Class ?5 1321 Book .... • A\ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE paoh: Titian's Moses . Frontispiece Wounded . . . . 47 The Author's Memories xxvi Favourite Street Cos • The Black Knight . 3 tume 17 Opening his Vizier . 1 Ineffaceable Scars . . 18 The Enraged Emperor 5 Piece of Sword . 50 The Portier . 7 French Calm . . . . 53 One op those Boys 8 The Challenge accepted . 51 Schloss Hotel, Heidel A Search 55 BERG .... . 9 He swooned ponder- In my Cage . . 11 ously 56 Heidelberg Castle . . 13 I ROLLED HIM OVER . 56 The Retreat . 16 The One I hired . . . 58 Heidelberg Castle, Eivei The March to the Field . 59 Frontage . 17 The Post of Danger . . 62 Jim Baker . 19 The Reconciliation . 63 1 A Blue Flush about it ' 23 An Object of Admiration . 61 Couldn't see it . . 21 Wagner .... 66 A Beer King. 27 Raging 66 The Lecturer's Audience 28 Roaring . 67 Industrious Students . 29 Shrieking . . . . 67 Idle Student 29 A Customary Thing . 68 Companionable Inter- One of the « Rest ' 60 course .... 30 A Contribution Box . 69 An Imposing Spectacle 31 Conspicuous . ... 70 An Advertisement 32 A Young Beauty 71 1 Understands his Busi- Only a Shriek . . . 73 ness ' . 35 'He only cry' . 71 The Old Surgeon 36 Late Comers cared for . 76 The First Wound. . . 37 | Evidently dreaming 77 The Castle Court . 41 | « Turn on more Rain ' 79 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE PAGB Harris attending the 'He had to get up'. 139 Opera .... 80 Breakfast in the Gardes 141 Painting my Great Picture 82 Easily understood 142 Our Start . 83 Experimenting through An Unknown Costume . . 84 Harris .... 145 The Tower . 85 At the Ball Room Door 147 Slow but Sure . . . 86 Dilsberg 150 The Robber Chief . 89 Our Advance on Dilsberg 150 An Honest Man . . . 93 Inside the Town 151 The Town by Night . 94 The Old Well . . . 153 Generations of Bare 'Send hither the Lord Feet 95 Ulrich ' . . . . 155 Our Bedroom . . . 97 < Lead me to her Grave ' . 157 Practising . 98 Under the Linden . . 158 Pawing around . . . 100 An Excellent Pilot, A Night's Work. 102 ONCE 159 Leaving Heilbronn . . 105 SCATTERATION 159 The Captain 107 The River Bath . . . 160 Waiting for the Train . 108 Etruscan Tear-Jug . 162 'A Deep and Tranquil Henri H. Plate . . . 162 Ecstasy' . . . . 111 Old Blue China 162 ' Which answered just as A Real Antique . . . 164 WELL ' 112 Bric-a-Brac Shop 165 Life on a Raft . 113 ' Put it there ' . . 167 Rafting on the Neckar . 114 The Parson captured 16S Lady Gertrude . 116 After Him ! . . . . 170 117 A Comprehensive Yawn . 172 A Fatal Mistake 118 Testing the Coin . . . 174 A Crusader and his Lady . 118 Beauty at the Bath 174 The Lorelei 121 In the Bath . . . 176 The Lover's Fate. . . 123 Jersey Indians . 177 Tailpiece . 129 Not particularly Socia- The Unknown Knight 131 ble 180 The Embrace 132 Black Forest Grandee . 182 Perilous Position . . . 133 Grandee's Daughter 183 The Raft in a Storm 136 Rich Old Huss . . . 185 All Safe on Shore . 137 Gretchen . 185 ' It was the Cat ' . . . 139 Paul Hoch . . 186 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Hans Schmidt Electing- a New Member Overcoming Obstacles . Friends Prospecting . . • . A General Howl . . . Seeking a Situation Standing Guard . . . Result of a Joke Descending a Farm . . Keeping Sunday An Object of Sympathy . A Non-Classical Style . Traditional Chamois . . Hunting Chamois — the True Way . ... Hunting Chamois (as re- ported) . . . . Marking Alpenstocks Is She Eighteen or Twenty ? . *i knew i wasn't mis- TAKEN ' Harris astonished . . Destruction The Lion of Lucerne . . He liked Clocks 1 1 will tell you ' . . Couldn't wait . Didn't care for Style . A Pair Better than Four . Two wasn't Necessary . Just the Trick . Going to make them stare .... Not thrown away . . What the Doctor recom- mended . . . . PAGE PAGE 186 Wanted to feel safe 237 187 Preferred to Tramp on 189 Foot 237 189 Dern a Dog, anyway . . 238 191 A Fisher .... 239 195 Glacier Garden . . . 241 197 The Lake and Mountains 199 (Mont Pilatus) . . . 243 200 Mountain Paths 244 201 'You're an American — so 204 AM I' 245 205 Enterprise . . . . 248 208 The Constant Searcher . 250 211 The Mountain Boy . . 254 The Englishman 255 212 The Jodler . . . . 257 Another Vocalist 258 213 The Felsenthor . . . 259 216 A View from the Station . 260 Lost in the Mist . . . 261 217 The Rigi-Kulm Hotel 262 What awakened us . . 264 218 A Summit Sunrise 265 224 Perched aloft . . . 267 226 Exceedingly Comfortable 270 228 The Sunrise 271 231 The Rigi-Kulm . . . 273 233 An Optical Illusion. 275 234 Seeing the Sunrise 276 234 235 235 235 236 236 236 Railway down the Moun- tain 277 Source of the Rhone . 280 A Glacier Table . . . 282 Glacier of Grindelwald . 284 Dawn on the Mountains . 286 A 'Rest' .... 289 New and Old Style . 291 St. Nicholas the Hermit 292 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. A Landslide Goldau Valley before and after the land- SLIDE The Way they do it Our Gallant Driver , . A Mountain Pass 'I'm 'oful dry' . . . It's the Fashion What we expected . . We missed the Scenery . The Tourists . . . . The Young Bride « It was a famous Victory ' The Jungfrau, by M. T. . Promenade in Inter- laken .... Street in Interlaken Without a Courier . Travelling with a Courier . Travellers' Trials . . Grape and Whey Patients Sociable Drivers A Mountain Cascade . . The Gasternthal Exhilarating Sport . . A Fall What might be . . . An Alpine Bouquet . The End of the World . The Forget-me-not . A Needle of Ice . . . Cutting Steps . The Guide . . . . View from the Cliff Gemmi Pass and Lake Daubensee PAGE TAGB 293 Almost a Tragedy . 318 The Alpine Litter . . 319 A Strange Situation . 350 291 Death Of a Countess 351 296 'They've got it all' . 355 297 Model for an Empress 356 299 The Bathers at Leuk 357 300 Bath Houses at Leuk 359 301 Bather mixed up . 362 302 'Slovenly' . 363 303 A Sunday Morning's 306 Demon 365 308 Just saved 368 309 View in Valley of Zermatt 371 310 Arrival at Zermatt 371 Fitted out 377 311 An Alp- Climber. 378 315 All ready . . . 383 317 The March .... 381 The Caravan .... 385 318 The Hook .... 388 320 The Disabled Chaplain . 389 323 Trying Experiments 390 325 Saved ! Saved ! . . 391 326 Twenty Minutes' Work . 392 327 The Black Kam . . . 393 328 The Miracle 391 329 The New Guide . . . 395 332 Scientific Besearches 397 333 Mountain Chalet 399 335 The Grandson . . . 102 336 Occasionally met with . 101 338 Summit of the Gorner 311 Grat ... 106 311 Chiefs of the Advance 311 Guard .... My Picture of the 107 315 Matterhorn . 108 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xxin everyeody had an excuse Sprung a Leak . . . A Scientific Question Unexpected Meeting of Friends .... Roped together . . . Storage of Ancestors Falling out of his Farm . Child Life in Switzer- land A Sunday Play . The Combination . . . Chillon .... The Tete Noire . . . An Exquisite Thing . A Wild Ride . . . . Swiss Peasant Girl . Street in Chamonix . . The Proud German . The Indignant Tourist . Music of Switzerland Only a Mistake . . . Preparing for the Start . 4 We all raised a Tremen- dous Shout' . The Grands Mulets . . Cabin on the Grands Mulets . . . . Keeping Warm . On the Alps . . . . Take it Easy The Mer de Glace (Mont Blanc) .... Taking Toll . . . PAGE PAGE 413 A Descending Tourist 479 415 Leaving by Diligence 480 417 The Satisfied Englishman 481 High Pressure . 483 424 No Apology . . . . 485 432 None asked 485 434 A Lively Street . . , 486 435 Having her Full Rights . 