it has more book-stores to the

square rod than any other town I know of. And it has its own share of

military folk. The Italian officers' uniforms are very much the most

beautiful I have ever seen; and, as a general thing, the men in them

were as handsome as the clothes. They were not large men, but they had

fine forms, fine features, rich olive complexions, and lustrous black

eyes.

For several weeks I had been culling all the information I could about

Italy, from tourists. The tourists were all agreed upon one thing--one

must expect to be cheated at every turn by the Italians. I took an

evening walk in Turin, and presently came across a little Punch and Judy

show in one of the great squares. Twelve or fifteen people constituted

the audience. This miniature theater was not much bigger than a man's

coffin stood on end; the upper part was open and displayed a

tinseled parlor--a good-sized handkerchief would have answered for a

drop-curtain; the footlights consisted of a couple of candle-ends an

inch long; various manikins the size of dolls appeared on the stage and

made long speeches at each other, gesticulating a good deal, and they

generally had a fight before they got through. They were worked by

strings from above, and the illusion was not perfect, for one saw not

only the strings but the brawny hand that manipulated them--and the

actors and actresses all talked in the same voice, too. The audience

stood in front of the theater, and seemed to enjoy the performance

heartily.

When the play was done, a youth in his shirt-sleeves started around with

a small copper saucer to make a collection. I did not know how much to

put in, but thought I would be guided by my predecessors. Unluckily, I

only had two of these, and they did not help me much because they did

not put in anything. I had no Italian money, so I put in a small Swiss

coin worth about ten cents. The youth finished his collection trip and

emptied the result on the stage; he had some very animated talk with

the concealed manager, then he came working his way through the little

crowd--seeking me, I thought. I had a mind to slip away, but concluded

I wouldn't; I would stand my ground, and confront the villainy, whatever

it was. The youth stood before me and held up that Swiss coin, sure

enough, and said something. I did not understand him, but I judged he

was 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 hand

away, and said:

"NO, sir. I know all about you people. You can't play any of your

fraudful 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 audience

didn't pay you anything at all. You let them go, without a word, but you

come after me because you think I'm a stranger and will put up with

an extortion rather than have a scene. But you are mistaken this

time--you'll take that Swiss money or none."

The youth stood there with the coin in his fingers, nonplused and

bewildered; of course he had not understood a word. An English-speaking

Italian spoke up, now, and said:

"You are misunderstanding the boy. He does not mean any harm. He did

not suppose you gave him so much money purposely, so he hurried back to

return you the coin lest you might get away before you discovered your

mistake. Take it, and give him a penny--that will make everything smooth

again."

I probably blushed, then, for there was occasion. Through the

interpreter I begged the boy's pardon, but I nobly refused to take back

the ten cents. I said I was accustomed to squandering large sums in that

way--it was the kind of person I was. Then I retired to make a note to

the 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 a

church. 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, with

others, to view the town. I got separated from the rest, and wandered

about alone, until late in the afternoon, when I entered a Greek church

to see what it was like. When I was ready to leave, I observed two

wrinkled old women standing stiffly upright against the inner wall, near

the door, with their brown palms open to receive alms. I contributed to

the nearer one, and passed out. I had gone fifty yards, perhaps, when it

occurred to me that I must remain ashore all night, as I had heard that

the ship's business would carry her away at four o'clock and keep her

away until morning. It was a little after four now. I had come ashore

with only two pieces of money, both about the same size, but differing

largely in value--one was a French gold piece worth four dollars, the

other a Turkish coin worth two cents and a half. With a sudden and

horrified misgiving, I put my hand in my pocket, now, and sure enough, I

fetched out that Turkish penny!

Here was a situation. A hotel would require pay in advance --I must walk

the 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 of

the nearest one still lay my gold piece. I was grateful. I crept

close, feeling unspeakably mean; I got my Turkish penny ready, and was

extending a trembling hand to make the nefarious exchange, when I heard

a cough behind me. I jumped back as if I had been accused, and stood

quaking while a worshiper entered and passed up the aisle.

I was there a year trying to steal that money; that is, it seemed a

year, though, of course, it must have been much less. The worshipers

went and came; there were hardly ever three in the church at once, but

there was always one or more. Every time I tried to commit my crime

somebody came in or somebody started out, and I was prevented; but at

last my opportunity came; for one moment there was nobody in the church

but the two beggar-women and me. I whipped the gold piece out of the

poor old pauper's palm and dropped my Turkish penny in its place. Poor

old thing, she murmured her thanks--they smote me to the heart. Then I

sped away in a guilty hurry, and even when I was a mile from the church

I 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 I

resolved then, that as long as I lived I would never again rob a blind

beggar-woman in a church; and I have always kept my word. The most

permanent 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 or

Gallery, or whatever it is called. Blocks of tall new buildings of the

most sumptuous sort, rich with decoration and graced with statues, the

streets between these blocks roofed over with glass at a great height,

the pavements all of smooth and variegated marble, arranged in tasteful

patterns--little tables all over these marble streets, people sitting

at them, eating, drinking, or smoking--crowds of other people strolling

by--such is the Arcade. I should like to live in it all the time. The

windows of the sumptuous restaurants stand open, and one breakfasts

there and enjoys the passing show.

We wandered all over the town, enjoying whatever was going on in the

streets. We took one omnibus ride, and as I did not speak Italian and

could 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 me

that he had taken only the right sum. So I made a note--Italian omnibus

conductors do not cheat.

Near the Cathedral I saw another instance of probity. An old man was

peddling dolls and toy fans. Two small American children bought fans,

and one gave the old man a franc and three copper coins, and both

started away; but they were called back, and the franc and one of the

coppers were restored to them. Hence it is plain that in Italy, parties

connected with the drama and the omnibus and the toy interests do not

cheat.

The stocks of goods in the shops were not extensive, generally. In the

vestibule of what seemed to be a clothing store, we saw eight or ten

wooden dummies grouped together, clothed in woolen business suits and

each marked with its price. One suit was marked forty-five francs--nine

dollars. Harris stepped in and said he wanted a suit like that. Nothing

easier: the old merchant dragged in the dummy, brushed him off with a

broom, stripped him, and shipped the clothes to the hotel. He said he

did not keep two suits of the same kind in stock, but manufactured a

second 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 occasionally

with a sudden access of passion and shake their fists in each other's

very faces. We lost half an hour there, waiting to help cord up the

dead, but they finally embraced each other affectionately, and the

trouble was over. The episode was interesting, but we could not have

afforded all the time to it if we had known nothing was going to come of

it but a reconciliation. Note made--in Italy, people who quarrel cheat

the spectator.

We had another disappointment afterward. We approached a deeply

interested crowd, and in the midst of it found a fellow wildly

chattering and gesticulating over a box on the ground which was covered

with a piece of old blanket. Every little while he would bend down

and take hold of the edge of the blanket with the extreme tips of his

fingertips, as if to show there was no deception--chattering away all

the while--but always, just as I was expecting to see a wonder feat of

legerdemain, 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 liquid

in it, and held it fair and frankly around, for people to see that it

was all right and he was taking no advantage--his chatter became more

excited than ever. I supposed he was going to set fire to the liquid

and swallow it, so I was greatly wrought up and interested. I got a cent

ready in one hand and a florin in the other, intending to give him the

former if he survived and the latter if he killed himself--for his loss

would be my gain in a literary way, and I was willing to pay a fair

price for the item --but this impostor ended his intensely moving

performance by simply adding some powder to the liquid and polishing

the spoon! Then he held it aloft, and he could not have shown a wilder

exultation if he had achieved an immortal miracle. The crowd applauded

in a gratified way, and it seemed to me that history speaks the truth

when it says these children of the south are easily entertained.

We spent an impressive hour in the noble cathedral, where long shafts

of tinted light were cleaving through the solemn dimness from the lofty

windows and falling on a pillar here, a picture there, and a kneeling

worshiper yonder. The organ was muttering, censers were swinging,

candles were glinting on the distant altar and robed priests were filing

silently past them; the scene was one to sweep all frivolous thoughts

away and steep the soul in a holy calm. A trim young American lady

paused a yard or two from me, fixed her eyes on the mellow sparks

flecking the far-off altar, bent her head reverently a moment, then

straightened up, kicked her train into the air with her heel, caught it

deftly in her hand, and marched briskly out.

We visited the picture-galleries and the other regulation "sights" of

Milan--not because I wanted to write about them again, but to see if

I had learned anything in twelve years. I afterward visited the great

galleries of Rome and Florence for the same purpose. I found I had

learned one thing. When I wrote about the Old Masters before, I said

the copies were better than the originals. That was a mistake of large

dimensions. The Old Masters were still unpleasing to me, but they were

truly divine contrasted with the copies. The copy is to the original as

the 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, which

is to the eye what muffled and mellowed sound is to the ear. That is the

merit which is most loudly praised in the old picture, and is the one

which the copy most conspicuously lacks, and which the copyist must not

hope to compass. It was generally conceded by the artists with whom I

talked, that that subdued splendor, that mellow richness, is imparted

to 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? Perhaps

the picture was a clanging bell, until Time muffled it and sweetened it.

In conversation with an artist in Venice, I asked: "What is it that

people see in the Old Masters? I have been in the Doge's palace and I

saw several acres of very bad drawing, very bad perspective, and very

incorrect proportions. Paul Veronese's dogs to not resemble dogs; all

the horses look like bladders on legs; one man had a RIGHT leg on

the left side of his body; in the large picture where the Emperor

(Barbarossa?) is prostrate before the Pope, there are three men in the

foreground who are over thirty feet high, if one may judge by the size

of a kneeling little boy in the center of the foreground; and according

to the same scale, the Pope is seven feet high and the Doge is a

shriveled dwarf of four feet."

The artist said:

"Yes, the Old Masters often drew badly; they did not care much for truth

and exactness in minor details; but after all, in spite of bad drawing,

bad perspective, bad proportions, and a choice of subjects which no

longer appeal to people as strongly as they did three hundred years ago,

there is a SOMETHING about their pictures which is divine--a something

which is above and beyond the art of any epoch since--a something which

would be the despair of artists but that they never hope or expect to

attain it, and therefore do not worry about it."

That is what he said--and he said what he believed; and not only

believed, but felt.

Reasoning--especially reasoning, without technical knowledge--must be

put aside, in cases of this kind. It cannot assist the inquirer. It

will lead him, in the most logical progression, to what, in the eyes of

artists, would be a most illogical conclusion. Thus: bad drawing, bad

proportion, bad perspective, indifference to truthful detail, color

which gets its merit from time, and not from the artist--these things

constitute 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. Your

friend the artist will grant your premises, but deny your conclusion;

he will maintain that notwithstanding this formidable list of confessed

defects, there is still a something that is divine and unapproachable

about the Old Master, and that there is no arguing the fact away by any

system of reasoning whatsoever.

I can believe that. There are women who have an indefinable charm in

their faces which makes them beautiful to their intimates, but a cold

stranger who tried to reason the matter out and find this beauty would

fail. He would say of one of these women: This chin is too short, this

nose is too long, this forehead is too high, this hair is too red, this

complexion is too pallid, the perspective of the entire composition

is incorrect; conclusion, the woman is not beautiful. But her nearest

friend might say, and say truly, "Your premises are right, your logic

is faultless, but your conclusion is wrong, nevertheless; she is an Old

Master--she is beautiful, but only to such as know her; it is a beauty

which cannot be formulated, but it is there, just the same."

I found more pleasure in contemplating the Old Masters this time than

I did when I was in Europe in former years, but still it was a calm

pleasure; there was nothing overheated about it. When I was in Venice

before, I think I found no picture which stirred me much, but this time

there were two which enticed me to the Doge's palace day after day, and

kept me there hours at a time. One of these was Tintoretto's three-acre

picture in the Great Council Chamber. When I saw it twelve years ago

I was not strongly attracted to it--the guide told me it was an

insurrection in heaven--but this was an error.

The movement of this great work is very fine. There are ten thousand

figures, and they are all doing something. There is a wonderful "go"

to the whole composition. Some of the figures are driving headlong

downward, with clasped hands, others are swimming through the

cloud-shoals--some on their faces, some on their backs--great

processions of bishops, martyrs, and angels are pouring swiftly

centerward from various outlying directions--everywhere is enthusiastic

joy, there is rushing movement everywhere. There are fifteen or twenty

figures scattered here and there, with books, but they cannot keep their

attention on their reading--they offer the books to others, but no one

wishes 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 looking

each other earnestly in the face, disputing about the way to spell a

word--the Lion looks up in rapt admiration while St. Mark spells. This

is wonderfully interpreted by the artist. It is the master-stroke of

this imcomparable painting.

I visited the place daily, and never grew tired of looking at that

grand picture. As I have intimated, the movement is almost unimaginably

vigorous; the figures are singing, hosannahing, and many are blowing

trumpets. So vividly is noise suggested, that spectators who become

absorbed in the picture almost always fall to shouting comments in each

other's ears, making ear-trumpets of their curved hands, fearing they

may not otherwise be heard. One often sees a tourist, with the eloquent

tears pouring down his cheeks, funnel his hands at his wife's ear, and

hears him roar through them, "OH, TO BE THERE AND AT REST!"

