good deal of the Black Forest, but really had no idea what it was. The
name sounded as if it might be a part of Arkansas or Louisiana, and I
think I was looking for swamps and waste land covered with underbrush
and impenetrable to travelers except on made roads. But as a matter of
fact it is as delightful and beautiful a country as I have seen since I
left Kansas. The land is mountainous, but it is fertile and the valleys
and hillsides are dotted with thrifty-looking little farms. The name
applies, all right, for the mountains are covered with dense forests
of spruce trees with a dark-green foliage which looks really black.
The farming land has evidently been cleared in the centuries that have
passed since the roving Germans settled into peaceful peasants and
quit their occupation of making Rome howl by raiding and pillaging the
towns of the declining empire. The Black Forest covers a great part
of southwest Germany, mostly in the state or grand duchy of Baden. Up
to a short time ago it had a number of practically independent little
kingdoms about the size of your hat, which were in a perpetual struggle
for existence and recognition. Anthony Hope used the Black Forest
as the scene for his Zenda stories, and to-day we came through the
principality of Fürstenberg, one of his favorite places, in which the
prince of Fürstenberg still holds an honorary position but under the
actual government of Emperor William. I also noticed that the prince
was proprietor of a big brewery.
It is harvest-time in the Black Forest, and men and women are gathering
the crops, small grain and hay, using the hand-sickle and the hand-rake
but doing their work in a thorough manner. When they get through the
raking I don’t suppose there is a waste straw left lying on the ground
or a kernel of grain which is not carefully picked up. The farmer in
Europe would get rich on what an American farmer drops on the way from
the field to the barn. They have fine horses and cattle in the Black
Forest, and look prosperous. When one horse is used in a wagon he is
harnessed alongside the pole and not between shafts. I was told the
reason was that it was to make it easy to add another horse if desired
without changing the pole. That was nearly as strange as the one horse
alongside the pole.
[Illustration]
The time is past when the sight of ladies working in the field excites
any interest, although I still have a little feeling when the woman is
sixty or seventy years old. It is not so bad in Germany, and especially
in the Black Forest, where the air is light and exhilarating; and
then the men work too. In Italy the hauling was done by animals as
follows: Horses, oxen, cows, dogs, women. Sometimes a woman and a
dog were hitched together to small wagons, especially milk carts. In
Switzerland the dogs were still in harness, but the women were out
of it. And in the Black Forest I believe the dogs are freed, as all
the vehicles I have seen have been drawn by horses or oxen. Perhaps
it will be different later. I write now only of the Black Forest. We
drove for twelve miles down one of the valleys and through the little
villages. A number of the old peasant costumes were worn by women and
girls, although most of them were dressed in the same styles as in
Paris or Hutchinson. A very striking head-dress for the feminine is one
of the Black Forest styles, a bonnet with two large wings extending
upward at an angle of about 40 degrees from the head, and with flowing
bands several feet long down the back. Girls and unmarried women have
bright-colored wings and bands, married women must wear black. By the
way, the women of continental Europe wherever we have been have worn
earrings,—France, Italy, and Switzerland. As American women generally
discarded these disfiguring ornaments several years ago, the sight has
been a strange one. Especially in Italy are the earrings large and
imposing, rich and poor vieing with each other in size of the pendants
and rings.
[Illustration]
Aside from agriculture the main industry of the Black Forest is
wood-carving and clock-making. There are some small factories, but as
a rule the work is done at home; and it is very good. We visited one
of these home shops, and the whole family showed us their handiwork.
A beautifully carved wooden hall clock with a cuckoo and a music-box
which played every half-hour was only $4 American money. It must
have taken the man a week to make it, and in our country the price
would have been several times as large. There is a big tariff on this
ware going into America, and it is all right. If it were not so, our
American wood-workers would have to learn another trade or work for $4
or $5 a week. And if they got only $4 or $5 a week they would not eat
much meat, buy much clothing, or pay for many newspapers. See?
The people of the Black Forest are a charming, friendly lot. I suppose
they are as happy as anybody, although one of them was very proud of a
brother who had gone to America and was making “much geld,” and whom
he would follow if he could. All through Europe I meet people who have
relatives in America, and that may account for the friendly treatment
I have everywhere received. These American relatives have all gotten
“rich” according to their European relatives, which shows that the
immigrants to our country all succeed or keep a stiff upper lip when
they write to the folks in the fatherland.
[Illustration]
The architecture of the Black Forest houses is as striking as any I
have seen. Nearly every farmhouse is very large, at least three stories
high, and on one or more sides the roof “gambrels” off from the high
ridge nearly to the ground. The effect is like a tent-covering, and
the roof is often thatched or tiled in two or three colors,—on some
the green grass is growing. Part of the house is the barn. The winter
here is said to be severe, and the Forest peasant evidently believes
in having his family and his horses, cows and chickens where they
can be comfortable and sociable. The houses are extra clean, and the
furniture, dishes and utensils of the kitchen shine with the good
polishing they must receive. The little farms are tilled to the limit,
and are generally irrigated and always fertilized. Just to show how
these people manage to get a living out of the ground and the care they
use to get it all, I saw women and men on the roadside with baskets
cleaning the road of manure and carrying it to their land.