487 How she fooled us . . 489 437 • You'll take that or 438 NONE ' 492 439 Robbing a Beggar . 494 440 Dishonest Italy . . . 496 441 Stock in Trade . 496 443 Style 497 444 Specimens from Old 445 Masters . . . . 4 98 449 An Old Master . 500 451 The Lion of St. Mark 501 452 Oh, to be at Rest ! . 502 455 The World's Master- 456 piece . 504 458 Pretty Creature ! . . 505 Esthetic Tastes 508 462 A Private Family Break- 465 fast 509 European Carving . . 511 466 A Twenty-four Hour 468 Fight 523 471 Great Heidelberg Tun . 530 473 Bismarck in Prison . . 534 On the Mountains . 537 475 A Complete Word . . 547 477 Tailpiece . 564 A TRAMP ABROAD, CHAPTER I. 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 under- take 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. Hams 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. Towards 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 programme, 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 birth-place of Guten- berg, but it could not be done, as no memorandum of the site of the louse 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 honour of possessing and protecting it. B // 2 TRAMP ABROAD. 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 from 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 — Buchstdben. 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 band- box, 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 A TRAMP ABROAD. Rhine from Basle to Rotterdam,' by F. J. Kief er ; 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 trans- lation 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 according to no plan at all. In the . chapter devoted to ' Legends of Frankfort ' I find the following. THE KNAVE OF BERGEN. 1 In Frankfort at the Romer was a great mask-ball, at the corona- tion 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 gayety, only one of the numerous guests had a gloomy exterior ; but exactly the black armour in which he walked s&M' 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 recognisable. Proud and yet modest he advanced to the Empress; bowed on one knee before her seat, and begged for the favour 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 b2 THE BLACK KNIGHT. 4 A TRAMP ABROAD. 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 favour ; how increased curi- osity, who the masked knight could be. 1 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 others had 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 OPENING HIS VIZIEE. 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 recognised 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 feet of 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 A TRAMP ABROAD. 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 every one who dares to speak disrespectfully of my king." i The Emperor was surprised at this bold proposal, however it ap- peared the wisest to him ; " You are a brave knave," he replied after a moment's consideration, " however your advice is good, and displays prudence, as your offence shows ad- venturous courage. Well then" — and gave him the knight-stroke — " so I raise you to nobility, who begged for grace for your offence 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 honour of the Emperor, and loud cries of joy testified the approbation with which the Queen danced still once with the Knave of Bergen, THE ENRAGED EMPEROR. A TRAMP ABROAD. CHAPTER II. HEIDELBERG. "We stopped at an 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 an hotel) 1 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 side- walk 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 chambermaids and retouched the sidewalk, and afterwards 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 1 See Appendix A. A TRAMP ABROAD. down the marble steps and out across the side-walk to the kerbstone. 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 un- rolled and stretched from the top of the marble steps to the kerbstone, along the centre of the black carpet. This red path cost the portier more trouble than even the black one had done. But he patiently fixed and re- fixed it until it was exactly right and lay precisely in the middle of the black carpet. In New York these per- formances would have gathered a mighty crowd of curious and in- tensely 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 pocket? others with arms full of bundles, and all absorbed in the show. Occasion- ally 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 step ; 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 carpet- way clear. Nobody moved or spoke any more, but only waited. THE PORTIER. 8 A TRAMP ABROAD. 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-honour and some male officials at the hotel. Pre- sently another open carriage brought the Grand-Duke of Baden, a stately man in uniform, who wore the hand- some brass-mounted, steel- spiked helmet of the army on his head. Last came the Empress of Germany one of those boys. an a tne Grand Duchess of Baden in a close 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 o£ the Ehine 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 E SCHL0S3 HOTEL, HEIDELBERG. A TRAMP ABROAD. 11 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 halfway up the wooded mountain side ; 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 parlours clinging to the outside of the house, one IN MY CAGE. against each and every bedchamber 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, 1 with empty window arches, ivy-mailed battle- 1 See Appendix B. 12 A TRAMP ABROAD. merits, mouldering 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 de- clivity at . the Castle's base and dash up it an d 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 dykes and dams far below, in the gorge. I got up and went into the west balcony and saw a wonder- ful 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 jewelled 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 ft 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 sex- tuple 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 bound- less forest have a. beguiling afid impressive charm in any country ; ID i !i ii9 : i I lint.! Ik » K m i mm |; « w w ■ii ■^ ,*■< ■»mm a M r3 K C tggmfo S m W m A TRAMP ABROAD. 15 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 was 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 silence so pro- found 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 hoarse 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 clandes- tinely 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 distinafty 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 nad been caught in some mean act by a responsible being, and re- 16 A TRAMP ABROAD. proved for it. However, I made no reply ; 1 would not bandy words with a raven. The adversary waited a while, with his shoulders still lilted, 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 an called. There was an answering croak from a little distance in the THE RETREAT. 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 offen- sively 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 advan- tage of me, and so I concluded to get out of the scrape by walking out HEIDELBERG CASTLE, RIVER FRONTAOE, A TRAMP ABROAD. 