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A VAGABOND JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD
[Illustration: _Harry A Franck_]
A VAGABOND JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD
A Narrative of Personal Experience
by
HARRY A. FRANCK
Illustrated with More Than One Hundred Photographs
_Pour connaître les véritables moeurs d’un pays il
faut descendre dans d’autres états; car celles des
riches sont presque partout les mêmes._
JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU.
[Illustration]
New York
The Century Co.
1910
Copyright, 1910, by
The Century Co.
Published, March, 1910
TO MY ALMA MATER
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
WITHOUT WHOSE TRAINING
THIS UNDERTAKING HAD BEEN IMPOSSIBLE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. PRELIMINARY RAMBLES 3
II. ON THE ROAD IN FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND 26
III. TRAMPING IN ITALY 43
IV. THE BORDERS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN 64
V. A “BEACHCOMBER” IN MARSEILLES 83
VI. THE ARAB WORLD 103
VII. THE CITIES OF OLD 131
VIII. THE WILDS OF PALESTINE 167
IX. THE LOAFER’S PARADISE 188
X. THE LAND OF THE NILE 215
XI. STEALING A MARCH ON THE FAR EAST 237
XII. THE REALMS OF GAUTAMA 251
XIII. SAWDUST AND TINSEL IN THE ORIENT 272
XIV. THREE HOBOES IN INDIA 289
XV. THE WAYS OF THE HINDU 309
XVI. THE HEART OF INDIA 327
XVII. BEYOND THE GANGES 354
XVIII. THE LAND OF PAGODAS 378
XIX. ON FOOT ACROSS THE MALAY PENINSULA 410
XX. THE JUNGLES OF SIAM 444
XXI. WANDERINGS IN JAPAN 462
XXII. HOMEWARD BOUND 483
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Harry A. Franck _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
A boss cattleman of the Walkerville barns who has
crossed the Atlantic scores of times 6
Upon arrival in Montreal I put up at the “Stock Yards
Hotel” and get a preliminary hair-cut in anticipation 6
Women laborers in the linen-mills of Belfast, Ireland 11
S. S. _Sardinian_. “Lamps does a bit of painting above
the temporary cattle-pens” 11
A baker’s cart of Holland on the morning round 18
A public laundry on the Rhine at Mainz, Germany 18
Canal-boats laden with lumber from Nièvre entering Paris 31
“They are excellently built, the Routes Nationales of
France” 31
A typical French roadster who has tramped the highways
of Europe for thirty years 34
The two French miners with whom I tramped in France.
Notice shoe-laces carried for sale 34
A Venetian pauper on the Rialto bridge 55
My gondolier on the Grand Canal 55
Going for the water. A village north of Rome 58
Italy is one of the most cruelly priest-ridden countries
on the globe 58
Selling the famous long-horned cattle of Siena outside
the walls 66
Italian peasants returning from market-day in the
communal village 66
A factory of red roof-tiles near Naples. The girl works
from daylight to dark for sixteen cents 76
Italian peasants returning from the vineyards to the
village 76
My entrance into Paris in the corduroy garb and with the
usual amount of baggage of the first months of the
trip 94
“Tony of the Belt” 94
As I appeared during my tramp in Asia Minor. A picture
taken by Abdul Razac Bundak, bumboat-man of Beirut 114
The lonely, Bedouin-infected road over the Lebanon. “Few
corners of the globe offer more utter solitude than
Syria and Palestine” 127
The Palestine beast of burden loaded with stone 127
Damascus. “The street called Straight—which isn’t” 133
A wood-turner of Damascus. He watches the ever-passing
throng, turning the stick with a bow and a loose
string, and holding the chisel with his toes 133
The most thickly settled portion of Damascus is the
graveyard. A picture taken at risk of mobbing 140
Women of Bethlehem going to the Church of the Nativity 140
Tyre is now a miserable village connected with the
mainland by a wind-blown neck of sand 149
Agriculture in Palestine. There is not an ounce of iron
about the plow 149
On the road between Haifa and Nazareth I meet a
road-repair gang, all women but the boss 156
On the summit of Jebel es Sihk, back of Nazareth. From
left to right: Shukry Nasr, teacher; Elias Awad, cook;
and Nehmé Simán, teacher; my hosts in Nazareth 156
The shopkeeper and the traveling salesman with whom I
spent two nights and a day on the lonely road to
Jerusalem. Arabs are very sensitive to cold, except on
their feet and ankles 176
A high official of Mohammedanism. It being against the
teachings of the Koran to have one’s picture taken,
master and servant turn away their faces 176
The view of Jerusalem from my window in the Jewish hotel 183
Sellers of oranges and bread in Jerusalem. Notice
Standard Oil can 183
The Palestine beast of burden carrying an iron beam to a
building in construction 186
Jews of Jerusalem in typical costume 186
A winged dahabiyeh of the Nile 190
Sais or carriage runners of Cairo, clearing the streets
for their master 190
An Arab gardener on the estate of the American consul of
Cairo, for whom I worked two weeks 197
Otto Pia, the German beggar-letter writer of Cairo 197
An Arab café in Old Cairo 200
An abandoned mosque outside the walls of Cairo, and a
caravan off for Suez across the desert 204
Spinners in the sun outside the walls of Cairo 211
Guests of the Asile Rudolph, Cairo. François, champion
beggar, in the center, in the cape he wore as part of
his “system” 211
An Arab market-day at the village of Gizeh 215
A woman of Alexandria, Egypt, carrying two bushels of
oranges. Even barefooted market-women wear the veil
required by the Koran 216
On the top of the largest pyramid. From the ground it
looks as sharply pointed as the others 216
“Along the way shadoofs were ceaselessly dipping up the
water that gives life to the fields of Egypt” 218
The “Tombs of the Kings” from the top of the Libyan
range, to which I climbed above the plain of Thebes 218
A water-carrier of Luxor. A goatskin full costs one cent 222
The main entrance to the ruins of Karnak 226
The Egyptian fellah dwells in a hut of reeds and mud 231
Arab passengers on the Nile steamer. Except for their
prayers, they scarcely move once a day 234
The Greek patriarch whose secretary I became—temporarily 234
S. S. _Worcestershire_ of the Bibby Line, on which I
stowed away after taking this picture 239
Oriental travelers at Port Saïd 239
An outrigger canoe and an outdoor laundry in Colombo,
Ceylon 252
Road-repairers of Ceylon. Highway between Colombo and
Kandy 252
Singhalese ladies wear only a skirt and a short waist,
between which several inches of brown skin are visible 263
A Singhalese woman rarely misses an opportunity to give
her children a bath 263
The woman who sold me the bananas 264
The thatch roof at the roadside, under which I slept on
the second night of my tramp to Kandy 264
Singhalese infants are very sturdy during the first
years 266
The yogi who ate twenty-eight of the bananas at a
sitting 266
Central Ceylon. Making roof-tiles. The sun is the only
kiln 268
The priests of the “Temple of the Tooth” in Kandy, who
were my guides during my stay in the city 268
The rickshaw men of Colombo 274
American wanderers who slept in the Gordon Gardens of
Colombo. Left to right: Arnold, ex-New York ward
heeler; myself; “Dick Haywood”; an English lad; and
Marten of Tacoma, Washington 274
The trick elephant of Fitzgerald’s circus and a
high-caste Singhalese with circle-comb 287
John Askins, M.A., who had been “on the road” in the
Orient twenty years 287
A Hindu of Madras with caste-mark, of cow-dung and
coloring-matter, on his forehead 295
Hindus of all castes now travel by train 298
“Haywood” snaps me as I am getting a shave in
Trichinopoly 298
The Hindu affects many strange coiffures. Natives of
Madras 305
A Hindu basket-weaver of Madras 305
The great road of Puri, over which the massive
Juggernaut car is drawn once a year 320
The main entrance to Juggernaut’s temple in Puri. I was
mobbed for stepping on the flagging around the column 322
“Suttee” having been forbidden by their English rulers,
Hindu widows must now shave their heads, dress in
white, and gain their livelihood as best they can 324
A seller of the wood with which the bodies of Hindus are
burned on the banks of the Ganges. Very despised caste 324
Bankipur’s chief object of interest is a vast granary
built in the time of the American Revolution to keep
grain for times of famine. From its top the traveler
catches his first glimpse of the Ganges 338
Women of Delhi near gate forced during the Sepoy
rebellion. One carries water in a Standard Oil can,
another a basket of dung-cakes 338
One of the many flights of steps leading down to the
bathing-ghats and funeral pyres of Benares 341
The Taj Mahal, Agra, India 348
A market-day in Delhi, India. Many castes of Hindus and