None but the supremely great in art can produce effects like these with

the silent brush.

Twelve years ago I could not have appreciated this picture. One year ago

I could not have appreciated it. My study of Art in Heidelberg has been

a 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 Hair

Trunk. This is in the Chamber of the Council of Ten. It is in one of

the three forty-foot pictures which decorate the walls of the room.

The composition of this picture is beyond praise. The Hair Trunk is not

hurled at the stranger's head--so to speak--as the chief feature of an

immortal work so often is; no, it is carefully guarded from prominence,

it is subordinated, it is restrained, it is most deftly and cleverly

held in reserve, it is most cautiously and ingeniously led up to, by the

master, and consequently when the spectator reaches it at last, he

is taken unawares, he is unprepared, and it bursts upon him with a

stupefying surprise.

One is lost in wonder at all the thought and care which this elaborate

planning must have cost. A general glance at the picture could never

suggest that there was a hair trunk in it; the Hair Trunk is not

mentioned in the title even--which is, "Pope Alexander III. and the Doge

Ziani, 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 examine

into this, and observe the exquisitely artful artlessness of the plan.

At the extreme left end of the picture are a couple of women, one of

them with a child looking over her shoulder at a wounded man sitting

with bandaged head on the ground. These people seem needless, but no,

they are there for a purpose; one cannot look at them without seeing

the gorgeous procession of grandees, bishops, halberdiers, and

banner-bearers which is passing along behind them; one cannot see the

procession without feeling the curiosity to follow it and learn whither

it is going; it leads him to the Pope, in the center of the picture, who

is talking with the bonnetless Doge--talking tranquilly, too, although

within twelve feet of them a man is beating a drum, and not far from the

drummer two persons are blowing horns, and many horsemen are plunging

and rioting about--indeed, twenty-two feet of this great work is all a

deep and happy holiday serenity and Sunday-school procession, and then

we come suddenly upon eleven and one-half feet of turmoil and racket and

insubordination. This latter state of things is not an accident, it has

its 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 the

trouble is about. Now at the very END of this riot, within four feet of

the end of the picture, and full thirty-six feet from the beginning

of it, the Hair Trunk bursts with an electrifying suddenness upon the

spectator, in all its matchless perfection, and the great master's

triumph is sweeping and complete. From that moment no other thing in

those forty feet of canvas has any charm; one sees the Hair Trunk, and

the Hair Trunk only--and to see it is to worship it. Bassano even placed

objects in the immediate vicinity of the Supreme Feature whose pretended

purpose was to divert attention from it yet a little longer and thus

delay and augment the surprise; for instance, to the right of it he has

placed a stooping man with a cap so red that it is sure to hold the eye

for a moment--to the left of it, some six feet away, he has placed a

red-coated man on an inflated horse, and that coat plucks your eye

to that locality the next moment--then, between the Trunk and the red

horseman he has intruded a man, naked to his waist, who is carrying

a fancy flour-sack on the middle of his back instead of on his

shoulder--this admirable feat interests you, of course--keeps you at

bay a little longer, like a sock or a jacket thrown to the pursuing

wolf--but at last, in spite of all distractions and detentions, the eye

of even the most dull and heedless spectator is sure to fall upon the

World's Masterpiece, and in that moment he totters to his chair or leans

upon his guide for support.

Descriptions of such a work as this must necessarily be imperfect, yet

they are of value. The top of the Trunk is arched; the arch is a perfect

half-circle, in the Roman style of architecture, for in the then

rapid decadence of Greek art, the rising influence of Rome was already

beginning to be felt in the art of the Republic. The Trunk is bound or

bordered with leather all around where the lid joins the main body. Many

critics consider this leather too cold in tone; but I consider this its

highest merit, since it was evidently made so to emphasize by contrast

the impassioned fervor of the hasp. The highlights in this part of the

work are cleverly managed, the MOTIF is admirably subordinated to the

ground tints, and the technique is very fine. The brass nail-heads are

in the purest style of the early Renaissance. The strokes, here, are

very firm and bold--every nail-head is a portrait. The handle on the

end of the Trunk has evidently been retouched--I think, with a piece of

chalk--but one can still see the inspiration of the Old Master in the

tranquil, almost too tranquil, hang of it. The hair of this Trunk is

REAL hair--so to speak--white in patches, brown in patches. The details

are finely worked out; the repose proper to hair in a recumbent and

inactive attitude is charmingly expressed. There is a feeling about this

part of the work which lifts it to the highest altitudes of art; the

sense of sordid realism vanishes away--one recognizes that there is SOUL

here.

View this Trunk as you will, it is a gem, it is a marvel, it is a

miracle. Some of the effects are very daring, approaching even to

the boldest flights of the rococo, the sirocco, and the Byzantine

schools--yet the master's hand never falters--it moves on, calm,

majestic, confident--and, with that art which conceals art, it finally

casts over the TOUT ENSEMBLE, by mysterious methods of its own, a subtle

something which refines, subdues, etherealizes the arid components and

endures them with the deep charm and gracious witchery of poesy.

Among the art-treasures of Europe there are pictures which approach the

Hair Trunk--there are two which may be said to equal it, possibly--but

there is none that surpasses it. So perfect is the Hair Trunk that it

moves even persons who ordinarily have no feeling for art. When an Erie

baggagemaster saw it two years ago, he could hardly keep from checking

it; and once when a customs inspector was brought into its presence,

he gazed upon it in silent rapture for some moments, then slowly and

unconsciously placed one hand behind him with the palm uppermost, and

got 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 a

strong fascination about it--partly because it is so old, and partly

because it is so ugly. Too many of the world's famous buildings fail of

one chief virtue--harmony; they are made up of a methodless mixture

of the ugly and the beautiful; this is bad; it is confusing, it is

unrestful. One has a sense of uneasiness, of distress, without knowing

why. But one is calm before St. Mark's, one is calm within it, one

would be calm on top of it, calm in the cellar; for its details are

masterfully ugly, no misplaced and impertinent beauties are intruded

anywhere; and the consequent result is a grand harmonious whole, of

soothing, entrancing, tranquilizing, soul-satisfying ugliness. One's

admiration of a perfect thing always grows, never declines; and this is

the surest evidence to him that it IS perfect. St. Mark's is perfect. To

me it soon grew to be so nobly, so augustly ugly, that it was difficult

to stay away from it, even for a little while. Every time its squat

domes disappeared from my view, I had a despondent feeling; whenever

they reappeared, I felt an honest rapture--I have not known any happier

hours than those I daily spent in front of Florian's, looking across the

Great 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 a

meditative walk.

St. Mark's is not the oldest building in the world, of course, but it

seems the oldest, and looks the oldest--especially inside.

When the ancient mosaics in its walls become damaged, they are repaired

but not altered; the grotesque old pattern is preserved. Antiquity has

a charm of its own, and to smarten it up would only damage it. One day

I was sitting on a red marble bench in the vestibule looking up at an

ancient piece of apprentice-work, in mosaic, illustrative of the command

to "multiply and replenish the earth." The Cathedral itself had seemed

very old; but this picture was illustrating a period in history which

made the building seem young by comparison. But I presently found an

antique which was older than either the battered Cathedral or the date

assigned to the piece of history; it was a spiral-shaped fossil as large

as the crown of a hat; it was embedded in the marble bench, and had

been sat upon by tourists until it was worn smooth. Contrasted with the

inconceivable antiquity of this modest fossil, those other things were

flippantly modern--jejune--mere matters of day-before-yesterday. The

sense of the oldness of the Cathedral vanished away under the influence

of this truly venerable presence.

St. Mark's is monumental; it is an imperishable remembrancer of the

profound and simple piety of the Middle Ages. Whoever could ravish a

column from a pagan temple, did it and contributed his swag to this

Christian one. So this fane is upheld by several hundred acquisitions

procured in that peculiar way. In our day it would be immoral to go on

the highway to get bricks for a church, but it was no sin in the old

times. St. Mark's was itself the victim of a curious robbery once. The

thing is set down in the history of Venice, but it might be smuggled

into the Arabian Nights and not seem out of place there:

Nearly four hundred and fifty years ago, a Candian named Stammato, in

the suite of a prince of the house of Este, was allowed to view the

riches of St. Mark's. His sinful eye was dazzled and he hid himself

behind an altar, with an evil purpose in his heart, but a priest

discovered him and turned him out. Afterward he got in again--by false

keys, this time. He went there, night after night, and worked hard and

patiently, all alone, overcoming difficulty after difficulty with his

toil, and at last succeeded in removing a great brick of the marble

paneling which walled the lower part of the treasury; this block he

fixed so that he could take it out and put it in at will. After

that, for weeks, he spent all his midnights in his magnificent mine,

inspecting it in security, gloating over its marvels at his leisure, and

always slipping back to his obscure lodgings before dawn, with a

duke's ransom under his cloak. He did not need to grab, haphazard, and

run--there was no hurry. He could make deliberate and well-considered

selections; he could consult his esthetic tastes. One comprehends how

undisturbed he was, and how safe from any danger of interruption,

when it is stated that he even carried off a unicorn's horn--a mere

curiosity--which would not pass through the egress entire, but had to

be sawn in two--a bit of work which cost him hours of tedious labor. He

continued to store up his treasures at home until his occupation lost

the charm of novelty and became monotonous; then he ceased from it,

contented. Well he might be; for his collection, raised to modern

values, represented nearly fifty million dollars!

He could have gone home much the richest citizen of his country, and

it might have been years before the plunder was missed; but he was

human--he could not enjoy his delight alone, he must have somebody to

talk about it with. So he exacted a solemn oath from a Candian noble

named Crioni, then led him to his lodgings and nearly took his breath

away with a sight of his glittering hoard. He detected a look in his

friend's face which excited his suspicion, and was about to slip a

stiletto into him when Crioni saved himself by explaining that that look

was only an expression of supreme and happy astonishment. Stammato

made Crioni a present of one of the state's principal jewels--a huge

carbuncle, which afterward figured in the Ducal cap of state--and the

pair 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 hanged

between the two great columns in the Piazza--with a gilded rope, out of

compliment to his love of gold, perhaps. He got no good of his booty at

all--it was ALL recovered.

In Venice we had a luxury which very seldom fell to our lot on the

continent--a home dinner with a private family. If one could always stop

with private families, when traveling, Europe would have a charm which

it now lacks. As it is, one must live in the hotels, of course, and that

is a sorrowful business. A man accustomed to American food and American

domestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe; but I

think he would gradually waste away, and eventually die.

He would have to do without his accustomed morning meal. That is too

formidable a change altogether; he would necessarily suffer from it. He

could get the shadow, the sham, the base counterfeit of that meal; but

it would do him no good, and money could not buy the reality.

To particularize: the average American's simplest and commonest form of

breakfast consists of coffee and beefsteak; well, in Europe, coffee is

an unknown beverage. You can get what the European hotel-keeper thinks

is coffee, but it resembles the real thing as hypocrisy resembles

holiness. It is a feeble, characterless, uninspiring sort of stuff, and

almost as undrinkable as if it had been made in an American hotel. The

milk used for it is what the French call "Christian" milk--milk which

has been baptized.

After a few months' acquaintance with European "coffee," one's mind

weakens, and his faith with it, and he begins to wonder if the rich

beverage 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 a

fashion, but cold; cold and tough, and unsympathetic; and never any

change, never any variety--always the same tiresome thing.

Next, the butter--the sham and tasteless butter; no salt in it, and made

of goodness knows what.

Then there is the beefsteak. They have it in Europe, but they don't know

how to cook it. Neither will they cut it right. It comes on the table in

a 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, and

thickness of a man's hand with the thumb and fingers cut off. It is a

little overdone, is rather dry, it tastes pretty insipidly, it rouses no

enthusiasm.

Imagine a poor exile contemplating that inert thing; and imagine an

angel suddenly sweeping down out of a better land and setting before him

a mighty porterhouse steak an inch and a half thick, hot and sputtering

from the griddle; dusted with a fragrant pepper; enriched with

little melting bits of butter of the most unimpeachable freshness and

genuineness; the precious juices of the meat trickling out and joining

the gravy, archipelagoed with mushrooms; a township or two of tender,

yellowish fat gracing an outlying district of this ample county of

beefsteak; the long white bone which divides the sirloin from the

tenderloin still in its place; and imagine that the angel also adds a

great 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 words

describe the gratitude of this exile?

The European dinner is better than the European breakfast, but it has

its faults and inferiorities; it does not satisfy. He comes to the table

eager and hungry; he swallows his soup--there is an undefinable

lack about it somewhere; thinks the fish is going to be the thing he

wants--eats it and isn't sure; thinks the next dish is perhaps the one

that will hit the hungry place--tries it, and is conscious that there

was a something wanting about it, also. And thus he goes on, from dish

to dish, like a boy after a butterfly which just misses getting caught

every time it alights, but somehow doesn't get caught after all; and at

the end the exile and the boy have fared about alike; the one is full,

but grievously unsatisfied, the other has had plenty of exercise, plenty

of 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 rising

from a European table d'hôte perfectly satisfied; but we must not

overlook the fact that there is also here and there an American who will

lie.