19 of it. They enjoyed my defeat as much as any low white people could have dona. They craned their necks and laughed at me (for n 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 about me could be a matter of no conse- quence — and yet when even a raven shouts after you : ' What a hat ! ' 1 0, pull down your vest ! ' and that sort of thing, it hurts you and humiliates you, and there is no getting around it with tine 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 under- stand 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 neighbours, the beasts and the birds, until he believed he could accurately translate any re- mark which they made. This was Jim Baker. According to Jim Baker, some animals have only a limited education, and use only very simple wprds, and scarcely ever a comparison or a flowery figure ; whereas, certain other animals have a large vocabu- lary, a fine command of language and a ready and fluent delivery ; conse- quently these latter talk a great deal ; they like it ; they are 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 blue- jays were the best talkers he had found among birds and beasts. Said he : — 4 There's more to a blue-jay than any other creature. He has got more moods, and more different kinds of feelings than other creatures ; and mind you, whatever a blue-jay feels, he can put into language. And no mere commonplace language either, but rattling, out-and-out c2 2.0 A TRAMP ABROAD. book-talk — and bristling with metaphor, too — just bristling ! And as for command of language — why you never see a blue-jay get stuck for a word. No man ever did. They just boil out hi 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 blue-jay. Ycu may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does— but you et 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 he lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats makv, that is so aggravating, but it ain't so ; it's the sickening grammar Nhey use. Now I've never heard a jay use bad grammar but very seldo-i • an d when they do, they are as ashamed as a human ; they shut righ down and leave. ' You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure — r. cause he's got feathers on him, and don't belong to no church, perhaj • Du t otherwise he is just as much a human as you be. And I'll t.[ vou for why. "A jay's gifts, and instincts, and feelings, and ir 3res t s cover the whole ground. A jay hasn't got any more princip, than a Congressman. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deiW, a jay will betray ; and four times out of five, a jay will go back «\ his solemnest promise. The sacredness of an obligation is a thing \{ c ]^ you can't cram into no blue-jay's head. Now, on top of all this, tht' s another thing ; a jay can outswear any gentleman in the mines. 1 • think a cat can swear. Well, a cat can ; but you give a blue-jay 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. And there's- yet another thing: in the one little particular of scolding — just good> clean, out-and-out scolding — a blue-jay can lay over anything, human or divine, Yes, sir, a jay is everything that a man is. A jay can cry r a ja}' 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 humour, a jay knows when he is an ass just as well as you do — may be better. If a jay ain't human, he'd better take in his sign, that's all. Now I'm going to tell you a perfectly true fact about some blue-jays.' A TRAMP ABROAD. 21 CHAPTER in. baker's blue-jay yarn, * 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 blue-jay lit on that house, with an acorn in his mouth, and says, "Hello, I reckon I have 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, " 0, no, this ain't no fat thing, I reckon ! If I ain't in luck ! — -why it's a perfectly elegant hole 1 " 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 paralysed into a listening attitude, and that smile faded gradually 22 A TRAMP ABROAD. 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 r " 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 d — d 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 any more — 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-drooping down, once more, sweating like an ice-pitcher, drops his acorn in and says, " Now I guess I've got the A TRAMP ABROAD. 23 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 shovelled 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 ! " 1 He just had strength ^_ enough to crawl up on to the comb, and lean his back agin the chimbly, and then he collected his pressions, and begun to free his mind. see in a second that what I had mistook for ^ profanity in the mines was only just the rudi- ments, 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 circum- stance, 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, a 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 ' A BLUE flush about ir/ 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 disput- ing and ripping and cussing, you never heard. Every jay in the whole 24 A TEA MP ABROAD. 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 backwards suffocating with laughter, and the next jay took his place and done the same. ' Well, sir, they roosted around here on the house- top and the trees for an hour, and guffawed over that thing like human beings. It ain't any use to tell me a blue-jay hasn't got a sense of humour, because I know better. And memory, too. They brought jays here from all over the United States to look down that hole, every summer couldn't see it. A TRAMP ABROAD. 25 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 any- thing funny in it. But then he was a good deal disappointed about Yo Semite, too/ A TRAMP ABROAD. CHAPTER IV. STUDENT LIFE. 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 colours, and belonged to social organisations called ' corps.' There were five corps, each with a colour 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 ' Ifneip ' seems to be a speciality 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 drunk 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 A TRAMP ABROAD. 27 creating a vacuum, which those who have been much at sea will under- stand. One sees so many students abroad at all hours, that he pre- sently begins to won- der 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 examination upon entering college. He merely pays a trifling fee of five or ten dollars, receives a card entitling him to the privileges of the univer- sity, 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 attend- ance. The result of this system is, that lecture-courses upon specialities of an unusual nature are often delivered to very slim audiences, while those upon more practical and every-day matters of educa- tion are delivered to very large ones. I heard of one case w r here, 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 — — tlicn, without a smile, 28 A TRAMP ABROAD, 1 Gentlemen,' — he corrected himself, saying,— < shy— — 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 THE LECTURER'S AUDIENCE. 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 200 persons. About a minute before the clock struck, a hundred and fifty A TRAMP ABROAD. 29 Ptudents swarmed in, rushed to their seats, immediately spread open their note-books and dipped their pens in the ink. When the clock began to strike, a burly professor entered, was received with a round of applause, moved swiftly down the centre aisle, said ' Gentlemen,' and INDUSTRIOUS STUDENTS. 