Mohammedans are represented 351
The Hindu street-sprinkler does not lay much dust 351
A lady of quality of Delhi out for a drive 352
Hindu women drinking cocoanut-milk 352
Bungalows along the way in rural Burma 380
Women of the Malay Peninsula wear nothing above the
waist-line and not much below it 380
A Laos carrier crossing the stream that separates Burma
from Siam 433
The sort of jungle through which we cut our way for
three weeks. Gerald James, my Australian companion, in
the foreground 440
“An elephant, with a mahout dozing on his head, was
advancing toward us” 448
Myself after four days in the jungle, and the Siamese
soldiers with whom we fell in now and then between
Myáwadi and Rehang. I had sold my helmet 448
Bangkok is a city of many canals 450
A swimming-school of Japan, teachers on the bank,
novices near the shore, and advanced students, in
white head-dress, well out in the pool 464
Women do most of the work in the rice-fields of Japan 464
Horses are rare in Japan. Men and baggage are drawn by
coolies 467
Japanese children playing in the streets of Kioto 467
A Japanese lady 472
Japanese canal-boats and coolies of Kioto 478
The castle of Nagoya, in which many Russian prisoners
were kept 480
Laying out fish to dry along the river in Tokio. Japan
lives principally on fish and rice 480
An employee of the Tokio-Yokohama interurban, and some
street urchins 483
Fishermen along the bay on my tramp from Tokio to
Yokohama 483
The Russian consulate of Yokohama, in which we
“beachcombers” slept 488
Japanese types in a temple inclosure 488
A Yokohama street decorated for the Taft party. The
display is entirely private and shows the general good
will of the Japanese toward the United States 494
A FOREWORD OF EXPLANATION
Some years ago, while still an undergraduate, I chanced to be present at
an informal gathering in which the conversation turned to confessions of
respective aspirations.
“If only I had a few thousands,” sighed a senior, “I’d make a trip
around the world.”
“Modest ambition!” retorted a junior, “But you’d better file it away for
future reference, till you have made the money.”
“With all due respect to bank accounts,” I observed, “I believe a man
with a bit of energy and good health could start _without_ money and
make a journey around the globe.”
Laughter assailed the suggestion; yet as time rolled on I found myself
often musing over that hastily conceived notion. Travel for pleasure has
ever been considered a special privilege of the wealthy. That a man
without ample funds should turn tourist seems to his fellow-beings an
action little less reprehensible than an attempt to finance a
corporation on worthless paper. He who would see the world, and has not
been provided the means thereto by a considerate ancestor, should sit
close at home until his life work is done, his fortune made. Then let
him travel; when his eyes have grown too dim to catch the beauty of a
distant landscape, when struggle and experience have rendered him blasé
and unimpressionable.
A spirit of rebellion against this traditional notion suggested a
problem worthy of investigation. What would befall the man who set out
to girdle the globe as the farmer’s boy sets out to seek his fortune in
the neighboring city; on the alert for every opportunity, yet scornful
of the fact that every foot of the way has not been paved before him?
There were, of course, other motives than mere curiosity to urge me to
undertake such an expedition. As a vocation I had chosen the teaching of
modern languages; foreign travel promised to add to my professional
preparation. Were I permitted an avocation it would be the study of
social conditions; what surer way of gaining vital knowledge of modern
society than to live and work among the world’s workmen in every clime?
In the final reckoning, too, an inherent Wanderlust, to which, as an
American, I lay no claim as a unique characteristic, was certainly not
without its influence.
It was not until a year after my graduation that opportunity and my
plans were ripe. I resolved to take a “year off,” to wander through as
much of the world as possible, and to return to my desk in the autumn,
fifteen months later. As to my equipment for such a venture: I spoke
French and German readily, Spanish and Italian with some fluency; I had
“worked my way” on shorter journeys, had earned wages at a dozen
varieties of manual labor in my own country, and had crossed the
Atlantic once as a cattle man and once before the mast. It was my
original intention to attempt the journey without money, without
weapons, and without carrying baggage or supplies; to depend both for
protection and the necessities of life on personal endeavor and the
native resources of each locality. That plan I altered in one
particular. I decided to carry a kodak; and to obviate the necessity of
earning en route what I might choose to squander in photography, I set
out with a sum that seemed sufficient to cover that extraneous expense;
to be exact: with one hundred and four dollars. As was to be expected, I
spent this reserve fund early, in those countries of northern Europe in
which I had not planned an extensive stay. But the conditions of the
self-imposed test were not thereby materially altered; for before the
journey ended I had spent in photography, from my earnings, more than
the original amount,—to be exact again: one hundred and thirteen
dollars.
The chief object of investigation being the masses, I made no attempt
during the journey to rise above the estate of the common laborer. My
plan included no fixed itinerary. The details of route I left to chance
and the exigencies of circumstances. Yet this random wandering brought
me to as many famous spots as any victim of a “personally conducted
tour” could demand; and in addition, to many corners unknown to the
regular tourist. These latter it is that I have accentuated, passing
lightly over well-known scenes. It is easy and, alas, too often
customary for travelers to weave fanciful tales. But a story of personal
observation of social conditions can be of value only in so far as it
adheres to the truth of actual experience. I have, therefore, told the
facts in every particular, denying myself the privilege even of altering
unimportant details to render more dramatic many a somewhat prosaic
incident. The names of places, institutions, and persons appearing in
the text are in every case authentic; the illustrations are chosen
entirely from the photographs I took during the journey.
The question that aroused my curiosity has been answered. A man _can_
girdle the globe without money, weapons, or baggage. It is in the hope
that the experiences and observations of such a journey may be of
interest to fireside travelers that I offer the following account of my
Wanderjahr.
The author wishes to acknowledge the courtesy of _Harper’s Weekly_,
_Outing_ and _The Century Magazine_ in permitting him to republish
from their pages certain chapters of this book.
A VAGABOND JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD
CHAPTER I
PRELIMINARY RAMBLES
On the eighteenth day of June, 1904, I boarded the ferry that plies
between Detroit and the Canadian shore, and, coasting the sloping beach
of verdant Belle Isle, swung off on the first stage of my journey around
the globe. At the landing stage a custom officer glanced through my bag,
stared perplexedly from the kodak to my laborer’s garb, and with a shrug
of his shoulders passed me on into the streets of the Canadian village.
A two-mile tramp brought me to the Walkerville cattle-barns, where
thousands of gaunt calves are rounded up each autumn to come forth in
the summer plump bulls and steers, ready for the markets of old England.
From the long rows of low, brick buildings sounded now and then a deep
bellow or the song or whistle of a stock feeder at his labor. I had
arranged for my passage some days before, and, dropping my bag at the
office, I joined the crew in the yard.
Months of well-fed inactivity had not tamed the spirits of the sleek
animals that were set loose and driven one by one out of the various
stables. The racing, bellowing cattle, urged slowly up the shute into
the waiting cars by blaspheming stockmen, waving lancelike poles above
their heads, gave to the scene the aspect of a riotous _corrida de
toros_. The sun had set and darkness had fallen in the alleyways between
the endless stables before the last bull was tied and the last car door
locked. The shunting engine gave a warning whistle. We, who were to
attend the stock en route raced to the office for our bundles, and,
tossing them on top of the freight cars, climbed after them.