The number of dishes is sufficient; but then it is such a monotonous

variety of UNSTRIKING dishes. It is an inane dead-level of

"fair-to-middling." There is nothing to ACCENT it. Perhaps if the roast

of mutton or of beef--a big, generous one--were brought on the table and

carved in full view of the client, that might give the right sense of

earnestness and reality to the thing; but they don't do that, they pass

the sliced meat around on a dish, and so you are perfectly calm, it does

not stir you in the least. Now a vast roast turkey, stretched on the

broad of his back, with his heels in the air and the rich juices oozing

from his fat sides ... but I may as well stop there, for they would not

know how to cook him. They can't even cook a chicken respectably; and as

for 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 one

discovers that the variations are only apparent, not real; in the third

week you get what you had the first, and in the fourth the week you get

what you had the second. Three or four months of this weary sameness

will kill the robustest appetite.

It has now been many months, at the present writing, since I have had

a 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 bill

of fare, which will go home in the steamer that precedes me, and be hot

when 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 are

not 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 sincere

and capable refrigerator.

Americans intending to spend a year or so in European hotels will

do well to copy this bill and carry it along. They will find it an

excellent thing to get up an appetite with, in the dispiriting presence

of the squalid table d'hôte.

Foreigners cannot enjoy our food, I suppose, any more than we can

enjoy theirs. It is not strange; for tastes are made, not born. I might

glorify my bill of fare until I was tired; but after all, the Scotchman

would shake his head and say, "Where's your haggis?" and the Fijian

would sigh and say, "Where's your missionary?"

I have a neat talent in matters pertaining to nourishment. This has

met with professional recognition. I have often furnished recipes for

cook-books. Here are some designs for pies and things, which I recently

prepared for a friend's projected cook-book, but as I forgot to furnish

diagrams 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 coarse

Indian-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 on

its edge, but the other way. Rake away a place among the embers, lay it

there, and cover it an inch deep with hot ashes. When it is done, remove

it; 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 been

noticed 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 of

flour, and construct a bullet-proof dough. Work this into the form of

a disk, with the edges turned up some three-fourths of an inch. Toughen

and 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 same

material. 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. Serve

cold 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 into

the water. Continue the boiling and evaporation until the intensity of

the flavor and aroma of the coffee and chicory has been diminished to

a proper degree; then set aside to cool. Now unharness the remains of a

once cow from the plow, insert them in a hydraulic press, and when you

shall have acquired a teaspoon of that pale-blue juice which a German

superstition regards as milk, modify the malignity of its strength in a

bucket of tepid water and ring up the breakfast. Mix the beverage in a

cold cup, partake with moderation, and keep a wet rag around your head

to 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 much

indecent license today as in earlier times--but the privileges of

Literature in this respect have been sharply curtailed within the

past eighty or ninety years. Fielding and Smollett could portray the

beastliness of their day in the beastliest language; we have plenty

of foul subjects to deal with in our day, but we are not allowed to

approach 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 every

pore, to go about Rome and Florence and see what this last generation

has been doing with the statues. These works, which had stood in

innocent nakedness for ages, are all fig-leaved now. Yes, every one of

them. Nobody noticed their nakedness before, perhaps; nobody can help

noticing it now, the fig-leaf makes it so conspicuous. But the comical

thing about it all, is, that the fig-leaf is confined to cold and pallid

marble, which would be still cold and unsuggestive without this sham and

ostentatious symbol of modesty, whereas warm-blood paintings which do

really need it have in no case been furnished with it.

At the door of the Uffizzi, in Florence, one is confronted by statues

of a man and a woman, noseless, battered, black with accumulated

grime--they hardly suggest human beings--yet these ridiculous creatures

have been thoughtfully and conscientiously fig-leaved by this fastidious

generation. You enter, and proceed to that most-visited little gallery

that exists in the world--the Tribune--and there, against the wall,

without obstructing rag or leaf, you may look your fill upon the

foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses--Titian's

Venus. It isn't that she is naked and stretched out on a bed--no, it is

the attitude of one of her arms and hand. If I ventured to describe

that attitude, there would be a fine howl--but there the Venus lies, for

anybody 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 young

girls stealing furtive glances at her; I saw young men gaze long and

absorbedly at her; I saw aged, infirm men hang upon her charms with a

pathetic interest. How I should like to describe her--just to see what

a holy indignation I could stir up in the world--just to hear the

unreflecting average man deliver himself about my grossness and

coarseness, and all that. The world says that no worded description of

a moving spectacle is a hundredth part as moving as the same spectacle

seen with one's own eyes--yet the world is willing to let its son

and its daughter and itself look at Titian's beast, but won't stand

a description of it in words. Which shows that the world is not as

consistent as it might be.

There are pictures of nude women which suggest no impure thought--I

am well aware of that. I am not railing at such. What I am trying to

emphasize is the fact that Titian's Venus is very far from being one of

that sort. Without any question it was painted for a bagnio and it was

probably refused because it was a trifle too strong. In truth, it is too

strong for any place but a public Art Gallery. Titian has two Venuses in

the Tribune; persons who have seen them will easily remember which one I

am referring to.

In every gallery in Europe there are hideous pictures of blood,

carnage, oozing brains, putrefaction--pictures portraying intolerable

suffering--pictures alive with every conceivable horror, wrought out in

dreadful detail--and similar pictures are being put on the canvas every

day and publicly exhibited--without a growl from anybody--for they

are innocent, they are inoffensive, being works of art. But suppose

a literary artist ventured to go into a painstaking and elaborate

description of one of these grisly things--the critics would skin him

alive. Well, let it go, it cannot be helped; Art retains her privileges,

Literature has lost hers. Somebody else may cipher out the whys and the

wherefores and the consistencies of it--I haven't got time.

Titian's Venus defiles and disgraces the Tribune, there is no softening

that fact, but his "Moses" glorifies it. The simple truthfulness of

its noble work wins the heart and the applause of every visitor, be he

learned or ignorant. After wearying one's self with the acres of stuffy,

sappy, expressionless babies that populate the canvases of the Old

Masters of Italy, it is refreshing to stand before this peerless child

and feel that thrill which tells you you are at last in the presence of

the real thing. This is a human child, this is genuine. You have seen

him a thousand times--you have seen him just as he is here--and you

confess, without reserve, that Titian WAS a Master. The doll-faces of

other painted babes may mean one thing, they may mean another, but

with the "Moses" the case is different. The most famous of all the

art-critics has said, "There is no room for doubt, here--plainly this

child is in trouble."

I consider that the "Moses" has no equal among the works of the Old

Masters, except it be the divine Hair Trunk of Bassano. I feel sure that

if all the other Old Masters were lost and only these two preserved, the

world 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 preparing

to remove it to a more private and better-protected place because a

fashion of robbing the great galleries was prevailing in Europe at the

time.

I got a capable artist to copy the picture; Pannemaker, the engraver of

Doré's books, engraved it for me, and I have the pleasure of laying it

before 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 these

things were in our projected program, and it was only right that we

should 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 had

a tolerably good time of it "by and large." I worked Spain and other

regions through agents to save time and shoe-leather.

We crossed to England, and then made the homeward passage in the

Cunarder GALLIA, a very fine ship. I was glad to get home--immeasurably

glad; so glad, in fact, that it did not seem possible that anything

could ever get me out of the country again. I had not enjoyed a pleasure

abroad which seemed to me to compare with the pleasure I felt in seeing

New York harbor again. Europe has many advantages which we have not, but

they do not compensate for a good many still more valuable ones which

exist nowhere but in our own country. Then we are such a homeless lot

when we are over there! So are Europeans themselves, for that matter.

They live in dark and chilly vast tombs--costly enough, maybe, but

without conveniences. To be condemned to live as the average European

family lives would make life a pretty heavy burden to the average

American family.

On the whole, I think that short visits to Europe are better for us than

long ones. The former preserve us from becoming Europeanized; they keep

our pride of country intact, and at the same time they intensify our

affection for our country and our people; whereas long visits have the

effect of dulling those feelings--at least in the majority of cases. I

think that one who mixes much with Americans long resident abroad must

arrive 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 eight

hundred years ago, has said:

"In the four parts of the earth are many that are able to write learned

books, many that are able to lead armies, and many also that are able to

govern kingdoms and empires; but few there be that can keep a hotel."

A word about the European hotel PORTIER. He is a most admirable

invention, a most valuable convenience. He always wears a conspicuous

uniform; he can always be found when he is wanted, for he sticks closely

to his post at the front door; he is as polite as a duke; he speaks

from four to ten languages; he is your surest help and refuge in time of

trouble or perplexity. He is not the clerk, he is not the landlord; he

ranks above the clerk, and represents the landlord, who is seldom seen.

Instead of going to the clerk for information, as we do at home, you

go to the portier. It is the pride of our average hotel clerk to know

nothing whatever; it is the pride of the portier to know everything. You

ask 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 hack

tariff; or how many children the mayor has; or what days the galleries

are 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, what

the plays are to be, and the price of seats; or what is the newest thing

in hats; or how the bills of mortality average; or "who struck Billy

Patterson." It does not matter what you ask him: in nine cases out of

ten he knows, and in the tenth case he will find out for you before you

can turn around three times. There is nothing he will not put his hand

to. Suppose you tell him you wish to go from Hamburg to Peking by the

way of Jericho, and are ignorant of routes and prices--the next morning

he will hand you a piece of paper with the whole thing worked out on it

to the last detail. Before you have been long on European soil, you find

yourself still SAYING you are relying on Providence, but when you come

to look closer you will see that in reality you are relying on the

portier. 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 he

promptly says, "Leave that to me." Consequently, you easily drift into

the habit of leaving everything to him. There is a certain embarrassment

about applying to the average American hotel clerk, a certain hesitancy,

a sense of insecurity against rebuff; but you feel no embarrassment in

your intercourse with the portier; he receives your propositions with an

enthusiasm which cheers, and plunges into their accomplishment with an

alacrity which almost inebriates. The more requirements you can pile

upon him, the better he likes it. Of course the result is that you cease

from doing anything for yourself. He calls a hack when you want one;

puts you into it; tells the driver whither to take you; receives you

like a long-lost child when you return; sends you about your business,

does all the quarreling with the hackman himself, and pays him his money

out of his own pocket. He sends for your theater tickets, and pays for

them; 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 will

find a subordinate seated with the cab-driver who will put you in your

railway compartment, buy your tickets, have your baggage weighed, bring

you the printed tags, and tell you everything is in your bill and paid

for. At home you get such elaborate, excellent, and willing service as

this only in the best hotels of our large cities; but in Europe you get

it in the mere back country-towns just as well.

What is the secret of the portier's devotion? It is very simple: he gets

FEES, AND NO SALARY. His fee is pretty closely regulated, too. If you

stay a week, you give him five marks--a dollar and a quarter, or about

eighteen cents a day. If you stay a month, you reduce this average

somewhat. If you stay two or three months or longer, you cut it down

half, or even more than half. If you stay only one day, you give the

portier a mark.

The head waiter's fee is a shade less than the portier's; the Boots, who

not only blacks your boots and brushes your clothes, but is usually the

porter and handles your baggage, gets a somewhat smaller fee than the

head waiter; the chambermaid's fee ranks below that of the Boots. You

fee only these four, and no one else. A German gentleman told me that

when he remained a week in a hotel, he gave the portier five marks, the

head waiter four, the Boots three, and the chambermaid two; and if he

stayed three months he divided ninety marks among them, in about the

above proportions. Ninety marks make $22.50.

None of these fees are ever paid until you leave the hotel, though it

be a year--except one of these four servants should go away in the mean

time; in that case he will be sure to come and bid you good-by and

give you the opportunity to pay him what is fairly coming to him. It

is considered very bad policy to fee a servant while you are still to

remain longer in the hotel, because if you gave him too little he might

neglect you afterward, and if you gave him too much he might neglect

somebody else to attend to you. It is considered best to keep his

expectations "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 in

vogue is a heavy burden. The waiter expects a quarter at breakfast--and

gets it. You have a different waiter at luncheon, and so he gets a

quarter. Your waiter at dinner is another stranger--consequently he gets

a quarter. The boy who carries your satchel to your room and lights your

gas fumbles around and hangs around significantly, and you fee him to

get rid of him. Now you may ring for ice-water; and ten minutes later

for a lemonade; and ten minutes afterward, for a cigar; and by and by

for a newspaper--and what is the result? Why, a new boy has appeared

every time and fooled and fumbled around until you have paid him

something. Suppose you boldly put your foot down, and say it is the

hotel's business to pay its servants? You will have to ring your bell

ten or fifteen times before you get a servant there; and when he goes

off to fill your order you will grow old and infirm before you see him

again. You may struggle nobly for twenty-four hours, maybe, if you are

an adamantine sort of person, but in the mean time you will have been

so wretchedly served, and so insolently, that you will haul down your

colors, and go to impoverishing yourself with fees.