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 __ _ ~V ; p were going. He had no V' notes, he talked with pro- Jssr digious rapidity and energy ^\\ A/^ rf: %- - for an hour, — then the^ '- ^^_- / * to rem students began m him in certain well-under- 'fe: *2U stood ways that his time "gf 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. oO A TRAMP ABROAD. 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 the coloured 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 f/ljii'v intercourse, the opposite ||^W||0I of chilliness and reserve. "When the professor enters COMPANIONABLE INTERCOURSE. •a beer hall in the evening l/j where students are gathered j\\ together, these rise up and r ; take off their caps, and in- vite the old gentleman to 11 sit with them and partake. '^f'o 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 home- ward 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 organisation, like the corps steward or head servant ; then there are other dogs, owned by individuals. Gn 1 a summer afternoon in the Castle gardens, I have seen six A TRAMP ABROAD. 31 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 about 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 AN IMPOSING SPECTACLE. dry time of it : for they were tied to the benches and had no amuse- ment 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. How- ever, 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 un- pleasanter 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 rigorously 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 lo for it is to perfect some of its profounder specialities. It is said /hen 32 A TRAMP ABROAD. a pupil leaves the gymnasium, he not only has a comprehensive education, but he knows what he knows, — it is not befogged with un- certainty, it is burnt into him so that it will stay. For instance, he £N ADVERTISEMENT. 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 A TRAMP ABROAD. 33 mansard roof, so he goes there to add a steeple in the nature of some speciality, such as a particular branch of law, or medicine, or philo- logy — like international 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 university life is just what he needs and likes and thoroughly appreciates; and as it cannot last for ever, 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. 34 A TRAMP ABROAD* CHAPTER V. AT THE STUDENTS' DUELLING-GROUND. One day in the interest of science my agent obtained permission to bring me to the students' duelling-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 ! 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 coloured 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 long, 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 colour from their own. This did not mean hostility, but only an armed neutrality. It was 1 See Appendix C. A TRAMP ABROAD. 35 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 i,j, the presidents of the five corps have a cold official inter- course with each other, but no- thing further. For example, when the regular duelling 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 presi- dent lays their names before the other presidents, with the request that they furnish an- tagonists 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 colours 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 has 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 bare-headed ; 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; their necks 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 re-bandaged, layer upon layer, until they D2 UNDERSTANDS HIS BUSINESS. 36 A TRAMP ABROAD. members of corps about looked like solid black logs. These weird apparitions had been hand- some 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 his own him to assist ; two seconds, well padded, and with swords in their hands, took near stations ; a student be- longing to neither of the opposing corps placed himself* in a good posi- tion to umpire the combat ; another stu- dent stood by with a watch and a memoran- dum-book to keep record of the time and the number and nature of the wounds ; a grey- u haired surgeon was present with his lint, his bandages, and his instruments. After a moment's pause the duellists 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. Every- thing was ready now ; students stood crowded together in the fore- ground, and others stood behind them on chairs and tables. Every face was turned towards the centre 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 A TRAMP ABROAD. 37 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 the flashes they made in the air ; the rattling din of these blows, as they struck steel or paddings, was some- thing 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 THE FIRST WOUND. with their own. The duellists 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 tallykeeper stepped up and tallied one for the opposition in his book. Then the duellists 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 38 A TRAMP ABROAD. 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 sprang from a blade, and that blade, broken in several pieces, sent one of ita 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 wounds. It was a drawn battle, and corps- law requires that drawn battles shall be re-fought 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 gentle- man 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 A TRAMP ABROAD. 39 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 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 acquaint- ance was the victor. 40 A TRAMP ABROAD. CHAPTEE VT. 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 had 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 away, 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 so 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 idle- ness 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 comfortably 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, >^v A TRAMP ABROAD. 43 and bandaging going on in there in plain view, did not seem to disturb anyone's appetite. I went in and saw the surgeon labour awhile, but could not enjoy it ; 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 forward to see. This was not a love duel, but a ' satisfaction ' affair. These two students had quarrelled, and were here to settle it. They did not belong to any of the corps, but they were furnished with weapons and armour, and permitted to fight here by the five corps as a courtesy. Evidently these two young men were unfamiliar with the duelling ceremonies, though they were not unfamiliar with the sword. When they were placed in position, they thought it was time to begin — and they 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 direc- tion 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 perfec- tion in these gently bred and kindly nurtured young fellows is matter for surprise. It was not merely under the excitement of the sword- 44 A TRAMP ABROAD. 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 ex- posed, it seems to me that it is a farce which has quite a grave side to it. People laugh at it mainly because they think the student is so covered up with armour that he cannot be hurt. But it is not so ; his eyes and ears are protected, but the rest of his face and head is bare. He can not only be badly wounded, but his life is in danger, and lie would sometimes lose it but for the interference of the surgeon. It is not intended that his life shall be endangered. Fatal accidents a/e 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 care- lessness of the wounded men ; they eat or drink imprudently, or com- mit excesses in the way of over- exertion; 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 na'ive. 