There were no formal leave-takings between the little stock-yard
community on the shute platform and those who were “crossin’ the pond
wi’ the bullocks.” The cars began to move amid such words of farewell as
might have been exchanged with one setting out for the nearby village:
“So long, Jim, keep sober.”
“Don’t fergit me that tin o’ Wills’ Smokin’, Bob.”
“Give me best to Molly down on the Broomielaw, Jim,” with an overdrawn
wink at that worthy standing stolidly on the last car.
Jim and Bob were “boss cattle men,” each of whom, though still young,
had made scores of trips between the barns and the principal ports of
Great Britain.
A short run down the spur brought us to the main line of the Canadian
Pacific; our cars were joined to a train that was making up, and we made
our way to the caboose that had been rammed on behind. Though the
companies permit it, train men look with no kindly eye on the intrusion
of traveling “cow-punchers” into their home and castle. As we emerged
into the glare of the tail-lights, carrying our bundles and poles, a
surly growl gave us greeting:
“Huh! ’Nother bloody bunch o’ cattle stiffs!”
A steady run of thirty-six hours, enlivened by changes of caboose at
unseemly hours, crews of increasing surliness, and a tramp along the
cars at every halt to “punch ’em up” brought us to Montreal. The feeders
at the railroad pens took charge of the shipment and we repaired to the
“Stockyards Hotel,” a hostelry pervaded from bar-room to garret by the
odor of cattle. Thus far our destination had been uncertain, but, not
long after our arrival, information leaked out that we were to sail for
Glasgow on the _Sardinian_ two days later.
On that second evening, I reported at a wharf peopled by a half-hundred
men whose only basis of fellowship, apparently, was pennilessness and
riotous desire to secure passage to the British Isles. Twelve hundred
cattle, collected from several Canadian feeding centers, were to be
shipped and, besides the bosses, twenty cattle men were needed. A few,
like myself, had come overland with the stock trains; but the throng was
made up chiefly of those who had paid a Montreal agency $2.50 for the
privilege of shipping.
Over these we were given precedence. “Farnsworth’s gang” was summoned
first and under the lead of our boss we filed into the shipping-office,
to be greeted by a blustering officer seated before the ship’s log:
“What’s yer name?”
“H. Franck.”
“Ever been over before?”
“Yes, sir, on the Manchester Importer.”
The name was recorded and I touched the pen to make binding the contract
I had signed by proxy.
“All right! Fi’ bob fer the run. Next!”
Our boss was entitled to eight men, four of whom he had already chosen.
The last of these had barely given his name, when the “agency stiffs”
swept aside the policeman who had held them back, and surged screaming
into the office. We left them to fight for the coveted places and,
stepping out into the night, groped our way on board the _Sardinian_.
Even while we wandered among the empty cattle pens, built on her four
decks, we clung jealously to our bundles, for the skill of the Montreal
wharf-rat in “lifting bags” is proverbial among seafaring men.
Towards midnight several loads of baled straw were sent on board, and
those of us who had not succeeded in hiding “turned to” to bed down the
pens. Like many another transatlantic liner, the _Sardinian_, homeward
bound, carried cattle in the spaces allotted to third-class passengers
on the outward journey. It was not, however, for this reason, as one of
my new acquaintances was convinced, that this section of the ship was
known as the steerage.
The bedding completed, we threw ourselves down in the stalls and fell
asleep. Long before the day broke, the entire ship’s company, from the
first mate to the sleepiest “stiff,” was rudely awakened by a stampede
of excited cattle and the blatant curses of their drivers. The
stock-yard tenders had tied up alongside. In three hours our cargo was
complete; the panting animals were securely tied in their stanchions;
the winch had yanked up on deck the three or four bulls that, having
been killed in the rush, were to be dumped in the outer bay; and we were
off down the St. Lawrence. The crew fell to coiling up the shore-lines
and joined the cattle men in a rousing chorus:—
“We’re homeward bound, boys, for Glasgow town,
Good-by, fare thee well! good-by, fare thee well!
We’ll soon tread the Broomielaw now, my belle,
Good-by, fare thee well; good-by.”
Our passage varied little from the ordinary trip of a cattle boat. A few
quarrels and an occasional free-for-all mélée were to be expected, for
the “stiffs’ fo’c’stle” housed a heterogeneous company. Some of our
mates were skilled workmen of industry and good habits, bound on a visit
to their old homes. Contrasted with them were several incorrigible
wharf-rats, bred on the docks of the United Kingdom, who had somehow
contrived to cross the Atlantic to what had been pictured to them as a
land “where a bloke c’n live like a gent at ’ome widout wavin’ ’is
bleedin’ flipper.” The western hemisphere had proved no such ideal
loafing-place. Bound back now to their accustomed haunts, the
disillusioned rowdies spent their energies in heaping curses on America
and those who had painted it in such glowing colors. They were not
pleasant messmates.
The work on the _Sardinian_ was, as we had anticipated, hard, the food
unfit to eat, and the forecastle unfit to live in. But there were no
“first trippers” among us and all had shipped with some knowledge of the
treatment meted out to “cattle stiffs.”
On the tenth day out, the second of July, we came on deck to find, a few
miles off to starboard, the sloping coast of Ireland, patches of growing
and ripening grain giving the island the appearance of a huge, tilted
checkerboard. Before night fell, we had left behind Paddy’s Mile-stone
and the Mull o’ Kintyre, and it was near the mouth of the Clyde that we
completed our last feeding.
A mighty uproar awakened us at dawn. Urged on by the bellows of Glasgow
longshoremen, the cattle were slipping and sliding down the gangway into
the wharf paddock. Unrestrained joy burst forth in the feeders’
quarters. Enmities were quickly forgotten, the few razors passed quickly
from hand to hand, beards of two weeks’ growth disappeared as if by
magic, bags were snatched open, the rags and tatters that had done duty
as clothing on the voyage were poked in endless stream through the
porthole into the already poisonous Clyde, and an hour later the
“stiffs,” looking almost respectable, were scattering along the silent
streets of Sunday-morning Glasgow.
Strange it seemed next morning to find business moving as usual, with no
sounds of celebration, for it was the Fourth, “Independence” or
“Rebellion” day, according to the nationality of the speaker. At noon we
gathered on board the _Sardinian_ to receive our “fi’ bob” and our
discharges from the Board of Trade. These latter were good for the
return trip on the same steamer, but few besides the bosses intended to
avail themselves of the privilege. As for myself, I found another use
for the document. One who is moving about Europe in the garb of a
laborer must be ever ready to declare his station in life. The answer of
the American tramp that he is “just a’ travelin’” will not pass muster
across the water. To have called myself a carpenter or a teamster
without corroborating testimonials would have been as foolish as to have
told the truth. The discharge from the _Sardinian_, though issued to a
cattle man, did not differ materially from that of an able seaman. My
corduroy suit and cloth cap gave me the appearance of a Jack ashore. I
decided to pose henceforth as a sailor.
[Illustration: A boss cattleman of the Walkerville barns who has crossed
the Atlantic scores of times]
[Illustration: Upon arrival in Montreal I put up at the “Stock Yards
Hotel” and get a preliminary hair-cut in anticipation]
Tucking my kodak into an inside coat pocket, I sold my bag for the price
of a ticket on the night steamer to Belfast. A two days’ tramp along the
highways of the Emerald Isle was a pleasant “limbering up” for more
extended journeys to come. It might have been longer but for an
incessant rain that drove me back to Scotland.
On the afternoon of my return to Glasgow I struck out along the right
bank of the Clyde towards the Highlands. An overladen highway led
through Dumbarton, a town of factories, that poured its waste products
into the sluggish river of poison, and brought me at evening to
Alexandria. A band was playing. I joined the recreating throng and
stretched out on the village green. What a strange fellow is the
Scotchman! In a few short hours he runs through the whole gamut of
emotions, gloomy and despondent when things go wrong, romping and joking
a moment after.