It seems to me that it would be a happy idea to import the European

feeing system into America. I believe it would result in getting even

the bells of the Philadelphia hotels answered, and cheerful service

rendered.

The greatest American hotels keep a number of clerks and a cashier, and

pay them salaries which mount up to a considerable total in the course

of a year. The great continental hotels keep a cashier on a trifling

salary, and a portier WHO PAYS THE HOTEL A SALARY. By the latter system

both the hotel and the public save money and are better served than by

our system. One of our consuls told me that a portier of a great Berlin

hotel paid five thousand dollars a year for his position, and yet

cleared six thousand dollars for himself. The position of portier in the

chief hotels of Saratoga, Long Branch, New York, and similar centers of

resort, would be one which the holder could afford to pay even more than

five thousand dollars for, perhaps.

When we borrowed the feeing fashion from Europe a dozen years ago, the

salary system ought to have been discontinued, of course. We might make

this correction now, I should think. And we might add the portier, too.

Since I first began to study the portier, I have had opportunities to

observe 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 be

adopted in America, and become there, as he is in Europe, the stranger's

guardian angel.

Yes, what was true eight hundred years ago, is just as true today: "Few

there be that can keep a hotel." Perhaps it is because the landlords and

their subordinates have in too many cases taken up their trade without

first learning it. In Europe the trade of hotel-keeper is taught. The

apprentice begins at the bottom of the ladder and masters the several

grades one after the other. Just as in our country printing-offices the

apprentice first learns how to sweep out and bring water; then learns

to "roll"; then to sort "pi"; then to set type; and finally rounds

and completes his education with job-work and press-work; so the

landlord-apprentice serves as call-boy; then as under-waiter; then as

a parlor waiter; then as head waiter, in which position he often has to

make out all the bills; then as clerk or cashier; then as portier. His

trade is learned now, and by and by he will assume the style and dignity

of landlord, and be found conducting a hotel of his own.

Now in Europe, the same as in America, when a man has kept a hotel

so thoroughly well during a number of years as to give it a great

reputation, he has his reward. He can live prosperously on that

reputation. He can let his hotel run down to the last degree of

shabbiness 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 enough

to start another one with. The food would create an insurrection in a

poorhouse; and yet if you go outside to get your meals that hotel makes

up its loss by overcharging you on all sorts of trifles--and without

making any denials or excuses about it, either. But the Hotel de Ville's

old excellent reputation still keeps its dreary rooms crowded with

travelers who would be elsewhere if they had only some wise friend to

warn them.

APPENDIX B.

Heidelberg Castle Heidelberg Castle must have been very beautiful before

the French battered and bruised and scorched it two hundred years ago.

The stone is brown, with a pinkish tint, and does not seem to stain

easily. The dainty and elaborate ornamentation upon its two chief fronts

is as delicately carved as if it had been intended for the interior of

a drawing-room rather than for the outside of a house. Many fruit and

flower clusters, human heads and grim projecting lions' heads are still

as perfect in every detail as if they were new. But the statues which

are ranked between the windows have suffered. These are life-size

statues of old-time emperors, electors, and similar grandees, clad in

mail 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 that

if a stranger will pass over the drawbridge and walk across the court to

the castle front without saying anything, he can make a wish and it will

be fulfilled. But they say that the truth of this thing has never had

a chance to be proved, for the reason that before any stranger can walk

from the drawbridge to the appointed place, the beauty of the palace

front will extort an exclamation of delight from him.

A ruin must be rightly situated, to be effective. This one could not

have been better placed. It stands upon a commanding elevation, it is

buried in green woods, there is no level ground about it, but, on the

contrary, there are wooded terraces upon terraces, and one looks down

through shining leaves into profound chasms and abysses where twilight

reigns and the sun cannot intrude. Nature knows how to garnish a ruin to

get 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 establish

itself in a picturesque attitude. Then all it lacked was a fitting

drapery, and Nature has furnished that; she has robed the rugged mass in

flowers and verdure, and made it a charm to the eye. The standing half

exposes its arched and cavernous rooms to you, like open, toothless

mouths; there, too, the vines and flowers have done their work of grace.

The rear portion of the tower has not been neglected, either, but is

clothed with a clinging garment of polished ivy which hides the wounds

and stains of time. Even the top is not left bare, but is crowned with a

flourishing group of trees and shrubs. Misfortune has done for this old

tower what it has done for the human character sometimes--improved it.

A gentleman remarked, one day, that it might have been fine to live in

the castle in the day of its prime, but that we had one advantage which

its vanished inhabitants lacked--the advantage of having a charming ruin

to visit and muse over. But that was a hasty idea. Those people had the

advantage of US. They had the fine castle to live in, and they could

cross the Rhine valley and muse over the stately ruin of Trifels

besides. The Trifels people, in their day, five hundred years ago, could

go and muse over majestic ruins that have vanished, now, to the last

stone. There have always been ruins, no doubt; and there have always

been pensive people to sigh over them, and asses to scratch upon them

their names and the important date of their visit. Within a hundred

years after Adam left Eden, the guide probably gave the usual general

flourish 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 of

tourists, 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 the

steep and wooded mountainside; its vast size--these features combine to

make an illumination a most effective spectacle. It is necessarily an

expensive show, and consequently rather infrequent. Therefore whenever

one of these exhibitions is to take place, the news goes about in the

papers and Heidelberg is sure to be full of people on that night. I and

my agent had one of these opportunities, and improved it.

About half past seven on the appointed evening we crossed the lower

bridge, with some American students, in a pouring rain, and started up

the road which borders the Neunheim side of the river. This roadway was

densely packed with carriages and foot-passengers; the former of all

ages, and the latter of all ages and both sexes. This black and solid

mass was struggling painfully onward, through the slop, the darkness,

and the deluge. We waded along for three-quarters of a mile, and finally

took up a position in an unsheltered beer-garden directly opposite

the Castle. We could not SEE the Castle--or anything else, for that

matter--but we could dimly discern the outlines of the mountain over the

way, through the pervading blackness, and knew whereabouts the Castle

was located. We stood on one of the hundred benches in the garden, under

our umbrellas; the other ninety-nine were occupied by standing men and

women, and they also had umbrellas. All the region round about, and up

and down the river-road, was a dense wilderness of humanity hidden

under an unbroken pavement of carriage tops and umbrellas. Thus we stood

during two drenching hours. No rain fell on my head, but the converging

whalebone points of a dozen neighboring umbrellas poured little cooling

steams of water down my neck, and sometimes into my ears, and thus kept

me from getting hot and impatient. I had the rheumatism, too, and

had heard that this was good for it. Afterward, however, I was led to

believe that the water treatment is NOT good for rheumatism. There were

even 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-drippings

soaking 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 came

unexpectedly, of course--things always do, that have been long looked

and longed for. With a perfectly breath-taking suddenness several mast

sheaves of varicolored rockets were vomited skyward out of the black

throats of the Castle towers, accompanied by a thundering crash of

sound, and instantly every detail of the prodigious ruin stood revealed

against the mountainside and glowing with an almost intolerable splendor

of fire and color. For some little time the whole building was a

blinding crimson mass, the towers continued to spout thick columns of

rockets aloft, and overhead the sky was radiant with arrowy bolts which

clove their way to the zenith, paused, curved gracefully downward, then

burst into brilliant fountain-sprays of richly colored sparks. The red

fires died slowly down, within the Castle, and presently the shell grew

nearly black outside; the angry glare that shone out through the broken

arches and innumerable sashless windows, now, reproduced the aspect

which the Castle must have borne in the old time when the French

spoilers saw the monster bonfire which they had made there fading and

spoiling toward extinction.

While we still gazed and enjoyed, the ruin was suddenly enveloped in

rolling and rumbling volumes of vaporous green fire; then in dazzling

purple ones; then a mixture of many colors followed, then drowned the

great fabric in its blended splendors. Meantime the nearest bridge had

been illuminated, and from several rafts anchored in the river, meteor

showers of rockets, Roman candles, bombs, serpents, and Catharine wheels

were being discharged in wasteful profusion into the sky--a marvelous

sight indeed to a person as little used to such spectacles as I was. For

a while the whole region about us seemed as bright as day, and yet the

rain was falling in torrents all the time. The evening's entertainment

presently closed, and we joined the innumerable caravan of half-drowned

strangers, and waded home again.

The Castle grounds are very ample and very beautiful; and as they joined

the Hotel grounds, with no fences to climb, but only some nobly shaded

stone stairways to descend, we spent a part of nearly every day in

idling through their smooth walks and leafy groves. There was an

attractive spot among the trees where were a great many wooden tables

and benches; and there one could sit in the shade and pretend to sip at

his foamy beaker of beer while he inspected the crowd. I say pretend,

because I only pretended to sip, without really sipping. That is the

polite way; but when you are ready to go, you empty the beaker at a

draught. There was a brass band, and it furnished excellent music every

afternoon. Sometimes so many people came that every seat was occupied,

every table filled. And never a rough in the assemblage--all nicely

dressed fathers and mothers, young gentlemen and ladies and children;

and plenty of university students and glittering officers; with here and

there a gray professor, or a peaceful old lady with her knitting; and

always a sprinkling of gawky foreigners. Everybody had his glass of

beer before him, or his cup of coffee, or his bottle of wine, or his

hot cutlet and potatoes; young ladies chatted, or fanned themselves, or

wrought at their crocheting or embroidering; the students fed sugar to

their dogs, or discussed duels, or illustrated new fencing tricks

with their little canes; and everywhere was comfort and enjoyment, and

everywhere peace and good-will to men. The trees were jubilant with

birds, and the paths with rollicking children. One could have a seat in

that place and plenty of music, any afternoon, for about eight cents, or

a family ticket for the season for two dollars.

For a change, when you wanted one, you could stroll to the Castle, and

burrow among its dungeons, or climb about its ruined towers, or visit

its interior shows--the great Heidelberg Tun, for instance. Everybody

has heard of the great Heidelberg Tun, and most people have seen it, no

doubt. It is a wine-cask as big as a cottage, and some traditions say

it holds eighteen thousand bottles, and other traditions say it holds

eighteen hundred million barrels. I think it likely that one of these

statements is a mistake, and the other is a lie. However, the mere

matter of capacity is a thing of no sort of consequence, since the cask

is empty, and indeed has always been empty, history says. An empty cask

the 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 emptiness

in, when you can get a better quality, outside, any day, free of

expense. What could this cask have been built for? The more one studies

over that, the more uncertain and unhappy he becomes. Some historians

say that thirty couples, some say thirty thousand couples, can dance on

the head of this cask at the same time. Even this does not seem to me

to account for the building of it. It does not even throw light on it. A

profound and scholarly Englishman--a specialist--who had made the great

Heidelberg Tun his sole study for fifteen years, told me he had at last

satisfied himself that the ancients built it to make German cream in.

He said that the average German cow yielded from one to two and half

teaspoons of milk, when she was not worked in the plow or the hay-wagon

more than eighteen or nineteen hours a day. This milk was very sweet and

good, and a beautiful transparent bluish tint; but in order to get cream

from it in the most economical way, a peculiar process was necessary.

Now he believed that the habit of the ancients was to collect several

milkings 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 German

Empire demanded.

This began to look reasonable. It certainly began to account for the

German cream which I had encountered and marveled over in so many hotels

and restaurants. But a thought struck me--

"Why did not each ancient dairyman take his own teacup of milk and his

own cask of water, and mix them, without making a government matter of

it?'

"Where could he get a cask large enough to contain the right proportion

of water?"

Very true. It was plain that the Englishman had studied the matter from

all sides. Still I thought I might catch him on one point; so I asked

him why the modern empire did not make the nation's cream in the

Heidelberg Tun, instead of leaving it to rot away unused. But he

answered as one prepared--

"A patient and diligent examination of the modern German cream had

satisfied me that they do not use the Great Tun now, because they have

got a BIGGER one hid away somewhere. Either that is the case or they

empty the spring milkings into the mountain torrents and then skim the

Rhine all summer."

There is a museum of antiquities in the Castle, and among its most

treasured relics are ancient manuscripts connected with German history.

There are hundreds of these, and their dates stretch back through many

centuries. One of them is a decree signed and sealed by the hand of a

successor of Charlemagne, in the year 896. A signature made by a hand

which vanished out of this life near a thousand years ago, is a more

impressive thing than even a ruined castle. Luther's wedding-ring was

shown me; also a fork belonging to a time anterior to our era, and an

early bootjack. And there was a plaster cast of the head of a man who

was assassinated about sixty years ago. The stab-wounds in the face

were duplicated with unpleasant fidelity. One or two real hairs still

remained sticking in the eyebrows of the cast. That trifle seemed to

almost change the counterfeit into a corpse.