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, A TRAMP ABROAD. 45 not the prize-fight. The laws are as curious as they are strict. For instance, the duellist 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 but 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. 46 A TRAMP ABROAD. CHAPTER VII. 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 member- ship 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. ■ He would naturally rather retire from the corps than decline ; to decline, and still remain in the corps, would make him unpleasantly con- spicuous, 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 sur -eon, and mingled with the assemblage in the duelling room. The lite cap student who won the second fight witnessed the remaining ■ ree, and talked with us duriDg the intermissions. He could not talk /ery 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 plaister 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 waT covered with patches and bandages, and all the rest of his head was cover 3d A TRAMP ABROAD. 47 ^IfcmfaL— 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. ,/a Newly bandaged students are a j/j 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, never- theless. I am sure of one thing — scars are plenty enough in Germany among the young men ; and very grim ones they are, too. They criss-cross the face in angry red welts, and are permanent and inefface- able. Seme of these scars are of a ver ' strange and dreadful aspect ; i A 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 coloured silk band or riband diagonally across their breasts. 1 It transpired that 1 From my Diary. — Dined in an hotel a few miles up the Neckar, in a room whos,e walls were hung all over with framed portrait -groups of the Five Corps ; soi .e were recent, but many antedated photography, and were pictured FAVOURITE STREET COSTUMES. 48 A TRAMP ABROAD. 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. After a student has received his riband, 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 re- main quiescent if he prefers to do so. Statistics show that he does not prefer to remain quies- cent. 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 on 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. The statistics may be found to possess interest in several particulars. Two days in every week are devoted to duelling. 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 under-statement to an over-statement of the case. This requires about 480 or 500 duellists in 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 750 students in the university at the time I in lithography — the dates ranged back to forty or fifty years ago. Nearly every individual wore the riband across his breast. In one portrait-group, representing (as each of these pictures did) an entire Corps, I took pains to count the ribands: there were twenty-seven members, and twenty-one of them wore that significant badge. INEFFACEABLE SCARS. A TRAMP ABROAD. 49 am writing of, only eighty belonged to the five corps, and it is only these corps that do the duelling ; occasionally other students borrow the arms and battle-ground of the five corps in order to settle a quarrel, but this does not happen every duelling day. 1 Consequently eighty youths furnish the material for some 250 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. 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 practising. 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 in- vited to Gottingen, to fight with a Gottingen 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 own university ; but by that time observers had discovered what his charm was, and how to break it, therefore his championship ceased. The rule which forbids social intercourse between members of different corps is strict. In the duelling house, in the parks, on the 1 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 law is rigid ; it is only the execution of it that is lax. 50 A TRAMP ABROAD. street, and anywhere and everywhere that students go, caps of a colour 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 duelling place wore the white cap — Prussian Corps. He introduced us to many white caps, but to none of another colour. 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 caps of the other colours. 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 colour, so it was considered best and politest to await a proper er 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. 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 anyone was moved. A dignified gravity and repression were maintained at all times. piece op When the duelling 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- A TRAMP ABROAD. 51 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 offence, would have observed the etiquette of their order, and ignored our presence. 1 1 How strangely are comedy and tragedy blended in this life I 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 limitations 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. w I 62 A TRAMP ABROAD. CHAPTER VIII. THE GREAT FRENCH 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 duellists, has 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 duelling 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 duellists and socialist-hated monarchs being the only people who are immortal. 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 had revealed to me the despe- rate 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 expected, I found the brave fellow steeped in a profound French calm. I say French calm, because French calmness and English calm- ness 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 A TRAMP ABROAD. 53 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 al- lowed 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, pro- bably at the suggestion that duelling 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 French calm. 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 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 honour. We wrangled over a good many ante-mortem out- bursts, 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 MAY LIVE.' W/.ft 54 A TRAMP ABROAD. I said that this remark seemed to lack relevancy ; but he said rele- vancy 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 follow- ing note and carried it to M. Fourtou's friend : — 1 Sir, — M. Gambetta accepts M. Fourtou's challenge, and authorises me to propose Plessis-Piquet as the place of meeting; to-morrow 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 sugges- tion of severity in his tone — ' Have you considered, sir, what would be the inevitable result of such a meeting as this ? ' 1 Well, for instance, what would it be?' 1 Bloodshed ! ' 1 That's about the size of it,' I said. 1 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 honour. 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-barrelled shot-guns ; then Colt's navy revolvers. These being all rejected, I reflected a while, and sarcas- tically suggested brick-bats at three-quarters of a mile. I always hate to fool away a humorous thing on a person who has no perception of THE CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. A TRAMP ABROAD. 