The sun was still well above the horizon when the concert ended, though
the hour of nine had already sounded from the church spire.
Not far beyond the town the hills died away on the left and disclosed
the unruffled surface of Loch Lomond, its western end aglow with the
light of the drowning sun. By and by the moon rose to cast a
phosphorescent shimmer over the Loch and its little wooded islands. On
the next hillside stood a field of wheat shocks. I turned into it,
giving the owner’s house a wide berth. The straw was fresh and clean,
just the thing for a soft bed. But wheat sheaths do not offer
substantial protection against the winds of the Scottish Highlands, and
it was not with a sense of having slept soundly that I rose at daybreak
and pushed on.
Two hours of tramping brought me to Luss, a cozy little village on the
edge of the Loch. I hastened to the principal street in quest of a
restaurant, but the hamlet was everywhere silent and asleep. Down on the
beach of the Loch a lone fisherman, preparing his tackle for the day’s
labor, took umbrage at my suggestion that his fellow-townsmen were late
risers.
“Why mon, ’tis no late!” he protested, “’tis no more nor five, an’ a
bonny mornin’ it is, too. But there’s a mist in it,” he added
pessimistically.
I glanced at the bright morning sun and the unclouded sky and set down
both statements for fiction. But a clock-maker’s window down the beach
confirmed the first, and the second proved as true before the day was
done. Stifling my premature hunger, I stretched out on the sands to
await the morning steamer; for Ben Lomond, the ascent of which I had
planned, stood just across the Loch.
About six a heavy-eyed shopkeeper sold me a roll of bologna, concocted
of equal parts of pepper and meat, and a loaf of day-before-yesterday’s
bread. The steamer whistle sounded before I had regained the beach. I
purchased a ticket at the shore-end of the distorted wooden wharf and
hurried out to board the craft. My way was blocked by a burly Scot who
demanded “tu p’nce.”
“But I’ve paid my fare,” I protested, holding up the ticket.
“Aye, mon, ye hov,” rumbled the native, straddling his legs and setting
his elbows akimbo. “Ye hov, mon. But ye hovna paid fer walkin’ oot t’
yon boat on oor wharf.”
Ten minutes later I paid a similar sum for the privilege of walking off
the boat at Renwardenen.
Plodding across a half-mile of heath and morass, I struck into the
narrow, white path that zigzagged up the face of the Ben, and soon
overtook three Glasgow firemen, off for a day’s vacation in the hills.
The mist that the fisherman had foreseen began to settle down and turned
soon to a drenching rain. For five hours we scrambled silently upward in
Indian file, slipping and falling on wet rocks and into deep bogs, to
come at last to a broad, flat boulder where the path vanished. It was
the summit of old Ben Lomond, a tiny island in a sea of whirling grey
mist, into which the wind bowled us when we attempted to stand erect. My
companions fell to cursing their luck in expressive Scotch. The remnants
of a picnic lunch under the shelter of a cairn tantalized us with the
thought of how different the scene would have been on a day of sunshine.
I was reminded, too, of the bread and bologna that had been left over
from my breakfast, and I thrust a hand hopefully into my pocket. My
fingers plunged into a floating pulp of pepper, dough, and bits of meat
and paper that it would have been an insult to offer to share with the
hungriest mortal; and I fell to munching the mess alone.
Two of the firemen decided to return the way we had come. With the third
I set off down the opposite slope towards Inversnaid. In the first
simultaneous stumble down the mountain side, we lost all sense of
direction and, fetching up in a boggy meadow, wandered for hours over
knolls and through swift streams, now and then scaring up a flock of
shaggy highland sheep that raced away down primeval valleys. Well on in
the afternoon, as we were telling ourselves for the twentieth time that
Inversnaid must be just over the next ridge, we came suddenly upon a
hillside directly above the landing stage of Renwardenen. On this side
of the Loch was neither highway nor footpath. For seven miles we dragged
ourselves, hand over hand, through the thick undergrowth, and even then
must each take a header into an icy mountain river before we reached our
goal.
Here a new disappointment awaited me. Instead of the town I had
expected, Inversnaid consisted of a landing stage and a hotel of the
millionaire-club variety in which my worldly wealth would scarcely have
paid a night’s lodging, even should the house dogs have permitted so
bedraggled a being to approach the establishment. The fireman wandered
down to the wharf and I turned towards a cluster of board shanties at
the roadside.
“Can you sell me something to eat?” I inquired of the sour-faced
mountaineer who opened the first door.
“I can no!” he snapped, “go to the hotel.”
There were freshly baked loaves plainly in sight in the next hovel, but
I received a similar rebuff.
“Have you nothing to eat in the house?” I demanded.
“No, mon, I’m no runnin’ a shop.”
“But you can sell me a loaf of that bread?”
“No!” bellowed the Scot, “we hovna got any. Go to the hotel. Yon’s the
place for tooreests.”
The invariable excuse was worn threadbare before I reached the last hut,
and, though I had already covered twenty-five miles, I struck off
through the sea of mud that passed for a highway, towards Aberfoyle,
fifteen miles distant.
The rain continued. An hour beyond, the road skirted the shore of Loch
Katrine and stretched away across a desolate moorland. Fatigue drove
away hunger and was in turn succeeded by a drowsiness in which my legs
moved themselves mechanically, carrying me on through the dusk and into
the darkness. It was past eleven when I splashed into Aberfoyle, too
late to find an open shop in straight-laced Scotland, and, routing out a
servant at a modest inn, I went supperless to bed. Months afterward,
when I was in training for such undertakings, a forty-mile tramp left no
evil effects; at this early stage of the journey the experience was not
quickly forgotten.
The attraction of the open road was lacking when, late the next morning,
I hobbled out into the streets of Aberfoyle, and, my round of
sight-seeing over, I wandered down to the station and took train for
Stirling. Long before the journey was ended, there appeared, far away
across the valleys, that most rugged of Scotland’s landmarks, the castle
of Stirling. Like the base of some giant pillar erected by nature and
broken off by a mightier Sampson, it stands in solemn isolation in a
vast, rolling plain, the very symbol of staunch independence and sturdy
defiance.
My imagination far back in the days of Wallace and Bruce, I made my way
up to the monument from the city below, half expecting, as I entered the
ancient portal, to find myself surrounded by those bold and fiery
warriors of past ages. And surely, there they were! That group of men in
bonnets and kilts, gazing away across the parapets. Cautiously I
approached them. What pleasure it would be to hear the old Scottish
tongue and, perhaps, the story of some feud among the fierce clans of
the Highlands! Suddenly one of the group strode away across the
courtyard. As he passed me, he began to sing. A minstrel lay of ancient
days, in the old Gaelic tongue? No, indeed. He had broken forth in the
rasping voice of a Liverpool bootblack, juggling his H’s, as only a
Liverpool bootblack can, in “The Good Old Summer Time.”
An hour afterward I faced the highway again, bound for Edinburgh. The
route led hard by the battle-field of Bannockburn, to-day a stretch of
waving wheat, distinguished from the surrounding meadows, that history
does not know, only by the flag of Britain above it. With darkness I
found lodging in a wheat field overlooking the broad thoroughfare.
The next day was Sunday and the weather calorific. For all that, the
highroad had its full quota of tramps. I passed the time of day with any
number of these roadsters,—they call them “moochers” in the British
Isles. Some were sauntering almost aimlessly along the shimmering route,
others were stretched out at apathetic ease in shady glens carpeted with
freshly-blossomed bluebells. The “moocher” is a being of far less
activity and initiative than the American tramp. He is content to stroll
a few miles each day, happy if he gleans a meager fare from the kindly
disposed. He would no more think of “beating his way” on the railroads
than of building an air-ship for his aimless and endless wanderings. It
is always walk with him, day after day, week after week; and if, by
chance, he hears of the swift travel by “blind-baggage” and the full
meals that fall to his counterpart across the water, he stamps them at
once “bloody lies.”