There are many aged portraits--some valuable, some worthless; some of

great interest, some of none at all. I bought a couple--one a gorgeous

duke of the olden time, and the other a comely blue-eyed damsel,

a princess, maybe. I bought them to start a portrait-gallery of my

ancestors with. I paid a dollar and a half for the duke and a half for

the 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 for

chances.

APPENDIX C.

The College Prison It seems that the student may break a good many of

the public laws without having to answer to the public authorities.

His case must come before the University for trial and punishment. If a

policeman catches him in an unlawful act and proceeds to arrest him,

the offender proclaims that he is a student, and perhaps shows his

matriculation card, whereupon the officer asks for his address, then

goes his way, and reports the matter at headquarters. If the offense is

one over which the city has no jurisdiction, the authorities report

the case officially to the University, and give themselves no further

concern about it. The University court send for the student, listen to

the evidence, and pronounce judgment. The punishment usually inflicted

is imprisonment in the University prison. As I understand it, a

student's case is often tried without his being present at all.

Then something like this happens: A constable in the service of the

University visits the lodgings of the said student, knocks, is invited

to 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 been

doing?"

"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 the

College 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 to

have 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 is

admitted.

It is questionable if the world's criminal history can show a custom

more odd than this. Nobody knows, now, how it originated. There have

always been many noblemen among the students, and it is presumed that

all students are gentlemen; in the old times it was usual to mar the

convenience of such folk as little as possible; perhaps this indulgent

custom owes its origin to this.

One day I was listening to some conversation upon this subject when an

American student said that for some time he had been under sentence

for a slight breach of the peace and had promised the constable that he

would presently find an unoccupied day and betake himself to prison. I

asked the young gentleman to do me the kindness to go to jail as soon

as he conveniently could, so that I might try to get in there and visit

him, and see what college captivity was like. He said he would appoint

the very first day he could spare.

His confinement was to endure twenty-four hours. He shortly chose

his day, and sent me word. I started immediately. When I reached the

University Place, I saw two gentlemen talking together, and, as they

had portfolios under their arms, I judged they were tutors or elderly

students; so I asked them in English to show me the college jail. I

had learned to take it for granted that anybody in Germany who knows

anything, knows English, so I had stopped afflicting people with my

German. These gentlemen seemed a trifle amused--and a trifle confused,

too--but one of them said he would walk around the corner with me and

show me the place. He asked me why I wanted to get in there, and I said

to 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 and

then up into a small living-room, where we were received by a hearty

and good-natured German woman of fifty. She threw up her hands with a

surprised "ACH GOTT, HERR PROFESSOR!" and exhibited a mighty deference

for my new acquaintance. By the sparkle in her eye I judged she was a

good deal amused, too. The "Herr Professor" talked to her in German, and

I understood enough of it to know that he was bringing very plausible

reasons to bear for admitting me. They were successful. So the Herr

Professor received my earnest thanks and departed. The old dame got her

keys, took me up two or three flights of stairs, unlocked a door, and

we stood in the presence of the criminal. Then she went into a jolly and

eager description of all that had occurred downstairs, and what the Herr

Professor had said, and so forth and so on. Plainly, she regarded it as

quite a superior joke that I had waylaid a Professor and employed him

in so odd a service. But I wouldn't have done it if I had known he was a

Professor; therefore my conscience was not disturbed.

Now the dame left us to ourselves. The cell was not a roomy one; still

it was a little larger than an ordinary prison cell. It had a window

of good size, iron-grated; a small stove; two wooden chairs; two oaken

tables, very old and most elaborately carved with names, mottoes, faces,

armorial bearings, etc.--the work of several generations of imprisoned

students; and a narrow wooden bedstead with a villainous straw mattress,

but no sheets, pillows, blankets, or coverlets--for these the student

must furnish at his own cost if he wants them. There was no carpet, of

course.

The ceiling was completely covered with names, dates, and monograms,

done with candle-smoke. The walls were thickly covered with pictures and

portraits (in profile), some done with ink, some with soot, some with a

pencil, and some with red, blue, and green chalks; and whenever an inch

or two of space had remained between the pictures, the captives had

written plaintive verses, or names and dates. I do not think I was ever

in a more elaborately frescoed apartment.

Against the wall hung a placard containing the prison laws. I made a

note of one or two of these. For instance: The prisoner must pay, for

the "privilege" of entering, a sum equivalent to 20 cents of our money;

for the privilege of leaving, when his term had expired, 20 cents; for

every day spent in the prison, 12 cents; for fire and light, 12 cents a

day. The jailer furnishes coffee, mornings, for a small sum; dinners and

suppers may be ordered from outside if the prisoner chooses--and he is

allowed 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 colored

chalks.

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 a

few specimens:

"In my tenth semester (my best one), I am cast here through the

complaints of others. Let those who follow me take warning."

"III TAGE OHNE GRUND ANGEBLICH AUS NEUGIERDE." Which is to say, he had a

curiosity to know what prison life was like; so he made a breach in some

law and got three days for it. It is more than likely that he never had

the same curiosity again.

(TRANSLATION.) "E. Glinicke, four days for being too eager a spectator

of a row."

"F. Graf Bismarck--27-29, II, '74." Which means that Count Bismarck, son

of the great statesman, was a prisoner two days in 1874.

(TRANSLATION.) "R. Diergandt--for Love--4 days." Many people in this

world have caught it heavier than for the same indiscretion.

This one is terse. I translate:

"Four weeks for MISINTERPRETED GALLANTRY." I wish the sufferer had

explained a little more fully. A four-week term is a rather serious

matter.

There were many uncomplimentary references, on the walls, to a certain

unpopular dignitary. One sufferer had got three days for not saluting

him. 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 altering

the records left by predecessors. Leaving the name standing, and the

date and length of the captivity, they had erased the description of the

misdemeanor, 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 well

calculated to pique curiosity. One would greatly like to know the nature

of 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 way

of finding out these things.

Occasionally, a name was followed simply by the remark, "II days, for

disturbing the peace," and without comment upon the justice or injustice

of the sentence.

In one place was a hilarious picture of a student of the green cap

corps 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 or

ceiling for another name or portrait or picture. The inside surfaces of

the two doors were completely covered with CARTES DE VISITE of former

prisoners, ingeniously let into the wood and protected from dirt and

injury by glass.

I very much wanted one of the sorry old tables which the prisoners had

spent so many years in ornamenting with their pocket-knives, but red

tape was in the way. The custodian could not sell one without an

order from a superior; and that superior would have to get it from HIS

superior; and this one would have to get it from a higher one--and so on

up and up until the faculty should sit on the matter and deliver final

judgment. The system was right, and nobody could find fault with it; but

it did not seem justifiable to bother so many people, so I proceeded no

further. It might have cost me more than I could afford, anyway; for

one of those prison tables, which was at the time in a private museum

in Heidelberg, was afterward sold at auction for two hundred and fifty

dollars. It was not worth more than a dollar, or possibly a dollar and

half, before the captive students began their work on it. Persons who

saw it at the auction said it was so curiously and wonderfully carved

that it was worth the money that was paid for it.

Among them many who have tasted the college prison's dreary hospitality

was a lively young fellow from one of the Southern states of America,

whose first year's experience of German university life was rather

peculiar. The day he arrived in Heidelberg he enrolled his name on the

college books, and was so elated with the fact that his dearest hope

had found fruition and he was actually a student of the old and renowned

university, that he set to work that very night to celebrate the event

by a grand lark in company with some other students. In the course of

his lark he managed to make a wide breach in one of the university's

most stringent laws. Sequel: before noon, next day, he was in the

college prison--booked for three months. The twelve long weeks dragged

slowly by, and the day of deliverance came at last. A great crowd of

sympathizing fellow-students received him with a rousing demonstration

as he came forth, and of course there was another grand lark--in the

course of which he managed to make a wide breach of the CITY'S most

stringent laws. Sequel: before noon, next day, he was safe in the city

lockup--booked for three months. This second tedious captivity drew to

an end in the course of time, and again a great crowd of sympathizing

fellow students gave him a rousing reception as he came forth; but

his delight in his freedom was so boundless that he could not proceed

soberly and calmly, but must go hopping and skipping and jumping down

the sleety street from sheer excess of joy. Sequel: he slipped and broke

his 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 would

hunt up a brisker seat of learning; the Heidelberg lectures might

be good, but the opportunities of attending them were too rare, the

educational process too slow; he said he had come to Europe with the

idea that the acquirement of an education was only a matter of time,

but if he had averaged the Heidelberg system correctly, it was rather a

matter 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 Heidelberg

Castle, and one day I surprised the keeper of it with my German. I spoke

entirely in that language. He was greatly interested; and after I had

talked a while he said my German was very rare, possibly a "unique"; and

wanted to add it to his museum.

If he had known what it had cost me to acquire my art, he would also

have known that it would break any collector to buy it. Harris and I had

been hard at work on our German during several weeks at that time, and

although we had made good progress, it had been accomplished under great

difficulty and annoyance, for three of our teachers had died in the mean

time. A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a

perplexing 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 thinks

he has captured a rule which offers firm ground to take a rest on amid

the general rage and turmoil of the ten parts of speech, he turns over

the page and reads, "Let the pupil make careful note of the following

EXCEPTIONS." He runs his eye down and finds that there are more

exceptions 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 one

of these four confusing "cases" where I am master of it, a seemingly

insignificant preposition intrudes itself into my sentence, clothed with

an awful and unsuspected power, and crumbles the ground from under

me. For instance, my book inquires after a certain bird--(it is always

inquiring after things which are of no sort of consequence to anybody):

"Where is the bird?" Now the answer to this question--according to the

book--is that the bird is waiting in the blacksmith shop on account of

the rain. Of course no bird would do that, but then you must stick to

the book. Very well, I begin to cipher out the German for that answer. I

begin at the wrong end, necessarily, for that is the German idea. I

say to myself, "REGEN (rain) is masculine--or maybe it is feminine--or

possibly neuter--it is too much trouble to look now. Therefore, it

is 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 the

interest of science, I will cipher it out on the hypothesis that it is

masculine. Very well--then THE rain is DER Regen, if it is simply in

the quiescent state of being MENTIONED, without enlargement or

discussion--Nominative case; but if this rain is lying around, in a kind

of a general way on the ground, it is then definitely located, it is

DOING SOMETHING--that is, RESTING (which is one of the German grammar's

ideas of doing something), and this throws the rain into the Dative

case, and makes it DEM Regen. However, this rain is not resting, but is

doing something ACTIVELY,--it is falling--to interfere with the bird,

likely--and this indicates MOVEMENT, which has the effect of sliding it

into the Accusative case and changing DEM Regen into DEN Regen."

Having completed the grammatical horoscope of this matter, I answer

up confidently and state in German that the bird is staying in the

blacksmith shop "wegen (on account of) DEN Regen." Then the teacher lets

me softly down with the remark that whenever the word "wegen" drops

into a sentence, it ALWAYS throws that subject into the GENITIVE case,

regardless of consequences--and therefore this bird stayed in the

blacksmith shop "wegen DES Regens."

N.B.--I was informed, later, by a higher authority, that there was

an "exception" which permits one to say "wegen DEN Regen" in certain

peculiar and complex circumstances, but that this exception is not

extended to anything BUT rain.

There are ten parts of speech, and they are all troublesome. An average

sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity;

it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts of

speech--not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound

words constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in

any dictionary--six or seven words compacted into one, without joint

or seam--that is, without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteen

different subjects, each enclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here

and there extra parentheses, making pens within pens: finally, all the

parentheses and reparentheses are massed together between a couple

of king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of the

majestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of

it--AFTER WHICH COMES THE VERB, and you find out for the first time what

the man has been talking about; and after the verb--merely by way of

ornament, as far as I can make out--the writer shovels in "HABEN SIND

GEWESEN GEHABT HAVEN GEWORDEN SEIN," or words to that effect, and the

monument is finished. I suppose that this closing hurrah is in the

nature of the flourish to a man's signature--not necessary, but pretty.

German books are easy enough to read when you hold them before

the looking-glass or stand on your head--so as to reverse the

construction--but I think that to learn to read and understand a German

newspaper is a thing which must always remain an impossibility to a

foreigner.

Yet even the German books are not entirely free from attacks of the

Parenthesis distemper--though they are usually so mild as to cover only

a few lines, and therefore when you at last get down to the verb it

carries some meaning to your mind because you are able to remember a

good deal of what has gone before. Now here is a sentence from a popular

and excellent German novel--with a slight parenthesis in it. I will make

a perfectly literal translation, and throw in the parenthesis-marks and

some hyphens for the assistance of the reader--though in the original

there are no parenthesis-marks or hyphens, and the reader is left to

flounder 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 gehuellten

jetz sehr ungenirt nach der neusten mode gekleideten Regierungsrathin

begegnet.