[Illustration]
We have had to learn a new money system in Germany. France, Italy,
Switzerland and Belgium have what is called a “Latin league,”
with interchangeable currency, the unit being the franc (France,
Switzerland, and Belgium), and the lire (Italy). But Germany joins
no Latin leagues. The unit of the German currency is the “mark,”
equivalent to twenty-five cents American. This is divided into
one hundred pfennigs. Prices are carried out to the pfennig, and
one-pfennig coins (in value one-fourth of one cent) are seen more
than our one-cent pieces at home. That illustrates the close, exact,
economical German spirit. The first time I made a small purchase in
Germany I got a pocketful of change. Mrs. Morgan wanted a little money,
and I gave her a couple of handfuls. She said she didn’t want so much,
as she only intended to buy inexpensive things. I had actually given
her about fifty cents. When one hundred copper coins make twenty-five
cents and they are used in most transactions, you can realize what a
heavy load you carry and how you can get that wealthy feeling without
much actual expense.
[Illustration]
Soon after leaving Constance our road turned away from the Rhine, and
going through a tunnel we were in the valley of the Danube. It startled
me a little, as I had always connected the Danube with Austria and
Turkey. But sure enough, we were riding along the banks of the Danube,
which has been made famous by history, poetry and music. If a raindrop
fell on one side of that hill it would go down to the Rhine to the
Baltic, and if the wind blew it over to the other side before it struck
the earth it would start eastward and journey down the Danube to the
Black sea. Rivers are like human beings,—they get their directions
from the place where they start and go onward along the road of least
resistance to the place appointed, unless dammed or taken up by man
or God, in which case they will struggle and work to seep back to the
channel in which it was intended they should make their course.
By the way, the “Beautiful Blue Danube” is not blue at all in this part
of its career, but almost black, seemingly taking its hue from the
forests in which it has its origin.
[Illustration]
The town of Triberg is a quaint little place near the top of the
mountain, and apparently about one hundred miles from Nowhere. I have
had my first experience with what I understand is not infrequent in
old German towns. There is a tax on strangers, thirty pfennigs a day
or one mark a week, and our hotel has to pay and charge in our bill.
Ministers of the gospel, and paupers, are exempt. In America if they
had a fool tax like that they would also exempt newspaper men. The
only way I could get out of paying the tax was to make affidavit that
I was a minister or a pauper, so I reluctantly gave up the offer to
dodge taxation and the town of Triberg is fifteen cents to the good on
account of our stay. However, there is a very fine waterfall, and we
looked fifteen cents’ worth at that and called it even.
STORIES OF STRASSBURG.
STRASSBURG, GERMANY, July 18, 1905.
To use the American vernacular, Strassburg is a good town. It has
the best-looking stores, the most energetic acting people and the
most thriving appearance of any city since we left Paris. The reason
for this is probably the mingling of the German and the French and
the location of the city as the metropolis of a very rich territory
lying in both countries. Strassburg is a German city in which the
people are at heart French. Thirty years ago the treaty which ended
the Franco-German war gave Strassburg and two of the rich provinces
of eastern France, Alsace and Lorraine, to the German empire. But
it did not give the German emperor a warranty deed to the hearts of
the people, and they long for their old associations. Probably the
new generation is not so much disposed to France, and the influence
of education and environment will gradually change the desire of the
Alsatians to be sometime reunited with their old countrymen, but time
and again to-day in talking with the Strassburgers they have given me
to understand that they were not Germans but French.
Strassburg has a history as a city on its own account. Away back in
1300 the people revolted from the rule of the bishop who was their
sovereign, and gained their independence. For 400 years Strassburg
was what is known as a “free city,” owing some allegiance to the
German empire but governing itself and doing about as it pleased. The
language, the customs and the sympathy of the people were German. In
1681 Louis XIV. of France in a time of peace seized Strassburg, and a
few years later in a general treaty France was confirmed in the title,
and from that time until 1871 it was a French city. During the war
of 1870 Strassburg did not surrender to the overwhelming German army
until its defenses were battered down and the city bombarded. And as I
wrote from Paris, in the galaxy of statues representing the cities of
France in the Parisian Place de la Concorde, the statue of Strassburg
is hung with emblems of mourning, and some day France will fight to
get the city back. Germany knows this, and the city has been strongly
fortified and a garrison of 15,000 German soldiers is kept there. So
many soldiers in a city of 150,000 people give a showy look to the
streets, the promenades and the public places, and doubtless is a good
thing financially for the merchants.