[Illustration: Women laborers in the linen-mills of Belfast, Ireland]
[Illustration: S.S. _Sardinian_. “Lamps does a bit of painting above the
temporary cattle-pens”]
In stranger contrast to the American, the British tramp is quite apt to
be a family man. As often as not he travels with a female companion whom
he styles, within her hearing and apparently with her entire
acquiescence, “me Moll” or “me heifer.” But whatever his stamping ground
the tramp is essentially the same fellow the world over. Buoyant of
spirits for all his pessimistic grumble, generous to a fault, he eyes
the stranger with deep suspicion at the first greeting, as
uncommunicative and noncommittal as a bivalve. Then a look, a gesture
suggests the world-wide question, “On the road, Jack?” Answer it
affirmatively and, though your fatherland be on the opposite side of the
earth, he is ready forthwith to open his heart and to divide with you
his last crust.
I reached Edinburgh in the early afternoon, and, following the signs
that pointed the way to the poor man’s section, brought up in Haymarket
Square. A multitude of unemployed, in groups and in pairs, sauntering
back and forth, lounging about the foot of the central statue, filled
the place. Here a hooligan, ragged and unkempt as his hearers, was
holding forth, to as many as cared to listen, on the subject of
governmental iniquities. There another, less fortunate than his
unfortunate fellows, wandered from group to group in his shirt-sleeves,
vainly trying to sell his coat for a “tanner” to pay a night’s lodging.
High above towered the vast bulk of Edinburgh castle. A royal infant
lowered from its windows, as happened, ’tis said, in the merry days of
Queen Bess, would land to-day in a most squalid lodging house. Indeed,
this is one point that the indigent wanderer gains over the wealthy
tourist. The cheap quarters, the slums of to-day are, in many a European
city, the places where the history of yesterday was made. The great man
of a century ago did not dwell in a shaded suburb; he made his home
where now the hooligan and the laborer eke out a precarious existence.
The sorry-looking building at the foot of the castle rock bore the
sign:—
“Edinburgh Castle Inn. Clean, Capacious Beds, 6d.”
I had too often been misled by similar self-assertive adjurations to
expect any serious striving on the part of the proprietor to keep
anything but the sign in any marked degree of cleanliness. I was not
prepared, however, to find the place as filthy as it proved. The cutting
satire of the ensign was doubly apparent when I escaped again into the
square. A “Bobby” marched pompously up and down not far from the
brazen-voiced speaker, whose power of endurance should have won him a
livelihood somewhere.
“Where shall I find a fairly cheap lodging house?” I inquired.
“Try the Cawstle Inn h’over there,” replied “Bobby,” with a majestic
wave of his Sunday gloves towards the hostelry I had just inspected.
“But that place is not clean!” I protested.
“Not clean! Certainly it’s clean! There’s a bloomin’ law makes ’em keep
’em clean,” and “Bobby” glared at me as if I had libeled the King’s
Parliament and the Edinburgh police-force into the bargain.
I entered another inn facing the square, but was thankful to escape from
it to the one I had first visited. Paying my “tanner” at a misshapen
wicket, I received a stub bearing the number of my sty and passed into
the main room. It was furnished with benches, tables, and a cooking
establishment. For four pence the guest might have set before him an
unappetizing, though fairly abundant, supper. By far the greater number
of the inmates, however, were crowded around several cooking stoves at
the back of the room. Water, fuel, and utensils were provided gratis to
all who had paid their lodging. On the stoves was sputtering or boiling
every variety of cheap food, tended by tattered men who handled
frying-pans with their coat-tails as holders, and cut up cabbages or
peeled potatoes with knives on the blades of which were half-inch
deposits of tobacco. Each ate his concoction with the greatest relish as
soon as it showed the least sign of approaching an edible condition,
generally without any allowance of time for boiling messes to cool,
thereby suffering more than once dire injury.
Three days later I took passage for London and on the afternoon
following my arrival embarked at Gravesend on the _Batavien II_, bound
for Rotterdam. The steerage fare was five shillings; in view of the
accommodations, an extravagant price. My only companions amid the chaos
of so-called mattresses strewn about the hold were a German _Hufschmied_
and his bedraggled spouse, joint possessors of a bundle of rags
containing a most distressingly powerful pair of lungs. The odor of the
mattresses and the stench from the bundle turned the night into a
walking nightmare, which I spent in congratulating myself that the
voyage was to be of short duration.
I climbed on deck at sunrise to find the ship steaming at half speed
through a placid canal. Far down below us were clusters of squat
cottages, the white smoke of kindling fires curling slowly upward from
their chimneys. Here and there a peasant, looking quite tiny from the
height of our deck, crawled along across the flat meadows. Away in the
distance several stocky windmills were turning slowly yet ceaselessly in
the morning breeze.
The canal opened out into the teeming harbor of Rotterdam. A custom’s
officer inquired my profession, slapped me paternally on the back with a
warning in German to beware the “_schlechte Leute_” who lay in wait for
seamen ashore, and dismissed me, while the well-dressed tourist still
fumed over the uninspected luggage in his cabin.
I quickly tired of the confines of the city and turned out along the
flat highway to Delft. The route skirted a great canal; at intervals it
crossed branch waterways, all half-hidden by cumbersome cargo-boats.
Heavily laden boats toiled slowly by on their way to market, empty boats
glided easily homeward. On board, stocky men, bowed double over heavy
pike-poles, marched laboriously from bow to stern. Along the graveled
tow-paths that checkered the flat landscape, buxom women strained like
over-burdened oxen at the tow-ropes about their shoulders. Wherever one
met him the boating Dutchman shared most fairly with his wife the labor
of propelling his unwieldy craft, except that the wife walked and the
Dutchman rode.
In the early afternoon I briefly visited Delft, and pushed on towards
the Hague. No wayfarer, obviously, could in a single day become
accustomed to the national clatter of wooden shoes. Beyond Delft I
turned into a narrow roadway paved in cobblestones and flanked by two
canals. It was a quiet route even for Holland. In serene contentment I
pursued my lonely way, gazing off across the unbroken landscape.
Suddenly a galloping “rat-a-tat” sounded close behind me. What else but
a runaway horse could produce such a devil’s tattoo? To pause and glance
behind might cost me my life, for the frenzied brute was almost upon me.
With a swiftness born of fear I took to my heels. A few yards beyond was
a luckily-placed foot-bridge over one of the canals. I made a flying
leap at the structure and gained it in safety, just as there dashed by
me at full speed—a Hollander of some six summers, bound to market with a
basket on his arm!
“S-Gravenhage,” as the Dutchman calls his capital, was a city teeming
with interest; but Holland was one of those countries which I purposed
to “do” in orthodox tourist fashion and, after a few short hours in the
royal borough, I sought out the highway to Leiden. My seeking was not
particularly successful. The mongrel commixture of German, English, and
pantomime in which I carried on conversation with the natives was a
delectable language, but it did not always gain me lucid directions.
Sharply prosecuted inquiries brought me to a road to Leiden, right
enough, but it was not the public highway. Thanks to some
misconstruction of the native dactylology, I set out for the stamping
ground of Rembrandt along the old royal driveway.
It was a pleasure, of course, to travel by the Queen’s own promenade,
especially as it led through a fragrant forest park. Unfortunately, a
royal demesne is no place in which to find an inn when hunger and
darkness come on. This one had not even a cross-road to lead me back to
the main highway, and I plodded on into the night amid unbroken
solitude. Just what hour it was when I reached Leiden I know not. Beyond
question it was late, for the good people, and even the bad, except a
few drowsy policemen, were sound asleep; and with a painful number of
miles in my legs I went to bed on a pile of lumber.