55 humour ; 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 brick-bats at three-quarters of a mile, but must decline on account of the danger to disinterested parties passing between. Then I said — 1 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 — 1 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-barrelled 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 on 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 — 1 Sixty-five yards, with these instruments ? Squirt-guns would be deadlier at fifty. Consider, my friend, you and I are banded toge- ther 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 — f I wash my hands of this slaughter ; on your head be it.' A SEARCH. 56 A TRAMP ABROAD. There was nothing for me but to go home to my old lion-hearc and tell my humiliating story. When I entered, M. Gambetta was laying his last lock of hair upon the altar. He sprang towards me, exclaiming — 1 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 hoarse- ly whispered — he swooned ponderously. ' The weapon, the weapon ! Quick ! what is the weapon ? ' 1 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 — 1 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 — 1 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.' I ROLLED HIM OVER. A TRAMP ABROAD. 57 After a long silence he asked — 1 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 him- self, he is welcome to this advantage, which no honourable man would take.' He now sank into a sort of stupor of reflection, which lasted some minutes ; after which he broke silence with — 1 The hour — what is the hour fixed for the collision ? ' ' Dawn, to-morrow.' He seemed greatly surprised, and immediately said — ■ 1 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 ? ' 1 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 I have the honour 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.' 1 1 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 pro- ceed to the field in the same carriage, as is customary.' * It is entirely agreeable to me, and I am obliged to you for men- tioning the surgeons, for I am afraid I should not have thought of them. How many shall I want ? I suppose two or three will be enough.' 1 Two is the customary number for each party. I refer to " chief" 58 A TRAMP ABROAD. 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 ex- perience of such a swell duel as this before. I have had a good deal to do the oxe i hired. w ith 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 ? ' 1 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 honour 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?' 1 Sir! If after our long and intimate friendship you can for a moment deem me capable of so base a treachery ' 1 Tut, tut ! What words are these, my dear friend ? Have I wounded you ? Ah, forgive me ; I am overloading you with labour. 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.' 1 Oh, come to think, you may save yourself the trouble ; that other second has informed M. Noir.' THE MARCH TO THE FIELD. A TRAMP ABROAD. 61 1 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 con- taining 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 con- taining the head surgeons and their cases of instruments ; then eight private carriages containing consulting surgeons ; then a hack contain- ing 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 turn-out, 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 may 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 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, ' Eeady ! Let the batteries be charged.' The loading was done in the presence of duly constituted wit- nesses. 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 them- selves 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 duellists, 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. 62 A TRAMP ABROAD. 1 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. Con- sidering 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 down-hearted.' 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 centre 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 present- ly 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 towards the spot where I judged his adversary to be stand- ing, 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 1 Whoop-ee ! ' This was answered from out the far distances of the fog, and I immediately shouted — 1 One, — two, — three, — fire ! ' Two little sounds like spit 1 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 — v/f-S 'hAV^. THE POST OF DANGER. A TRAMP ABROAD. 63 1 1 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 ^L Gambetta's person, with the happy result of finding nothing in tfhe nature of a wound. Then a scene ensued which was in every way gratifying and inspiriting. The two gladiators fell upon each other's necks, with floods of proud and happy tears ; that other second embraced me ; the surgeons,, the orators, the undertakers, the police, everybody embraced, every- THE RECONCILIATION. body congratulated, everybody cried, and the whole atmosphere was filled with praise and with joy unspeakable. It seemed to me then that I would rather be a hero of a French duel than a crowned and sceptred 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 64 A TRAMP ABROAD. to one side or the other of where they belonged, that it was doubt- ful if they would ever learn to perform their functions in such re- mote 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 beeD 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 con- spicuous figure in that great spectacle, and deposited at the hospital. '(^^Sprpjm AN OBJECT OF ADM1KATI0N. The Cross of the Legion of Honour 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 anyone. 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 duellist, but as long as I keep in my right mind I will never consent to stand behind one again. A TRAMP ABROAD CHAPTER IX. 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 behaviour of the audience was perfect. There were no rust- lings, or whisperings, or other little disturbances ; each act was listened to in silence, and the applauding was done after the eurtain was down. The doors opened at half-past four, the play began promptly at half-past five, and within two minutes afterwards 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 the 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 1 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 howling F 66 A TRA3IP ABROAD. WAGNER. and wailings and shriekings 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 stran- gers would not have been sur- prised to see a man do such a thing who was being gradually skinned, but they would have marvelled at it here, and made remarks about it no doubt, whereas there was nothing in the present case which was an advantage over being sMnned. 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 and stay out. There was another wait of half an hour towards 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 that 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 A TRAMP ABROAD. 07 ROARING. 