That is from THE OLD MAMSELLE'S SECRET, by Mrs. Marlitt. And that

sentence is constructed upon the most approved German model. You observe

how far that verb is from the reader's base of operations; well, in a

German newspaper they put their verb away over on the next page; and

I have heard that sometimes after stringing along the exciting

preliminaries and parentheses for a column or two, they get in a hurry

and 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 see

cases of it every day in our books and newspapers: but with us it is the

mark and sign of an unpracticed writer or a cloudy intellect, whereas

with the Germans it is doubtless the mark and sign of a practiced pen

and of the presence of that sort of luminous intellectual fog

which stands for clearness among these people. For surely it is NOT

clearness--it necessarily can't be clearness. Even a jury would have

penetration enough to discover that. A writer's ideas must be a good

deal confused, a good deal out of line and sequence, when he starts out

to say that a man met a counselor's wife in the street, and then right

in the midst of this so simple undertaking halts these approaching

people and makes them stand still until he jots down an inventory of the

woman's dress. That is manifestly absurd. It reminds a person of those

dentists who secure your instant and breathless interest in a tooth by

taking a grip on it with the forceps, and then stand there and

drawl 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 by

splitting a verb in two and putting half of it at the beginning of

an exciting chapter and the OTHER HALF at the end of it. Can any one

conceive of anything more confusing than that? These things are called

"separable verbs." The German grammar is blistered all over with

separable verbs; and the wider the two portions of one of them are

spread apart, the better the author of the crime is pleased with his

performance. A favorite one is REISTE AB--which means departed. Here is

an example which I culled from a novel and reduced to English:

"The trunks being now ready, he DE- after kissing his mother and

sisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who,

dressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample

folds of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, still

pale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to

lay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she

loved more dearly than life itself, PARTED."

However, it is not well to dwell too much on the separable verbs. One is

sure to lose his temper early; and if he sticks to the subject, and will

not be warned, it will at last either soften his brain or petrify

it. Personal pronouns and adjectives are a fruitful nuisance in this

language, 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 of

a language which has to make one word do the work of six--and a poor

little weak thing of only three letters at that. But mainly, think of

the exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker is

trying to convey. This explains why, whenever a person says SIE to me, I

generally try to kill him, if a stranger.

Now observe the Adjective. Here was a case where simplicity would have

been an advantage; therefore, for no other reason, the inventor of this

language complicated it all he could. When we wish to speak of our "good

friend or friends," in our enlightened tongue, we stick to the one form

and have no trouble or hard feeling about it; but with the German

tongue 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 all

declined out of it. It is as bad as Latin. He says, for instance:

SINGULAR

Nominative--Mein gutER Freund, my good friend. Genitives--MeinES GutEN

FreundES, of my good friend. Dative--MeinEM gutEN Freund, to my good

friend. 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 friends

in Germany than take all this trouble about them. I have shown what a

bother it is to decline a good (male) friend; well this is only a third

of the work, for there is a variety of new distortions of the adjective

to be learned when the object is feminine, and still another when the

object is neuter. Now there are more adjectives in this language than

there are black cats in Switzerland, and they must all be as

elaborately declined as the examples above suggested.

Difficult?--troublesome?--these words cannot describe it. I heard a

Californian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, that

he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.

The inventor of the language seems to have taken pleasure in

complicating it in every way he could think of. For instance, if one is

casually 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 to

them in the Dative case, he sticks on a foolish and unnecessary E and

spells them HAUSE, PFERDE, HUNDE. So, as an added E often signifies the

plural, as the S does with us, the new student is likely to go on for a

month 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, because

he ignorantly bought that dog in the Dative singular when he really

supposed 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 for

recovery could not lie.

In German, all the Nouns begin with a capital letter. Now that is a good

idea; and a good idea, in this language, is necessarily conspicuous from

its lonesomeness. I consider this capitalizing of nouns a good idea,

because by reason of it you are almost always able to tell a noun the

minute you see it. You fall into error occasionally, because you mistake

the name of a person for the name of a thing, and waste a good deal of

time trying to dig a meaning out of it. German names almost always do

mean something, and this helps to deceive the student. I translated a

passage one day, which said that "the infuriated tigress broke loose

and utterly ate up the unfortunate fir forest" (Tannenwald). When I was

girding up my loins to doubt this, I found out that Tannenwald in this

instance was a man's name.

Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the

distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by

heart. There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a

memorandum-book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has.

Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what

callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print--I translate

this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school

books:

"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 are

female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats

are female--tomcats included, of course; a person's mouth, neck, bosom,

elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head

is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and NOT

according to the sex of the individual who wears it--for in Germany all

the 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 sex

at all. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a

conscience from hearsay.

Now, by the above dissection, the reader will see that in Germany a

man may THINK he is a man, but when he comes to look into the matter

closely, he is bound to have his doubts; he finds that in sober truth

he is a most ridiculous mixture; and if he ends by trying to comfort

himself with the thought that he can at least depend on a third of this

mess as being manly and masculine, the humiliating second thought will

quickly remind him that in this respect he is no better off than any

woman or cow in the land.

In the German it is true that by some oversight of the inventor of

the language, a Woman is a female; but a Wife (Weib) is not--which is

unfortunate. A Wife, here, has no sex; she is neuter; so, according

to the grammar, a fish is HE, his scales are SHE, but a fishwife is

neither. To describe a wife as sexless may be called under-description;

that is bad enough, but over-description is surely worse. A German

speaks of an Englishman as the ENGLÄNNDER; to change the sex, he

adds INN, and that stands for Englishwoman--ENGLÄNDERINN. That seems

descriptive enough, but still it is not exact enough for a German; so he

precedes the word with that article which indicates that the creature to

follow is feminine, and writes it down thus: "die Engländerinn,"--which

means "the she-Englishwoman." I consider that that person is

over-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 persuade

his 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 even

frames a German sentence in his mind, with the hims and hers in the

right places, and then works up his courage to the utterance-point, it

is no use--the moment he begins to speak his tongue flies the track and

all those labored males and females come out as "its." And even when he

is reading German to himself, he always calls those things "it," whereas

he 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 he

rattles; and see the Snow, how he drifts along, and of the Mud, how

deep he is! Ah the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire; it has

dropped its Basket of Fishes; and its Hands have been cut by the Scales

as it seized some of the falling Creatures; and one Scale has even got

into its Eye, and it cannot get her out. It opens its Mouth to cry

for Help; but if any Sound comes out of him, alas he is drowned by the

raging of the Storm. And now a Tomcat has got one of the Fishes and she

will surely escape with him. No, she bites off a Fin, she holds her in

her Mouth--will she swallow her? No, the Fishwife's brave Mother-dog

deserts his Puppies and rescues the Fin--which he eats, himself, as his

Reward. O, horror, the Lightning has struck the Fish-basket; he sets him

on Fire; see the Flame, how she licks the doomed Utensil with her red

and angry Tongue; now she attacks the helpless Fishwife's Foot--she

burns him up, all but the big Toe, and even SHE is partly consumed; and

still she spreads, still she waves her fiery Tongues; she attacks the

Fishwife's Leg and destroys IT; she attacks its Hand and destroys HER

also; she attacks the Fishwife's Leg and destroys HER also; she attacks

its Body and consumes HIM; she wreathes herself about its Heart and IT

is consumed; next about its Breast, and in a Moment SHE is a Cinder; now

she reaches its Neck--He goes; now its Chin--IT goes; now its Nose--SHE

goes. 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 generous

she-Female is too late: where now is the fated Fishwife? It has ceased

from its Sufferings, it has gone to a better Land; all that is left of

it 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 Prayer

that when he rises again it will be a Realm where he will have one good

square responsible Sex, and have it all to himself, instead of having a

mangy lot of assorted Sexes scattered all over him in Spots.

There, now, the reader can see for himself that this pronoun business is

a very awkward thing for the unaccustomed tongue. I suppose that in all

languages the similarities of look and sound between words which have

no similarity in meaning are a fruitful source of perplexity to the

foreigner. It is so in our tongue, and it is notably the case in the

German. Now there is that troublesome word VERMÄHLT: to me it has so

close a resemblance--either real or fancied--to three or four other

words, that I never know whether it means despised, painted, suspected,

or married; until I look in the dictionary, and then I find it means the

latter. There are lots of such words and they are a great torment. To

increase the difficulty there are words which SEEM to resemble each

other, and yet do not; but they make just as much trouble as if they

did. For instance, there is the word VERMIETHEN (to let, to lease, to

hire); and the word VERHEIRATHEN (another way of saying to marry). I

heard of an Englishman who knocked at a man's door in Heidelberg and

proposed, in the best German he could command, to "verheirathen" that

house. Then there are some words which mean one thing when you emphasize

the first syllable, but mean something very different if you throw the

emphasis on the last syllable. For instance, there is a word which

means a runaway, or the act of glancing through a book, according to the

placing of the emphasis; and another word which signifies to

ASSOCIATE with a man, or to AVOID him, according to where you put the

emphasis--and you can generally depend on putting it in the wrong place

and getting into trouble.

There are some exceedingly useful words in this language. SCHLAG, for

example; and ZUG. There are three-quarters of a column of SCHLAGS in the

dictonary, 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 which

you can set it free, so that it can soar away, as on the wings of the

morning, and never be at rest. You can hang any word you please to

its tail, and make it mean anything you want to. You can begin

with SCHLAG-ADER, which means artery, and you can hang on the whole

dictionary, word by word, clear through the alphabet to SCHLAG-WASSER,

which means bilge-water--and including SCHLAG-MUTTER, which means

mother-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 NOT

mean--when all its legitimate pennants have been hung on, has not been

discovered yet.

One cannot overestimate the usefulness of SCHLAG and ZUG. Armed just

with these two, and the word ALSO, what cannot the foreigner on German

soil accomplish? The German word ALSO is the equivalent of the English

phrase "You know," and does not mean anything at all--in TALK, though

it sometimes does in print. Every time a German opens his mouth an

ALSO falls out; and every time he shuts it he bites one in two that was

trying to GET out.

Now, the foreigner, equipped with these three noble words, is master of

the situation. Let him talk right along, fearlessly; let him pour his

indifferent German forth, and when he lacks for a word, let him heave a

SCHLAG into the vacuum; all the chances are that it fits it like a

plug, but if it doesn't let him promptly heave a ZUG after it; the two

together can hardly fail to bung the hole; but if, by a miracle, they

SHOULD fail, let him simply say ALSO! and this will give him a moment's

chance to think of the needful word. In Germany, when you load your

conversational gun it is always best to throw in a SCHLAG or two and a

ZUG or two, because it doesn't make any difference how much the rest of

the charge may scatter, you are bound to bag something with THEM. Then

you blandly say ALSO, and load up again. Nothing gives such an air

of grace and elegance and unconstraint to a German or an English

conversation 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 was

successfully removed from a patient--a North German from near Hamburg;

but as most unfortunately the surgeons had opened him in the wrong

place, under the impression that he contained a panorama, he died. The

sad event has cast a gloom over the whole community.

That paragraph furnishes a text for a few remarks about one of the most

curious and notable features of my subject--the length of German words.

Some German words are so long that they have a perspective. Observe

these examples:

Freundschaftsbezeigungen.

Dilettantenaufdringlichkeiten.

Stadtverordnetenversammlungen.

These things are not words, they are alphabetical processions. And they

are not rare; one can open a German newspaper at any time and see them

marching majestically across the page--and if he has any imagination

he can see the banners and hear the music, too. They impart a martial

thrill to the meekest subject. I take a great interest in these

curiosities. Whenever I come across a good one, I stuff it and put it in

my museum. In this way I have made quite a valuable collection. When I

get duplicates, I exchange with other collectors, and thus increase the

variety of my stock. Here are some specimens which I lately bought at an

auction 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 across

the printed page, it adorns and ennobles that literary landscape--but at

the same time it is a great distress to the new student, for it blocks

up his way; he cannot crawl under it, or climb over it, or tunnel

through it. So he resorts to the dictionary for help, but there is no

help there. The dictionary must draw the line somewhere--so it leaves

this sort of words out. And it is right, because these long things are

hardly legitimate words, but are rather combinations of words, and the

inventor of them ought to have been killed. They are compound words with

the hyphens left out. The various words used in building them are in

the dictionary, but in a very scattered condition; so you can hunt the

materials out, one by one, and get at the meaning at last, but it is a

tedious and harassing business. I have tried this process upon some of

the above examples. "Freundshaftsbezeigungen" seems to be "Friendship

demonstrations," 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--a

mere rhythmical, gushy euphemism for "meetings of the legislature,"

I judge. We used to have a good deal of this sort of crime in our

literature, 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 the

simple and sufficient word "memorable" and then going calmly about our

business as if nothing had happened. In those days we were not content

to embalm the thing and bury it decently, we wanted to build a monument

over it.

But in our newspapers the compounding-disease lingers a little to the

present day, but with the hyphens left out, in the German fashion. This

is the shape it takes: instead of saying "Mr. Simmons, clerk of the

county and district courts, was in town yesterday," the new form puts

it thus: "Clerk of the County and District Courts Simmons was in town

yesterday." This saves neither time nor ink, and has an awkward

sound besides. One often sees a remark like this in our papers: "MRS.