The warming sun rose none too early, though long before the first
shopkeeper. Still fasting I set off towards Haarlem. On these flat
lowlands this Sabbath day was oppressively hot. Yet how dolorously
devout appeared the peasants who plodded for miles along the dusty
highway to the village church! The men, those same men so comfortably
picturesque in their work-a-day clothes, marched in their cumbersome
Sunday garments like converts doing penance for their sins. The women,
buxom always, but painfully awkward in stiffly starched gowns, tramped
swelteringly behind the males. Even the children, the rollicking
youngsters of the day before, were imprisoned in homemade
straight-jackets and suffered martyrdom in uncomplaining silence. But
one and all had a cheery word for the passerby and never that sour look
which one “on the road” encounters on British highways.
Often, since leaving Rotterdam, I had wondered at the absence of wells
in the rural districts. Surely these peasants’ cottages were not
connected by water-mains! Pondering the question, I had thus far
quenched my thirst only in the villages. But towards noon on this hot
Sunday an imperative call for water drove me to turn in at an isolated
cottage. Beside the road ran the omnipresent canal. A narrow foot-bridge
crossed it to the gate before the dwelling, around which flowed a branch
of the main waterway, giving a mooring for the peasant’s canal-boat. The
gate proved impregnable and it required much shouting to attract the
attention of the householder. At last, from around a corner of the
building, a _Vrouw_ of the most buxom type hove into view and bore down
upon me as an ocean liner sails into a calm harbor. My knowledge of
Dutch being nil, I followed my usual method of coining a language by a
process of elimination. Perhaps the lady spoke some German.
“Ein Glas Wasser, bitte.”
“Vat?”
It could do no harm to give my mother tongue a trial.
“A glass of water.”
“Eh!”
I tried a mixture of the two languages. For what is Dutch after all than
a jumble of badly spelled English and German words with the endings
lopped off?
“Ein glass of vater.” It was the open sesame.
“Vater?” shrieked the lady with such vehemence that the rooster in the
back yard leaped sideways a distance of six feet. “Vater!”
“Ja, vater, bitte.”
A profound silence succeeded, a silence so absolute that one could have
heard a fly pass by a hundred feet above. Slowly the lady placed a heavy
hand on the intervening gate. A shadow passed over her face, as though
she were mentally calculating the strength of resistance of the barrier
against a madman. Then, with a bovine snort, she wheeled about and
waddled towards the house. Close under the eaves of the cottage hung a
tin basin. Snatching it down without a pause, the human steamship set a
course for the family anchorage, stooped, dipped up a basinful of that
selfsame weed-clogged water that flowed by in abundance at my feet, and
tacked back across the yard to offer it to me with a magnanimous sigh of
resignation. I quenched my thirst thereafter, in rural Holland, at
roadside canals, after the manner of beasts of the field—and Hollanders.
Miles away from Haarlem appeared the great flower-farms for which this
region is famous and, growing more and more frequent, continued into the
very suburbs of the city itself. Across the ultra-fertile plain beyond,
the broad highway to Amsterdam ran as straight as a geometrical line.
From the city of tulips to where it disappeared in the fog of rising
heat waves, the thoroughfare was thronged with vehicles, riders, and,
above all, with wheelmen, who, refusing to swerve a hair’s breadth for
my convenience, drove me ever and anon into the wayside ditch. The
Hollander is, ordinarily, an obliging fellow, and in the main the humble
workman or pedestrian is fairly treated. Yet that distinct line of
demarkation between the “commoner” and the “upper class” is never
obliterated. The American laborer may spend some time in the British
Isles without noting this discrimination; he will not be long on the
continent before the advantage of his status at home is shown forth in
plain relief.
There is not that gradual shading off from the professional man to the
coal-heaver that exists in the United States. One can no more conceive
of a Hollander who looks forward to a career in the gentler walks of
life “beginning at the bottom” than of one who aspires to the papacy
taking a wife. He whose appearance stamps him as of those who live by
the sweat of the brow cannot complain of any overt act of oppression.
Yet he is early reminded that, as a worker with his hands, he has a
distinct place in society and that he must keep to it. Among his fellow
workmen, in his own caste, he lives and moves and has his being as in
our own land. But in other ranks he catches here and there a glance, a
gesture, a protesting silence, that brings home to him his lowly status.
My zigzag tramp ended late in the afternoon, and, after a deal of
wandering in and out among the canals of the metropolis, I took a garret
lodging overhanging a sluggish waterway. The proverbial cleanliness of
Holland is no mere figure of speech. Few cities of the same size have as
little of the slum district within their confines as Amsterdam. The
Dutch laborer is, in many ways, far better off than those of the same
class across the channel. In the city there is always a _Koffie Huis_
close at hand, where eggs, milk, cheeses, and dairy products in general
are served at small cost and in cleanly surroundings. Compare this diet
with that of the British workman, who subsists often, not on food, but
on the waste products of those places where food is prepared. One can
identify a Briton of the lower classes by his teeth. At twenty he has a
dozen, perhaps, that are neither broken off, crumbling, black, nor
missing. At thirty he shows a few yellow fangs. But one cannot determine
the class of the Hollander by the same sign. His diet is too wholesome.
Parks, museums, laborers’ quarters, and the necessity of a protracted
search each evening for my canalside garret kept me three days in
Amsterdam. On the fourth I drifted on board one of the tiny steamers of
the Zuidersee and journeyed to Hoorn. Hoorn is one of Holland’s dead
cities, one of the many from which prosperity and wealth departed to
come no more as the shifting sands of the North Sea blocked up their
channels and drove away the rich commerce that was their fortune. Now
they are dead indeed. A tiny remnant of a great population clatters
along their deserted streets, a few of the ancient mansions house
humbler inmates, and all about is ruin.
By no means regretting the whim that had carried me away to this land of
yesterday, I set back along the See towards Amsterdam. The typical
Hollander is nowhere seen to better advantage than in this district. The
population plies two vocations. Along the shores and on the adjoining
islands the stolid, picturesque fisherman is predominant. In the great,
flat meadows the care of his cattle occupies the no less stolid, if less
quaint, peasant.
There are wheat shocks even in Holland. As night was falling over the
vast plain I withdrew to a roadside field and retired. A Dutchman spied
me out in my resting-place at some silent hour, but sped away across the
country like a firm believer in ghosts when I offered to share my bed. I
awoke at daybreak to find myself within sight of the much maligned
island of Marken, with an unobstructed view of the quaint old church of
Monnickendam, a once populous city that has shrunk to a baggy-trousered
hamlet of fisherfolk. Beyond the town there rattled by occasionally a
milk or baker’s cart, drawn, now by one dog, now by a team of two or
three, harnessed together with utter disregard to size, breed, or
disposition. Sometimes, indeed, a canine and a human team-mate tugged
together at the traces.
There ran a rumor in my favorite Koffie Huis soon after my arrival at
Amsterdam in the afternoon, that a cargo-boat which carried passengers
for a song was to leave at four for Arnheim on the Rhine. I thrust a
lunch into a pocket and hurried down to the mooring-place of the
international liner. She was a canal-boat some twenty-five feet long and
eight wide, as black as a coal-barge, though by no means as clean; her
uncovered deck piled high with boxes, barrels, and crates ranging in
contents from beer mugs to protesting live stock. I scrambled over the
cargo and found a seat on a barrel of oil. It was already after four,
but there was really no reason for my anxious haste. No Dutch cargo-boat
was ever known to depart at the hour set.
It turned out that the overburdened craft was not yet loaded. From time
to time lethargic longshoremen wandered down to the wharf with more
bales, crates, and boxes, and stacked them high about us. It was long
after dark when their task was done, and, what with quarrels between the
captain and the crew as to the proper channel, we were scarcely out of
the harbor when dawn broke.