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 matter 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 narra- tive and a grievance, and none were reasonable about it, but all in an offensive and ungovern- able 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 towards each other and drawing them back and spreading both hands over first one t U :.nd 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 understand- ing 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 had suffered the time the orphan asylum burned down. shrieking. We only had one brief little season of heaven and heaven's sweet ecstasy and peace during all this long and diligent and acrimonious re- production of the other place. This was while a gorgeous procession of people marched around and around, in the third act, and sang the f2 6S A TRAMP ABROAD. 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 re-suffer 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 A CUSTOMARY THING. 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 A TRAMP ABROAD. 69 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 neighbours 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 seven- teen 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 ONE OF THE REST. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^^ 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 con- fidences — 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 dream- ing sleepy dreams — no, a contribution box. 70 A TRAMP ABROAD. 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 gracefullest 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 dewy rosebud of a mouth ; and she was so dove-like, so pure, and so gracious, so sweet and bewitching. For long hours I did mightily wish she would speak. And at last she did ; the red lips parted, and out leaped 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 indetermin- able, 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 theatre had been sitting there unconsciously taking up a collec- tion. Many a skinny old being in our neighbourhood was the happier and the restfuller 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 theatres 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 CUNSl-'lCLuUi A TRAMP ABROAD. 71 timid ladies who were afraid that if they had to go into an ante-room to get their things when the play was over, they would miss their train. But the great mass of those who came a distance always ran the risk and took the chances, preferring the loss of the train to a breach of good manners and the discomfort of being unpleasantly conspicuous during a hi retch of three or four hours. •&VZ A YOU.NU BEAUTY. A TRAMP ABROAD. CHAPTER X. 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 f«>r six whole hours on a stretch ! But the people sit there and enjoy it ;»ll r 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 practise having the toothache in the pit of his stomach for a couple of 3'ears 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 per- formed in a Wagner opera the night before, and went on to enlarge upon his old and prodigious fame, and how many honours 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 — A TRAMP ABROAD. 75 '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 theatre will not hold the people. J aw oh I bei Gott ! his voice is wunderschon 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 7 and in Mannheim once, and in Munich (through my authorised 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 74 A TRAMP ABROAD. 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 — 1 1 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 with 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 theatres at Hanover, Hamburg, and Mannheim, they had a wise custom. The moment the curtain went up, the lights in the body of the house went down. The audience sat in the cool gloom of a deep twilight, which greatly enhanced the glowing splendours of the sta^e. 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 A TRAMP ABROAD. 75 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 re-set, 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 * Shaughran ' 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-parlour 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 parlour 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 od 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 7H A TRAMP ABROAD. 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 whisky, 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 LATE COMERS CARED FOR. 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 tremend- ous 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 TRAMP ABROAD. 77 a short shirt; it was the first time lie 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 explosion?, and conflagrations, and sudden death. About ten o'clock som j twenty ladies were sitting around about the ladies' saloon, quietly reading, sewing, embroidering, and so on, and among them sat a sweer. benignant old dame with round spectacles on her nose and her busy knitting-needles in her hands. Now all of a sudden, into the midsi of this peaceful scene burst that slim-shanked boy in the brief shirt, wild-eyed, erect-haired, and shouting, ' Fire, fire 1 jump and run, the boat's afire, and there ain't a minute to lose ! ' All those ladies looked Sir v/^/^p^t EVIDENTLY DREAMING. 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 breast- pin, 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 humbly 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 73 A TRAMP ABROAD. 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 every- body to see that the King is pleased ; and as to the actor encored, his pride and gratification are simply boundless. Still, there are circum- stances 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 the 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 theatre for audience. Once he took an odd freak into his head. High up and out of sight, over the prodigious stage of the court theatre 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 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 — 1 It is good, 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 — a. TRAMP ABROAD. 7^ ' Bravo, bravo ! More thunder ! more lightning ! turn on more Tain 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 around ankle-deep in vater, 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 lofry box, and wore his gloves to ribbons applauding. TURN ON MORE RAIN.' ' 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 theatre was "at last over, the King's approbation was measureless. He cried — 1 Magnificent, magnificent ! Encore ! Do it again ! ' But the manager succeeded in persuading him to recall the encore, ana said the company would feel sufficiently rewarded and com- so A TRAMP ABROAD. plimented 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 narts required changes of dress; the others were a soaked, bedraggled, and uncom- fortable 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 afterwards, 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 ob- serve the moderation of the King : he did not insist upon his encore. If he had been a glad- some, unreflecting American opera audi- ence, he probably would have had his storm repeated and repeated until he drowned all those people. HARRIS ATTENDING THE OPERA. A TRAMP ABROAD. CHAPTER XI. 