Assistant District Attorney Johnson returned to her city residence

yesterday for the season." That is a case of really unjustifiable

compounding; because it not only saves no time or trouble, but confers

a title on Mrs. Johnson which she has no right to. But these little

instances are trifles indeed, contrasted with the ponderous and dismal

German system of piling jumbled compounds together. I wish to submit the

following local item, from a Mannheim journal, by way of illustration:

"In the daybeforeyesterdayshortlyaftereleveno'clock Night, the

inthistownstandingtavern called 'The Wagoner' was downburnt. When the

fire to the onthedownburninghouseresting Stork's Nest reached, flew the

parent Storks away. But when the bytheraging, firesurrounded Nest ITSELF

caught Fire, straightway plunged the quickreturning Mother-Stork into

the Flames and died, her Wings over her young ones outspread."

Even the cumbersome German construction is not able to take the pathos

out of that picture--indeed, it somehow seems to strengthen it. This

item 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, I

have at least intended to do so. I have heard of an American student

who was asked how he was getting along with his German, and who answered

promptly: "I am not getting along at all. I have worked at it hard for

three level months, and all I have got to show for it is one solitary

German phrase--'ZWEI GLAS'" (two glasses of beer). He paused for a

moment, reflectively; then added with feeling: "But I've got that

SOLID!"

And if I have not also shown that German is a harassing and infuriating

study, my execution has been at fault, and not my intent. I heard lately

of a worn and sorely tried American student who used to fly to a certain

German word for relief when he could bear up under his aggravations no

longer--the only word whose sound was sweet and precious to his ear and

healing to his lacerated spirit. This was the word DAMIT. It was only

the SOUND that helped him, not the meaning; [3] and so, at last, when he

learned that the emphasis was not on the first syllable, his only stay

and 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 episode

must be tamer in German than in English. Our descriptive words of this

character have such a deep, strong, resonant sound, while their German

equivalents 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 and

magnitude of sound befitting the things which they describe. But their

German equivalents would be ever so nice to sing the children to sleep

with, or else my awe-inspiring ears were made for display and not for

superior usefulness in analyzing sounds. Would any man want to die in a

battle which was called by so tame a term as a SCHLACHT? Or would not

a comsumptive feel too much bundled up, who was about to go out, in

a shirt-collar and a seal-ring, into a storm which the bird-song word

GEWITTER was employed to describe? And observe the strongest of the

several German equivalents for explosion--AUSBRUCH. Our word Toothbrush

is more powerful than that. It seems to me that the Germans could

do worse than import it into their language to describe particularly

tremendous explosions with. The German word for hell--Hoelle--sounds

more like HELLY than anything else; therefore, how necessarily chipper,

frivolous, and unimpressive it is. If a man were told in German to go

there, could he really rise to thee dignity of feeling insulted?

Having pointed out, in detail, the several vices of this language, I

now come to the brief and pleasant task of pointing out its virtues. The

capitalizing of the nouns I have already mentioned. But far before this

virtue stands another--that of spelling a word according to the sound of

it. After one short lesson in the alphabet, the student can tell how any

German word is pronounced without having to ask; whereas in our language

if a student should inquire of us, "What does B, O, W, spell?" we should

be obliged to reply, "Nobody can tell what it spells when you set if off

by itself; you can only tell by referring to the context and finding out

what it signifies--whether it is a thing to shoot arrows with, or a nod

of one's head, or the forward end of a boat."

There are some German words which are singularly and powerfully

effective. For instance, those which describe lowly, peaceful, and

affectionate home life; those which deal with love, in any and all

forms, from mere kindly feeling and honest good will toward the passing

stranger, clear up to courtship; those which deal with outdoor Nature,

in its softest and loveliest aspects--with meadows and forests, and

birds and flowers, the fragrance and sunshine of summer, and the

moonlight of peaceful winter nights; in a word, those which deal with

any and all forms of rest, repose, and peace; those also which deal with

the creatures and marvels of fairyland; and lastly and chiefly, in

those words which express pathos, is the language surpassingly rich

and affective. There are German songs which can make a stranger to the

language cry. That shows that the SOUND of the words is correct--it

interprets the meanings with truth and with exactness; and so the ear is

informed, and through the ear, the heart.

The Germans do not seem to be afraid to repeat a word when it is the

right one. They repeat it several times, if they choose. That is

wise. But in English, when we have used a word a couple of times in a

paragraph, we imagine we are growing tautological, and so we are weak

enough to exchange it for some other word which only approximates

exactness, 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 to

point out the faults in a religion or a language, and then go blandly

about their business without suggesting any remedy. I am not that kind

of person. I have shown that the German language needs reforming. Very

well, I am ready to reform it. At least I am ready to make the proper

suggestions. Such a course as this might be immodest in another; but I

have devoted upward of nine full weeks, first and last, to a careful and

critical study of this tongue, and thus have acquired a confidence in

my ability to reform it which no mere superficial culture could have

conferred upon me.

In the first place, I would leave out the Dative case. It confuses the

plurals; 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 or

where it was that he got into it, or how long he has been in it, or

how he is ever going to get out of it again. The Dative case is but an

ornamental folly--it is better to discard it.

In the next place, I would move the Verb further up to the front. You

may load up with ever so good a Verb, but I notice that you never really

bring down a subject with it at the present German range--you only

cripple it. So I insist that this important part of speech should be

brought forward to a position where it may be easily seen with the naked

eye.

Thirdly, I would import some strong words from the English tongue--to

swear with, and also to use in describing all sorts of vigorous things

in a vigorous way. [4]

1. "Verdammt," and its variations and enlargements, are words which

have plenty of meaning, but the SOUNDS are so mild and ineffectual that

German ladies can use them without sin. German ladies who could not be

induced to commit a sin by any persuasion or compulsion, promptly rip

out one of these harmless little words when they tear their dresses or

don't like the soup. It sounds about as wicked as our "My gracious."

German ladies are constantly saying, "Ach! Gott!" "Mein Gott!" "Gott in

Himmel!" "Herr Gott" "Der Herr Jesus!" etc. They think our ladies have

the same custom, perhaps; for I once heard a gentle and lovely old

German lady say to a sweet young American girl: "The two languages are

so alike--how pleasant that is; we say 'Ach! Gott!' you say 'Goddamn.'"

Fourthly, I would reorganizes the sexes, and distribute them accordingly

to the will of the creator. This as a tribute of respect, if nothing

else.

Fifthly, I would do away with those great long compounded words; or

require the speaker to deliver them in sections, with intermissions for

refreshments. To wholly do away with them would be best, for ideas are

more easily received and digested when they come one at a time than when

they come in bulk. Intellectual food is like any other; it is pleasanter

and 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 not

hang a string of those useless "haven sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden

seins" to the end of his oration. This sort of gewgaws undignify a

speech, instead of adding a grace. They are, therefore, an offense, and

should be discarded.

Seventhly, I would discard the Parenthesis. Also the reparenthesis, the

re-reparenthesis, and the re-re-re-re-re-reparentheses, and likewise

the final wide-reaching all-enclosing king-parenthesis. I would require

every individual, be he high or low, to unfold a plain straightforward

tale, or else coil it and sit on it and hold his peace. Infractions of

this law should be punishable with death.

And eighthly, and last, I would retain ZUG and SCHLAG, with their

pendants, and discard the rest of the vocabulary. This would simplify

the language.

I have now named what I regard as the most necessary and important

changes. 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 my

proposed application shall result in my being formally employed by the

government in the work of reforming the language.

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to

learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French

in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then,

that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is

to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among

the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.

A FOURTH OF JULY ORATION IN THE GERMAN TONGUE, DELIVERED AT A BANQUET OF

THE ANGLO-AMERICAN CLUB OF STUDENTS BY THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK

Gentlemen: Since I arrived, a month ago, in this old wonderland, this

vast garden of Germany, my English tongue has so often proved a useless

piece of baggage to me, and so troublesome to carry around, in a country

where they haven't the checking system for luggage, that I finally set

to work, and learned the German language. Also! Es freut mich dass dies

so ist, denn es muss, in ein hauptsächlich degree, höflich sein, dass

man auf ein occasion like this, sein Rede in die Sprache des Landes

worin he boards, aussprechen soll. Dafuer habe ich, aus reinische

Verlegenheit--no, Vergangenheit--no, I mean Höflichkeit--aus reinishe

Höflichkeit habe ich resolved to tackle this business in the German

language, um Gottes willen! Also! Sie muessen so freundlich sein, und

verzeih mich die interlarding von ein oder zwei Englischer Worte, hie

und 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 a

language that can stand the strain.

Wenn haber man kann nicht meinem Rede Verstehen, so werde ich ihm später

dasselbe uebersetz, wenn er solche Dienst verlangen wollen haben werden

sollen sein hätte. (I don't know what wollen haben werden sollen sein

hätte means, but I notice they always put it at the end of a German

sentence--merely for general literary gorgeousness, I suppose.)

This is a great and justly honored day--a day which is worthy of the

veneration in which it is held by the true patriots of all climes and

nationalities--a day which offers a fruitful theme for thought and

speech; und meinem Freunde--no, meinEN FreundEN--meinES FreundES--well,

take your choice, they're all the same price; I don't know which one is

right--also! ich habe gehabt haben worden gewesen sein, as Goethe says

in his Paradise Lost--ich--ich--that is to say--ich--but let us change

cars.

Also! Die Anblich so viele Grossbrittanischer und Amerikanischer

hier zusammengetroffen in Bruderliche concord, ist zwar a welcome and

inspiriting spectacle. And what has moved you to it? Can the

terse German tongue rise to the expression of this impulse? Is it

Freundschaftsbezeigungenstadtverordnetenversammlungenfamilieneigenthümlichkeiten?

Nein, O nein! This is a crisp and noble word, but it fails to pierce

the marrow of the impulse which has gathered this friendly meeting and

produced diese Anblick--eine Anblich welche ist gut zu sehen--gut fuer

die Augen in a foreign land and a far country--eine Anblick solche als

in die gewöhnliche Heidelberger phrase nennt man ein "schönes Aussicht!"

Ja, freilich natürlich wahrscheinlich ebensowohl! Also! Die Aussicht auf

dem Koenigsstuhl mehr grösser ist, aber geistlische sprechend nicht

so schön, lob' Gott! Because sie sind hier zusammengetroffen, in

Bruderlichem concord, ein grossen Tag zu feirn, whose high benefits were

not for one land and one locality, but have conferred a measure of

good upon all lands that know liberty today, and love it. Hundert Jahre

vorueber, waren die Engländer und die Amerikaner Feinde; aber heut sind

sie herzlichen Freunde, Gott sei Dank! May this good-fellowship endure;

may these banners here blended in amity so remain; may they never

any more wave over opposing hosts, or be stained with blood which was

kindred, is kindred, and always will be kindred, until a line drawn upon

a map shall be able to say: "THIS bars the ancestral blood from flowing

in the veins of the descendant!"

APPENDIX E.

Legend of the Castles Called the "Swallow's Nest" and "The Brothers," as

Condensed from the Captain's Tale

In the neighborhood of three hundred years ago the Swallow's Nest and

the larger castle between it and Neckarsteinach were owned and occupied

by two old knights who were twin brothers, and bachelors. They had no

relatives. They were very rich. They had fought through the wars and

retired to private life--covered with honorable scars. They were honest,

honorable men in their dealings, but the people had given them a couple

of nicknames which were very suggestive--Herr Givenaught and Herr

Heartless. The old knights were so proud of these names that if a

burgher called them by their right ones they would correct them.

The most renowned scholar in Europe, at the time, was the Herr Doctor

Franz Reikmann, who lived in Heidelberg. All Germany was proud of the

venerable scholar, who lived in the simplest way, for great scholars are

always poor. He was poor, as to money, but very rich in his sweet young

daughter Hildegarde and his library. He had been all his life collecting

his library, book and book, and he lived it as a miser loves his hoarded

gold. He said the two strings of his heart were rooted, the one in his

daughter, the other in his books; and that if either were severed he

must die. Now in an evil hour, hoping to win a marriage portion for his

child, this simple old man had intrusted his small savings to a sharper

to be ventured in a glittering speculation. But that was not the worst

of it: he signed a paper--without reading it. That is the way with poets

and scholars; they always sign without reading. This cunning paper made

him responsible for heaps of things. The rest was that one night he

found himself in debt to the sharper eight thousand pieces of gold!--an

amount so prodigious that it simply stupefied him to think of it. It was

a night of woe in that house.

"I must part with my library--I have nothing else. So perishes one

heartstring," said the old man.

"What will it bring, father?" asked the girl.

"Nothing! It is worth seven hundred pieces of gold; but by auction it

will go for little or nothing."

"Then you will have parted with the half of your heart and the joy of

your life to no purpose, since so mighty a burden of debt will remain

behind."

"There is no help for it, my child. Our darlings must pass under the

hammer. 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 thousand

gold pieces, and lesser help will bring us little peace."

"She can do even greater things, my father. She will save us, I know she

will."