A long day we spent in jumping about the cargo like jack-rabbits, in a
vain attempt to keep out of the way of the crew searching for a bale to
set ashore at each wayside village. That alone would have been
endurable. But our lives were made miserable by two Hungarians, owners
of a barrel organ, who insisted that the infernal squawk which the
machine emitted was “moosik,” and who had the audacity to invite us
periodically to pay for the torture.
I left the cargo-boat at Arnheim and, halting at the principal cities on
its banks, made my way up the Rhine by steamer and on foot in a few days
to Mainz. From there I turned eastward along the highway to Frankfurt.
Strange and varied had been my sleeping-places in Germany. The
innkeepers of the Fatherland, fearful of punishment for lodging those
who turn out to be “wanted” by His Majesty’s officers, are chary of
offering accommodations to strangers. Whether it was due to the garb
that stamped me as a wanderer or to a foreign accent, it was my fate to
be treated in the Kaiser’s realm as an extremely suspicious member of
society.
It was late at night when I reached Frankfurt. The highway ended among
the palatial edifices of the business section, and I wandered long in
search of the poorer quarters. At last, in a dingy side street a tavern,
offering _logieren_ at one mark, drew my attention. Truly it was a high
price to pay for a bed, but the hour was late and the night stormy. I
entered the drinking-room, and waiting until the _Kellner_ could catch a
moment’s respite from his strenuous task of silencing the shouts of
“_Glas Bier_” that rose above the tumult, made my wants known.
“Beds?” cried the Kellner, too busy with his glasses to look up at me,
“To be sure. We have always plenty of beds. One mark.”
But _mein Herr_ the proprietor was staring at me from the back of the
hall. Slowly he shuffled forward, cocked his head on one side, and
scrutinized me intently from out his bleary eyes.
“What does he want?” he demanded, turning to the tapster.
I answered the query myself and the customary inquisition began.
“Woher kommen Sie?”
[Illustration: A baker’s cart of Holland on the morning round]
[Illustration: A public laundry on the Rhine at Mainz, Germany]
Knowing from experience the order of the questions, I launched forth
into the story of my life, past, present, and future, or as much of it
as was in keeping with the assertion that I was an American sailor on a
sight-seeing expedition in the Fatherland. Plainly my hearers regarded
it as a clumsy tale. Long before I had ended, the proprietor, the
Kellner, and those clients of the house that had clustered around us,
fell to nudging each other with grimaces of incredulity. The _Wirt_,
harassed by the conflicting emotions of greed and fear, blinked his
pudgy eyes and glanced for inspiration into the faces about him. The
temptation to add another mark to his coffers was strong within him. Yet
what would the police inspector say in the morning to the name of a
foreigner on his register? He scratched his grizzly poll with a force
that suggested that he was going clear down through it to extract an
idea with his stubby fingers, glanced once more at the tipplers, and
surrendered to fear.
“Es tut mir leid, Junge,” he puffed, with a prolonged blink, “I am
sorry, but we have not a bed left in the house.”
I wandered out into the night and told my story to a second, a third,
and even a fourth innkeeper with the same result. In despair I turned in
at the fifth house resolved to try a strange plan—to tell the truth. In
carefully chosen words I explained my identity and my purpose in
visiting Germany in laborer’s garb. Never before since leaving Detroit
had I resorted to such an expedient, and I took good care not to repeat
the experiment during my subsequent travels. I had barely elucidated my
situation when the landlord informed me in no uncertain terms that I was
a liar and an ass into the bargain; and that a hasty retreat from his
establishment was the surest way of preserving my good health. He was a
creature of awe-inspiring proportions, and I followed his suggestion
promptly. At midnight a policeman directed me to an inn where suspicious
characters were less of a novelty, and I was soon asleep.
I had not yet well learned the lesson, begun in the British Isles, that
the homes of the famous of a century ago are the slums of to-day. Next
morning I turned back to the brilliant thoroughfares, expecting to find
somewhere along them the birthplace of Goethe. Once amid such
surroundings as the greatest of the Germans might fittingly have graced
by his presence, I addressed myself to a policeman. Goethe? Why, yes,
the name seemed familiar. He was not sure, but he fancied the fellow
lived in the eastern part of the city, and directed me accordingly. The
way led through narrow, winding streets. Now and then I went astray, to
be set right again by other minions of the law. The quest cost me a
goodly amount of shoe-leather and most of the morning, but I found at
last the landmark I was seeking—exactly across the street from the inn
in which I had slept.
There was in Frankfurt after all a lodging house where wanderers free
from the burden of wealth were welcome. I came across it during the
day’s roaming and took care not to forget its location. Several
disreputable humans were wending their way thither as twilight fell and,
joining them, I entered a great, dingy hall, low of ceiling, and poorly
served in the matter of windows. A cadaverous female, established behind
a rust-eaten wicket, was dealing out _Schlafmarken_ at thirty _Pfennig_
(7 cents) each. I pocketed one and hastened to find a place on one of
the wooden benches; for the hall was rapidly filling with members of the
Brotherhood of the Great Unwashed.
Drowsiness came quickly in the stifling atmosphere. I stepped to the
wicket and asked to be shown to my quarters.
“What!” croaked the hollow-eyed matron, “bed? You can’t sleep yet. Wait
till you hear the bell at ten-thirty.”
I turned back to the bench only to find that another squatter had jumped
my claim. Too sleepy to stand unaided, I hung myself up against the wall
and waited. If the dreams from which I was aroused were not much shorter
than they seemed, several days passed before there sounded the sudden
clang of an iron-voiced bell. The resulting stampede carried me to the
second floor.
In an evilly-ventilated room, lower of ceiling than the hall below, I
found that cot thirty-seven, to which I had been assigned, could be
reached only by climbing over several of the sixty which as many men in
varying stages of insobriety were preparing to occupy. By a series of
contortions, in the execution of which I often thumped with my elbows
the man behind me and displaced my cot sufficiently to cause the
downfall of my opposite neighbor, whose equilibrium was far from stable,
I succeeded in removing my shoes and coat. To venture further in the
disrobing process seemed undesirable. I spread my germ-proof jacket
across the animated coverlet and lay down. Before the last sot had
ceased his maudlin grumbling there broke out here and there in the room
a dialogue of snores. Rapidly it increased to a chorus. In ten minutes
the ensemble would have put to shame the most atrocious steam calliope
ever inflicted upon a defenceless public. Reiterated kicks and punches
reduced to comparative silence the few slumberers within reach; by
shying one shoe at a distant sleeper whose specialty was a nerve-racking
falsetto and the other at a fellow whose deep bass set the cots to
trembling in sympathy, I brought a moment’s respite. But the dread of
going forth in the morning unshod drove me on an expedition across the
bodies of my roommates and, by the time I had recovered my footwear, the
chorus was again swelling forth in Wagnerian volume. I gave up in
despair and settled down on the hill and dale mattress to convince
myself that I was sleeping in spite of the infernal bedlam.
There runs a proverb, the origin of which is lost among the traditions
of hoar antiquity, to the effect that misfortunes travel in bands. That
it is true I have never doubted since the day following that
broken-backed night in Frankfurt. It was curiosity that called down upon
my head this new adversity, for naught else could have moved me to
investigate the secrets hidden behind a fourth-class ticket to Weimar.
In all the countries of Europe there is nothing that compares with the
fourth-class railway service of Germany. The necessity of providing some
mode of transportation cheaper than walking may be an excuse for its
perpetration, but woe betide the unsuspecting traveler who, for mere
matter of economy, abandons for this system that of our ancient
forebears.
Intending to take the nine o’clock train, I purchased a ticket about
eight-forty and stepped out upon the platform just in time to hear a
guard bellow the German variation of “all aboard.” The Weimar train
stood close at hand. As I stepped towards it, four policemen, strutting
about the platform, let out simultaneous war-whoops, and sprang after
me.
“Wo gehen Sie hin?” shrieked the first to reach me.
“Ich gehe nach Weimar.”
