1879
A TRIP THROUGH THE BLACK FOREST--STEIN ON THE RHINE--A FAMOUS
CASTLE--“ALL BLOWN UP”--GOOD ROADS--FOX HUNTING.
_June 4, 1879._--Two weeks since, friends invited us to accompany them
on an extended drive through the Black Forest. Such a drive, through
charming scenery, and with perfect June weather, was a pleasure nobody
thought of declining.
We entered the Black Forest at Stein on the Rhine, and staid all
night there. The scenery of the fair Rhine, the ancient castles, the
picturesque hills, and the little town with its architecture of an
age long past, gave us great enjoyment. The still perfect castle of
Hohenklingen, far up on the rocks above us, is a thousand years old.
This would be a spot for romance and poetry.
Long years ago I was here in Stein, but passing years make no change in
the perfectly romantic appearance of the place.
Very shortly we were in the midst of what in earlier times was only a
vast forest, dangerous for travelers to enter. Even now, away from the
old towns and villages, the clean, white highway winds among forests of
pine trees whose resinous odor is delightful to the senses. The woods
are full of game, and at rare intervals we see a fox.
Parts of these vast woods are owned by rich landlords who hold them as
“game preserves,” and who lease them out to lovers of the hunt in the
cities of Switzerland and Germany.
Many a delightful and exciting time have I had with my friends, the
Witts or the Schwarzenbachs, hunting foxes and deer in those same Black
Forest woods.
Usually we came with our guns on the train, to the hamlet of Singen.
The gamekeeper would meet us at the station, and the next morning he
had a dozen peasants beating the bush for us, while we stood like
sentinels, at obscure hidden pathways in the woods, waiting to fire on
the fleeing game. Those who could shoot at all, had good luck always.
At noon, servants would bring baskets of lunch, including good wine,
from the village to us. A rousing fire was made of brushwood, the
slaughtered hares, deer, pheasants and foxes were put in piles to look
at, and then a picnic was enjoyed such as only hunters with appetites
dream of. There was more chasing again in the afternoon. Often a friend
who owned an old-time castle on the hills near by took us home with
him, when a night was made of it--such a night as must have made some
of his ancestors (whose bones lay under the floor at our feet, in the
big hall) wish themselves alive again.
Our friends took us from Stein to Hohentwyl, one of the greatest castle
ruins in the world. It must have been an imposing sight in the Middle
Ages. It sits like a high and isolated island on the level land in the
Duchy of Baden. Yet it belongs to another kingdom (Würtemberg). Once,
at the close of a war, the conqueror left it to the conquered, just for
sweet honor’s sake, and for the brave fighting of its defenders.
One wonders now how the princes and peasants of these valleys were rich
enough to build such stupendous affairs. The peasants are poor here,
now. What were they in the Middle Ages, with a baron and his castle
sitting on every hill?
This particular castle, however, dating from the ninth century, was
built and owned by rich German lords. Once it was the home of the
beautiful Duchess Hadwig, the heroine of “Ekkehard,” that most
beautiful of German novels.
I must relate a joke. Mrs. C---- and my wife had been conducted over
the vast ruins one forenoon. In the afternoon, I climbed on to the
rocky height where the castle sits. When I rang at the castle door,
the guide who came seemed to have spent his last pourboire for whisky.
He showed me to the main tower, remarking in bad and muddled Dutch
that it was once great, but the “French Army had blown it all up--all
up.” He walked ahead of me, constantly smoking and muttering to
himself--“Yes--Ja, by Gott! blown up--all blown up.” Each wall or tower
or room he conducted me to, was “great,” but he quickly added “blown
up.” I wondered where the ladies were, and inquired of my maudlin guide
if he had seen two women that afternoon, with dark dresses and white
parasols. “Ja,” he answered, “saw them”--paused a moment, took his cob
out of his mouth and continued--“_all blown up_.”
The French invasion of some old century had been too much for him.
He had talked of it and the exploded castle until he could think of
nothing else, and as he closed the door behind, looking at the little
coin I had dropped into his hand, I heard him mutter, “Ja--_all blown
up_.”
_June 8._--As we drive through out of the way places, and to
unfrequented hamlets in the Black Forest, far away from railroads, we
find a simplicity of life that possibly has changed little in centuries.
Living is very cheap. We never pay more than twenty cents for
breakfast. The brooks are all full of delicious trout, and at wayside
inns they take them right out of the brook for us, and charge but a
trifle for all we can eat.
The scene is everywhere entirely different from Switzerland; yet the
green hills, the great woods, the white roads, the flash of hundreds
of bright waterfalls, the village church towers, with a stork’s nest
on the top of every one, are almost as interesting to us as the Alps
themselves.
Often when our showy equipage passed some farm, the peasants stopped
work and stood stock still, leaning on their hoes and looking at us.
Many men doff their caps and the women courtesy, guessing no doubt,
from the showy four-horse drag, it was the Kaiser himself passing.
The seclusion of the old, old hamlets in the woods, the quiet
everywhere, almost makes us lonesome.
Yesterday we were invited to visit a big farmhouse a little distance
from the road. The owner was a rich bauer--“very rich,” his neighbors
said. Yet, his big, good-looking daughter in wooden shoes and _very_
short petticoats, was engaged in cleaning out the stables. She came to
us with the big stable fork in her hand, and in the most agreeable way
showed us about the place. She was all smiles and jokes and good humor.
She was “smart” too. I thought of “M’liss” in one of Bret Harte’s
stories.
We saw an enormous fire-place in the kitchen, without any chimney.
The smoke simply ascended, or tried to ascend, through a pyramid of
boards. The room was too much for us. “Don’t the smoke hurt your eyes
terribly?” said my wife to the girl’s mother, as she wiped the tears
away and tried to get her breath. “Oh! yes,” answered the good woman,
“it’s terrible on the eyes, but just splendid for smoking hams.”
At many places along the country roads, we passed children with
baskets, gathering the manure up from the highways. This they carry
into their father’s fields. But every twig, stick or stone that can
deface a white smooth road, is gathered up and taken away. Each farmer,
for certain fixed distances along the highway, is a “care taker” of
the road, and his little income from his farm is increased by a small
allowance from the public treasury.
In the vicinity of Friberg, with its wonderful waterfalls and green
mountains, we see as beautiful scenery as the heart could wish.
Little of the Black Forest life or scenery is even guessed at by a
traveler on the train. The characteristic things of continental life in
general are no longer on the routes of public travel.