Toward morning, while the old man sat exhausted and asleep in his chair

where he had been sitting before his books as one who watches by his

beloved dead and prints the features on his memory for a solace in the

aftertime of empty desolation, his daughter sprang into the room and

gently woke him, saying--

"My presentiment was true! She will save us. Three times has she

appeared to me in my dreams, and said, 'Go to the Herr Givenaught, go to

the Herr Heartless, ask them to come and bid.' There, did I not tell you

she 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 as

to the harder ones that lie in those men's breasts, my child. THEY bid

on 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 was

on her way up the Neckar road, as joyous as a bird.

Meantime Herr Givenaught and Herr Heartless were having an early

breakfast in the former's castle--the Sparrow's Nest--and flavoring

it with a quarrel; for although these twins bore a love for each other

which almost amounted to worship, there was one subject upon which they

could not touch without calling each other hard names--and yet it was

the subject which they oftenest touched upon.

"I tell you," said Givenaught, "you will beggar yourself yet with your

insane squanderings of money upon what you choose to consider poor and

worthy objects. All these years I have implored you to stop this foolish

custom and husband your means, but all in vain. You are always lying

to me about these secret benevolences, but you never have managed to

deceive me yet. Every time a poor devil has been set upon his feet I

have detected your hand in it--incorrigible ass!"

"Every time you didn't set him on his feet yourself, you mean. Where I

give one unfortunate a little private lift, you do the same for a dozen.

The idea of YOUR swelling around the country and petting yourself with

the nickname of Givenaught--intolerable humbug! Before I would be such

a fraud as that, I would cut my right hand off. Your life is a continual

lie. But go on, I have tried MY best to save you from beggaring yourself

by your riotous charities--now for the thousandth time I wash my hands

of 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 to

call me such names. Mannerless swine!"

So saying, Herr Heartless sprang up in a passion. But some lucky

accident intervened, as usual, to change the subject, and the daily

quarrel ended in the customary daily living reconciliation. The

gray-headed old eccentrics parted, and Herr Heartless walked off to his

own castle.

Half an hour later, Hildegarde was standing in the presence of Herr

Givenaught. He heard her story, and said--

"I am sorry for you, my child, but I am very poor, I care nothing for

bookish rubbish, I shall not be there."

He said the hard words kindly, but they nearly broke poor Hildegarde's

heart, 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 to

rescue the old scholar, the pride of Germany, from his trouble. The poor

child won't venture near HIM after the rebuff she has received from his

brother the Givenaught."

But he was mistaken. The Virgin had commanded, and Hildegarde would

obey. She went to Herr Heartless and told her story. But he said

coldly--

"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 knew

how cunningly I have saved his pocket. How he would have flown to the

old man's rescue! But the girl won't venture near him now."

When Hildegarde reached home, her father asked her how she had

prospered. She said--

"The Virgin has promised, and she will keep her word; but not in the way

I thought. She knows her own ways, and they are best."

The old man patted her on the head, and smiled a doubting smile, but he

honored 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 of

Germany'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 people

present. 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 was

useless, 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, and

with a green patch over his left eye. Everybody in his vicinity

turned and gazed at him. It was Givenaught in disguise. He was using a

disguised 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 other

end of the room. The people near by turned, and saw an old man, in a

strange costume, supporting himself on crutches. He wore a long white

beard, and blue spectacles. It was Herr Heartless, in disguise, and

using 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, and

shouted 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 can

this devil be that is fighting so to get these useless books?--But no

matter, he sha'n't have them. The pride of Germany shall have his books

if 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 plainly

a 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. The

crowd roared, "Huzza, huzza, huzza--at him again, Green-patch!"

"Going--going--"

"TEN thousand!" As Givenaught shouted this, his excitement was so

great that he forgot himself and used his natural voice. His brother

recognized it, and muttered, under cover of the storm of cheers--

"Aha, you are there, are you, besotted old fool? Take the books, I know

what 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 in

her ear, and then he also vanished. The old scholar and his daughter

embraced, and the former said, "Truly the Holy Mother has done more

than she promised, child, for she has given you a splendid marriage

portion--think of it, two thousand pieces of gold!"

"And more still," cried Hildegarde, "for she has given you back your

books; the stranger whispered me that he would none of them--'the

honored son of Germany must keep them,' so he said. I would I might have

asked his name and kissed his hand and begged his blessing; but he was

Our Lady's angel, and it is not meet that we of earth should venture

speech 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 of

these because I am more familiar with them than with any other German

papers. They contain no "editorials" whatever; no "personals"--and this

is 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 sporting

matters of any sort; no reports of banquet speeches; no department of

curious odds and ends of floating fact and gossip; no "rumors" about

anything or anybody; no prognostications or prophecies about anything or

anybody; no lists of patents granted or sought, or any reference to

such things; no abuse of public officials, big or little, or complaints

against them, or praises of them; no religious columns Saturdays, no

rehash of cold sermons Mondays; no "weather indications"; no "local

item" unveiling of what is happening in town--nothing of a local nature,

indeed, is mentioned, beyond the movements of some prince, or the

proposed 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 easily

answered: A child's handful of telegrams, mainly about European national

and international political movements; letter-correspondence about the

same things; market reports. There you have it. That is what a German

daily is made of. A German daily is the slowest and saddest and

dreariest of the inventions of man. Our own dailies infuriate the

reader, pretty often; the German daily only stupefies him. Once a

week the German daily of the highest class lightens up its heavy

columns--that is, it thinks it lightens them up--with a profound, an

abysmal, book criticism; a criticism which carries you down, down, down

into the scientific bowels of the subject--for the German critic is

nothing if not scientific--and when you come up at last and scent the

fresh air and see the bonny daylight once more, you resolve without a

dissenting voice that a book criticism is a mistaken way to lighten up

a German daily. Sometimes, in place of the criticism, the first-class

daily gives you what it thinks is a gay and chipper essay--about ancient

Grecian funeral customs, or the ancient Egyptian method of tarring a

mummy, or the reasons for believing that some of the peoples who existed

before the flood did not approve of cats. These are not unpleasant

subjects; they are not uninteresting subjects; they are even exciting

subjects--until one of these massive scientists gets hold of them. He

soon convinces you that even these matters can be handled in such a way

as to make a person low-spirited.

As I have said, the average German daily is made up solely of

correspondences--a trifle of it by telegraph, the rest of it by mail.

Every paragraph has the side-head, "London," "Vienna," or some other

town, and a date. And always, before the name of the town, is placed

a letter or a sign, to indicate who the correspondent is, so that the

authorities can find him when they want to hang him. Stars, crosses,

triangles, squares, half-moons, suns--such are some of the signs used by

correspondents.

Some of the dailies move too fast, others too slowly. For instance, my

Heidelberg daily was always twenty-four hours old when it arrived at

the hotel; but one of my Munich evening papers used to come a full

twenty-four hours before it was due.

Some of the less important dailies give one a tablespoonful of a

continued story every day; it is strung across the bottom of the page,

in the French fashion. By subscribing for the paper for five years I

judge 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, and

that it is published in Augsburg, forty or fifty miles away. It is like

saying that the best daily paper in New York is published out in New

Jersey somewhere. Yes, the Augsburg ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG is "the best

Munich paper," and it is the one I had in my mind when I was describing

a "first-class German daily" above. The entire paper, opened out, is not

quite as large as a single page of the New York HERALD. It is printed on

both sides, of course; but in such large type that its entire contents

could be put, in HERALD type, upon a single page of the HERALD--and

there 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 Munich

are all called second-class by the public. If you ask which is the best

of these second-class papers they say there is no difference; one is as

good as another. I have preserved a copy of one of them; it is

called the MÜNCHENER TAGES-ANZEIGER, and bears date January 25, 1879.

Comparisons are odious, but they need not be malicious; and without any

malice I wish to compare this journal, published in a German city of

170,000 inhabitants, with journals of other countries. I know of no

other way to enable the reader to "size" the thing.

A column of an average daily paper in America contains from 1,800 to

2,500 words; the reading-matter in a single issue consists of from

25,000 to 50,000 words. The reading-matter in my copy of the Munich

journal consists of a total of 1,654 words --for I counted them. That

would be nearly a column of one of our dailies. A single issue of the

bulkiest daily newspaper in the world--the London TIMES--often contains

100,000 words of reading-matter. Considering that the DAILY ANZEIGER

issues the usual twenty-six numbers per month, the reading matter in a

single number of the London TIMES would keep it in "copy" two months and

a half.

The ANZEIGER is an eight-page paper; its page is one inch wider and one

inch longer than a foolscap page; that is to say, the dimensions of its

page are somewhere between those of a schoolboy's slate and a lady's

pocket handkerchief. One-fourth of the first page is taken up with the

heading 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 is

reading-matter; the other six pages are devoted to advertisements.

The reading-matter is compressed into two hundred and five small-pica

lines, and is lighted up with eight pica headlines. The bill of fare

is as follows: First, under a pica headline, to enforce attention and

respect, is a four-line sermon urging mankind to remember that, although

they are pilgrims here below, they are yet heirs of heaven; and that

"When they depart from earth they soar to heaven." Perhaps a four-line

sermon in a Saturday paper is the sufficient German equivalent of the

eight or ten columns of sermons which the New-Yorkers get in their

Monday morning papers. The latest news (two days old) follows the

four-line sermon, under the pica headline "Telegrams"--these are

"telegraphed" with a pair of scissors out of the AUGSBURGER ZEITUNG of

the day before. These telegrams consist of fourteen and two-thirds lines

from Berlin, fifteen lines from Vienna, and two and five-eights lines

from Calcutta. Thirty-three small-pica lines of telegraphic news in a

daily journal in a King's Capital of one hundred and seventy thousand

inhabitants is surely not an overdose. Next we have the pica heading,

"News of the Day," under which the following facts are set forth: Prince

Leopold is going on a visit to Vienna, six lines; Prince Arnulph is

coming back from Russia, two lines; the Landtag will meet at ten o'clock

in the morning and consider an election law, three lines and one word

over; a city government item, five and one-half lines; prices of tickets

to the proposed grand Charity Ball, twenty-three lines--for this one

item occupies almost one-fourth of the entire first page; there is to be

a wonderful Wagner concert in Frankfurt-on-the-Main, with an orchestra

of one hundred and eight instruments, seven and one-half lines. That

concludes 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 under

the head of "Miscellaneous News." One of these paragraphs tells about a

quarrel between the Czar of Russia and his eldest son, twenty-one and

a half lines; and the other tells about the atrocious destruction of a

peasant child by its parents, forty lines, or one-fifth of the total of

the reading-matter contained in the paper.

Consider what a fifth part of the reading-matter of an American daily

paper issued in a city of one hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants

amounts to! Think what a mass it is. Would any one suppose I could so

snugly tuck away such a mass in a chapter of this book that it would be

difficult 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 a

realizing sense of what a fifth part of the reading-matter of a Munich

daily actually is when it comes under measurement of the eye:

"From Oberkreuzberg, January 21st, the DONAU ZEITUNG receives a long

account of a crime, which we shortened as follows: In Rametuach,

a village near Eppenschlag, lived a young married couple with two

children, one of which, a boy aged five, was born three years before the

marriage. For this reason, and also because a relative at Iggensbach had

bequeathed M400 ($100) to the boy, the heartless father considered him

in the way; so the unnatural parents determined to sacrifice him in the

cruelest possible manner. They proceeded to starve him slowly to death,

meantime frightfully maltreating him--as the village people now make

known, when it is too late. The boy was shut in a hole, and when

people passed by he cried, and implored them to give him bread. His

long-continued tortures and deprivations destroyed him at last, on the

third 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 complete

skeleton. The stomach and intestines were utterly empty; they contained

nothing whatsoever. The flesh on the corpse was not as thick as the back

of a knife, and incisions in it brought not one drop of blood. There

was not a piece of sound skin the size of a dollar on the whole body;

wounds, scars, bruises, discolored extravasated blood, everywhere--even

on the soles of the feet there were wounds. The cruel parents asserted

that the boy had been so bad that they had been obliged to use severe

punishments, and that he finally fell over a bench and broke his neck.

However, they were arrested two weeks after the inquest and put in the

prison at Deggendorf."

Yes, they were arrested "two weeks after the inquest." What a home sound

that has. That kind of police briskness rather more reminds me of my

native land than German journalism does.

I think a German daily journal doesn't do any good to speak of, but at

the same time it doesn't do any harm. That is a very large merit, and

should not be lightly weighted nor lightly thought of.

The German humorous papers are beautifully printed upon fine paper, and

the illustrations are finely drawn, finely engraved, and are not vapidly

funny, but deliciously so. So also, generally speaking, are the two or

three terse sentences which accompany the pictures. I remember one of

these pictures: A most dilapidated tramp is ruefully contemplating some

coins which lie in his open palm. He says: "Well, begging is getting

played out. Only about five marks ($1.25) for the whole day; many an

official makes more!" And I call to mind a picture of a commercial

traveler 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 ME

look at them! I haven't seen them for three weeks!