“Aber, the train to Weimar is gone!” shouted the second officer.
As I had a hand on the carriage door, I made so bold as to deny the
assertion.
“Aber, ja, er ist fort!” gasped the sergeant who brought up the rear of
the constabulary deluge. “It is gone! The guard has already said ‘all
aboard.’”
The train stood at the edge of the platform long enough to have emptied
and filled again; but, as it was gone ten minutes before it started, I
was forced to wait for the next one at ten-thirty.
The fourth-class carriage, unlike other European cars, was built on the
American plan, with a door at each end. In reality it was nothing more
than a box car with wooden benches around the sides and a few apologies
for windows. Almost before we were under way, the most unkempt couple
aboard stood up and turned loose what they evidently thought was a song.
Many of the passengers seemed to be victims of the same auricular
illusion, for the pair gleaned a handful of Pfennige before descending
at the first station. The bawl of cracked voices, however, was but a
prelude to worse visitations, for, as no train man enters the cars while
they are in motion, fourth-class travelers are the prey of every grafter
who chooses to inflict himself upon them.
We stopped at a station at least every four miles during that day’s
journey. At the first hamlet beyond Frankfurt the car slowly filled with
peasants and laborers in heavy boots and rough smocks, who carried
sundry farm implements ranging from pitchforks to young plows. Sunburned
women, on whose backs were strapped huge baskets stuffed with every
product of the countryside from cabbages to babies, packed into the
center of the car, turned their backs upon those of us who occupied the
benches, and serenely leaned themselves and their loads against us. The
carriage filled at last to its utmost limits, and its capacity passed
belief, a guard outside closed the heavy door with a bang, and uttered a
mighty shout of “_Vorsicht_”! (look out), evidently to inform those near
the portal that they were lucky to have “looked out” before it was
slammed. The station master on the platform, a man boasting a uniform no
American rear-admiral could afford, or dare to appear in, raised a
hunting-horn to his lips and gave as a signal of departure such a blast
as echoed through the ravines of Roncesvalles. The head-guard drew his
whistle and shrilly seconded the command of his superior. The engineer
whistled back to inform the guard that he was ready to do his duty. The
guard repeated his sibilant order. The driver liberated another pent-up
shriek to show how easily his engine could reach high C, or to imply
that he was fast nerving himself up to open the throttle; the man on the
platform whistled again to cheer him on; a heroic squeal came from the
cab in answer; and, with a jerk that sent peasants, baskets, farm-tools,
lime-pails, cabbages, and babies into a conglomerate, struggling mass at
the back end of the car, we were off. To celebrate which auspicious
event the engineer emitted a final shriek and gave a second yank, lest
some sure-footed individual had by any chance retained his equilibrium.
By the time some semblance of order had been restored, unwieldy peasant
women pulled out of the clawing miscellany and stood right end up,
cabbages and babies restored to their proper baskets, pitchforks and
smocks disentangled, the next station was reached and a sudden stop
undid all our efforts, this time stacking the passengers at the front
end. Some minutes after the train had come to a standstill, when
long-distance travelers had lost all hope of relief from the sweltering
congestion, the countrymen began slowly to wander out at the doors. The
exodus continued until there remained in the car only those few
through-passengers, who, utterly cowed and subjugated, shrank back on
the benches to escape attention. Then the vanguard of another multitude,
bound for a village some three miles distant, made its appearance and
history repeated itself.
There were times, too, during the journey when the villages were
apparently too far apart to suit the engine-driver. For occasionally,
soon after having run through his entire repertoire of toots, he
suddenly, remarkably suddenly in fact, brought the engine to a halt in
the open country. But as German railway laws forbid voyagers to step
out, crawl out, or peep out of the car under such circumstances without
a special permit from the guard, countersigned under seal by the
head-guard, there was no means of learning whether the engineer had lost
his courage or merely caught sight of a wild flower that particularly
took his fancy.
Such are the pleasures of a fourth-class excursion in Germany. Travelers
by first-class, it is said, suffer fewer inconveniences, but, however
varied the accommodations may be, the prices are more so. At every
booking-office is posted a placard giving the cost of transportation to
every other town in the Empire. He who would ride on upholstered seats
pays a bit higher rate than in the United States. Second-class costs
one-half, third-class one-fourth as much. Three other rates are quoted:
fourth-class, soldiers’ tickets, and _Hundekarten_ (dog tickets). The
German conscript pays one-half fourth-class fare and rides in a
third-class carriage. Hundekarten cost fourth-class fare. Verily it is
better in Germany to be a soldier than a dog—at least while traveling.
I arrived at Weimar late at night. A stroll to Jena the following
afternoon led through a pleasant rural district well known to the “poet
pair” of Germany and the soldiers of Napoleon. From Jena I turned
westward again, and, braving the rigors of fourth-class travel for two
interminable days, descended during the waning hours of July at the city
of Metz.
When August broke in the east, I turned pedestrian once more and set out
towards Paris on the _Route Nationale_, constructed in the days when
Mayence was a proud French city. The road wound its way over rolling
hills, among the ravines and valleys of which was fought a great battle
of the Franco-Prussian war. For miles along the way, dotting the
hillsides, standing singly or in clusters along lazy brooks, or
half-hidden by the foliage of summer, were countless simple, white
crosses, bearing only the brief inscription “Hier ruhen Krieger-1870.”
Beyond, the colossal statue of a soldier of past decades pointed away
across a deep-wooded glen to the vast graveyard of his fallen comrades.
A mile further on, in the open country, out of sight of even a peasant’s
cottage, two iron posts at the wayside marked the boundary established
by the treaty of Versailles. A farmer with his mattock stood in Germany
grubbing at a weed that grew in France.
Mindful of the lack of cordiality that exists between the two countries,
I anticipated some delay at the frontier. The customhouse was a mere
cottage, the first building of a straggling village some miles beyond
the international line. A mild-eyed Frenchman, in a uniform worn shiny
across the shoulders and the seat of the trousers, wandered out into the
highway at my approach. Behind him strolled a second officer. But the
difficulties I had expected were existent only in my own imagination.
The pair cried out in surprise at mention of my nationality; they grew
garrulous at the announcement that I was bound to Paris _à pied_. But
their only official act was to inspect my bundle, and I pressed on amid
their cries of “bon voyage.”
The highways of France are broad and shaded, her innkeepers neither
exclusive nor intrusive; yet even here pedestrianism has its drawbacks.
Chief among them are the railway crossings. The French system of
protection against accidents is effective, no doubt; but if _monsieur_
the Frenchman were as impatient a being as the American the mortality
would be little lessened, for the delay involved at these _traverses du
chemin de fer_ would choke with rising choler as many as might come to
grief at an unprotected crossing.
On either side of the track is a ponderous _barrière_, the opening and
shutting of which would be slow under the best of circumstances. Being
always tended by a colossal _barrièrière_ (gate-woman) who moves with
the stately grace of a house being raised on jack-screws, the barricade
is unduly effective. Ten minutes before a train is due, _la barrièrière_
hoists herself erect, waddles across the track to draw the further gate,
closes the nearer one, and, having locked both, returns to the shade of
her cottage. The train may be an hour late, but that is beside the
question. This is the time that Madame is hired to lock the gates and
locked they must remain until the train has passed. Woe betide the
intrepid voyager who tries to climb over them, for her tongue is sharp
and the long arm of the law is arrayed on her side.
Plodding early and late, I covered the round-about route through
Châlons, Rheims, and Meaux, and reached Paris a few days after crossing
the frontier. A month of tramping had made me as picturesque a figure as
any _boulevardier_ of Montmartre; moreover, August in the French capital
was neither the time nor the place to display garments chosen with the
winds of the Scottish Highlands in mind. I picked up in the Boulevard
St. Denis, at a gross expenditure of fifteen francs, an outfit more in
keeping with the weather, took up my abode in a garret of the Latin
Quarter, and roamed at large in the city for three weeks.