A LAND WHERE STORKS LIVE
We were at Freiburg in the lower edge of the Black Forest some time
during the afternoon, one of the cleanest cities I have ever seen, one
of the richest in color scheme. Large towns are not likely to be
picturesque, but Freiburg, in spite of its general freshness, has a look
of solid antiquity--an antiquity that has not been allowed to go to
seed. Many of the houses, including the cathedral, are built of a rich
red stone, and some of them have outer decorations, and nearly all of
them have beautiful flowers in the windows and along the balconies. I
should think a dweller in Freiburg would love the place.
Freiburg has been, and still is, celebrated for many things; its
universities, its cathedral, its ancient buildings, in recent years for
its discovery of "twilight sleep," the latest boon which science has
offered to sorrow-laden humanity.
It is a curious road from Freiburg to Basle. Sometimes it is a highway,
sometimes it is merely a farm road across fields. More than once we felt
sure we were lost and must presently bring up in a farmyard. Then
suddenly we would be between fine hedges or trees, on a wide road
entering a village.
We had seen no storks when we left Freiburg. We had been told there were
some in Strassburg, but no one had been able to point them out. We were
disappointed, for we had pictured in our minds that, once really in the
Black Forest, there would be, in almost any direction, a tall chimney
surmounted by a big brushy nest, with a stork sitting in it, and
standing by, supported on one very slim, very long, very perpendicular
leg, another stork, keeping guard. This is the picture we had seen many
times in the books, and we were grieved, even rather resentful, that it
was not to be found in reality. We decided that it probably belonged
only in the books, fairy books, and that while there might have been
storks once, just as there had once been fairies, they had disappeared
from mortal vision about the same time--that nobody in late years had
really seen storks--that--
But just then we really saw some ourselves--sure-enough storks on an old
steeple, two of them, exactly as they always are in the pictures, one
nice mother stork sitting in a brushy nest and one nice father stork
standing on his stiff, perpendicular leg.
We stopped the car to gaze. The church was in an old lost-looking
village, which this stork seemed to own, for there were no others, and
the few people we saw did not appear to have anything like the stork's
proprietary interest. We could hardly take our eyes from that old
picture, suddenly made reality.
We concluded, however, that it was probably the only stork family in
Germany; but that, also, was a mistake. A little farther along, at
another village, was another old stubby steeple, and another pair of
storks, both standing this time, probably to see us go by. Every
village had them now, but I think in only one village did we see more
than a single pair. That little corner of the Schwarzwald will always
remain to us a part separated from the rest of the world--a sort of
back-water of fairyland.
The German customs office is on one side of a road, the Swiss on the
other, and we stopped in a shady place and interviewed both. We did not
dread these encounters any more. We had long since learned that if there
was one class of persons abroad likely to be more courteous than others
to travelers, that class is the customs officials.
This particular frontier was in the edge of Basle, and presently we had
crossed a bridge and were in the city, a big, beautiful city, though not
so handsome as Freiburg, not so rich in color, not quite so clean and
floral.
We did not stop in Basle. There are wonders to be seen, but, all things
considered, we thought it better to go on. With good luck we might reach
Vevey next day, our European headquarters and base of supplies. We had
been more than two months on the road already; it was important that we
get to headquarters--more important than we knew.