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 and more than satisfied with what we had accomplished in Art. We had had the best instructors in drawing and painting in Germ -,ny — Ham- merling, Vogel, Miiller, Dietz, and Schumann. Hammerling taught us landscape painting, Vogel taught us figure drawing, Miiller taught us to do still-life, and Dietz and Schumann gave us a finishing course in two specialties — battlepieces 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, biassed their judgment. So I resolved to make a test. Privately, and unknown to anyone, 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 w. lerness of oil pictures in the Art Exhibition, with no name attach "d to it. To my great gratification it was instantly recognised as mine. All the town flocked to see it, and people even came from neighbouring localities to visit it. It made more stir than any other work in the Exhibition. But the most gratifying thing of 1 See Appendix D for information concerning this fer rful tongue. G A TRAMP ABROAD. o that chance strangers, passing through, who had not heard of picture, were not only drawn to it, as by a loadstone, the moment they entered the gallery, but always took it for a ( Turner.' Mr. Harris was graduated in Art about the same time with myself, and we took a studio together. We waited awhile for some orders ; PAINTING MY GREAT PICTURE. then as time began to drag a little, we concluded to make a pedestrian tour. After much consideration we determined on a trip up the shores of the beautiful Neckar to Heilbronn. 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. A TRAMP ABROAD. 83 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-bye to our friends, and afterwards 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, towards the town. What a glorious summer morning it was, and how the flowers did pour out their frag- rance, 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; grey knapsacks; blue army shirts ; blue overalls ; lea- thern gaiters buttoned tight from knee down to ankle ; high-quarter coarse shoes snugly laced. Each man h< an opera-glass, a canteen, and a guide-book case slunu r over his shoulder, and car- ried an alpenstock in one hand and a sun umbrella in the other. Around our hats were wound many folds of

-. ; ;'--^*'>"-'2>V, ::<. ■- — "-:' tj-'v^^m I' ' ^glllll ^^^^^^^^m ISSi pii^ 111-- ^^^H JBlfiK*i ^s^^= =-^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^H Tr^r WHICH ANSWERED JUST AS WELL. dyke?, 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 paid out astern. She pulls on that chain, and so drags herself up the river or down it She has neither bow nor stern, A IB AMP ABROAD. 113 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 f oretop mast to the file of mules on the tow-path a hundred yards ahead, and by dint of much banging and sAvearing and urging, LIFE ON A RAPT. 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. At noon we stepped ashore and bought some bottled beer, and got eoine chickens cooked while the raft waited; then we immediately I fi a fo' &V?no^ij,i J*fe^^< BAT TJX G OX THE XECXAR. A TRAMP ABROAD. 115 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 away. It was a great pity. I so wanted to make a sketch of him. The captain com- forted 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, Gbtz von Berlichingen's old castle. It stands on a bold elevation 200 feet above the surface of the river; it has high vine-clad walls inclosing trees, and a peaked tower about 75 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 tunnelled, and the new railway will pass under the castle. THE CAVE OF THE SPECTRE. 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 culverine, 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 116 A TRAMP ABROAD. LADY GERTRUDE. 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 Spectre of the Haunted Cave. It was said that ill-luck of one kind or another always overtook anyone who had the misfortune to hear that song. Eventually, every calamity that happened thereabouts was laid at the door of that music. Consequently no boatman 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. A TMAMP ABROAD. 117 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 a 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 hu- manity, and so find a worthy death and a blessed reunion with the brave true heart whose love had more honoured him than all his victories in war. When the people heard this re- solve 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. Towards midnight the Crusader came floating down the river in a boat, with his rusty cross-bow in his hands, 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 MOUTH OP THE CAVERN. He drifted silently through 118 A TRAMP ABROAD. discerned the black mouth of the cave. Now, — is that a white figure ? Yes. The plaintive song begins to well forth and float away A FATAL MISTAKE. over meadow and river, — the crossbow is slowly raised to position, a A CRUSADEB AND HIS LADY. steady aim is taken, the bolt flies straight to the mark, the figure sinks A TRAMP ABROAD. 119 down, still singing, the knight takes the wool out of his ears, and recognises 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 favoured, 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. 120 A TRAMP ABROAD CHAPTER XVL AN ANCIENT LEGEND OF THE RHINE. 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 favourite. 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; there- fore, for the sake of these,' I mean to print the words and the 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 G-arnham, 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 hi°h rock called 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 A TRAMP ABROAD. 121 very deeply in love with her without having yet seen her. So he used to wander to the neighbourhood 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 unequalled clearness and colour, which, in increasing 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 nought 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 com- manded 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 THE LORELEI. 122 A TRAMP ABROAD. 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, 1 n supernatural Beauty bright ; Of Light-rays -was the Figure wove, To share its light, locked-hair strove. ' Thy Garment colour wave-dove, By thy hand the sign of love, Thy eyes' sweet enchantment, Baying to me, oh ! enhancement. ' Oh, 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 unutter- able 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 round about there — for 4 Scarcely had these tones sounded, everywhere there began tumult jmd sound, as if voices above and below the water. On the Lei rose flames, the Fairy stood above, as that time, and beckoned with her right hand clearly and urgently to the infatuated Knight, while with a, staff in her left 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 hare A TRAMP ABROAD. 123 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 favourite in Germany for forty years, and will re- main a favourite always, maybe. I have a prejudice against people who print things in a foreign lan- guage and add no transla- tion. When I am the reader, and the author |||l|i considers me able to do 9 the translating myself, he pays me quite a nice compliment — but if he would do the translat- ing 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 ; there- fore I will make a translation my- self. 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 un-German 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. y :r,Xry THE LOVER'S PATE. 124 ft 1 r .2 2^ nd dn3 d M TTT rji 1 W-\a a Air^ TO 2