[Illustration]
Since leaving Italy I have sworn off on cathedrals, but I had to go to
the one here because it is a good one and because of the Strassburg
clock. The spire of the Strassburg cathedral is one of the highest
in Europe, 465 feet, beating by a few feet St. Peter’s at Rome and
St. Paul’s in London. The rest of the building is just the ordinary
cathedral except for the clock. The first big clock was constructed
here in 1352 and it lasted two centuries, when another took its place,
to be succeeded sixty years ago by the present one. This clock is about
the size of the front of an ordinary church. It not only tells the hour
and minute of the day, but the day of the week, the month of the year,
the feast days of the church, and is regulated to run for centuries,
automatically making the right figures for leap years and adapting
itself to the revolution of feast and fast days for an almost unlimited
number of years. Every fifteen minutes an angel figure strikes the bell
for the quarter-hour, and figures representing boyhood, youth, manhood
and old age come out for the appropriate quarters. A skeleton strikes
the hour and another reverses an hour-glass. At noon there is a parade
of the twelve apostles before the Saviour, and a big rooster at one
side crows loudly twice before Peter gets to the front and the third
time as he passes. I am getting a great sympathy for Peter because he
has that story thrown up to him in so many cathedrals, churches and
pictures in Europe. It seems to me that Peter did enough after that to
entitle him to a rest on the cock-crow story.
[Illustration]
Next to the cathedral clock the most interesting sight to my mind was
the washerwomen’s boats in the river. About 500 women were in these
canal-shaped boats washing clothes, rinsing them in the river and
having a good gossiping time of it. The emperor of Germany has a
palace in Strassburg where he spends at least three days every year
in the month of May. I did not know this, so when I saw the imperial
palace on the city map I told the driver to take us there. I had never
met Emperor William and he had never met me. I entered the palace door
as directed by the cab-driver and was pleasantly received by a fine,
portly gentleman. Of course I knew he wasn’t the emperor, so I spoke in
a dignified way as becomes an American citizen toying with the effete
monarchies of Europe, and asked the gentleman in my best German if the
emperor was at home, at the same time assuring him that if the emperor
was busy not to bother him, as I could come again after supper when
he would be through his work. The fat gentleman bowed and told me the
emperor was here only in May, and asked me if we would like to go over
the palace. I spoke up abruptly, as if I were used to running around
palaces; that as I had nothing else to do just then, having laid out to
put in a short time with Emperor Bill, I wouldn’t mind if I did. He was
a very nice man, a court chamberlain, he said, and he took Mrs. Morgan
and me all through the palace and the big dining-room and ball-room and
the king’s den, and all that sort of thing. Before we went onto the
polished floors of the big rooms we had to put felt slippers on over
our shoes—a good thing to keep the floors from getting scratched, and
I suppose it is a kind of ground rule that Mrs. Emperor has made to
protect the varnish from the hobnailed boots of William’s friends. I
hope the custom won’t spread to America.
The German emperor has a mighty good house in Strassburg, and it has
been furnished regardless of expense. There was a notice up, “Visitors
not allowed to sit on the chairs,” but I wasn’t very tired anyway. I
looked for a sign not to spit on the floor to go with some of the other
wall decoration, but it must have been overlooked. The house looked
stiff, and I don’t believe Bill has much fun at home and probably his
wife makes him go out on the porch to smoke. I was sorry not to meet
the emperor, as we will not get to Berlin, and I had some things to
tell him. However, I feel that I have done the proper thing by calling
on him and not waiting for him to hunt me up.
[Illustration]
There is not so much American-made stuff in Europe as I expected.
There is a good deal, but in fact these Germans and French are up to
about everything that we are, and sometimes they have us bested. The
Singer sewing-machine is everywhere, even in Italy. American shoes are
the leaders in their lines in every city. American typewriters are
sold ahead of European. Wernicke bookcases and office furniture are
advertised and sold almost as at home. But the list of American goods
is not very long, or else they are sold under other names and brands.
To-day we bought a good picture of a typical German girl to take home
with us as our art collection from Europe. Before we had gone a block
Mrs. Morgan found the tag which proclaimed, “Made in Springfield,
Massachusetts, U. S. A.” We were chagrined that our European purchase
had turned out to be an American importation, sold to us at a higher
price than it would have been at home, but we were proud that here in
Germany they knew the country to send to in order to get good pictures
of fetching Dutch maidens. At Zurich I started to buy a little office
fixture which I thought I had never seen before and which I intended to
take home to surprise the Kansans, when I found out just in time that
it was made by the Globe-Wernicke company of Cincinnati, and I knew we
had the same thing for sale at The News office in Hutchinson. Hereafter
in buying souvenirs of Europe we will look close for the brand.
[Illustration]
This is the place where the “pâté de fois gras” originated. I do not
know how many people in Kansas know what pâté de fois gras is and
whether it is a flower or a dog. I had once seen the words on a bill
of fare in a very swell restaurant, but the figures which followed the
name were so much larger than those after ham and eggs that I stuck
to “ham and.” But when in Rome you must see the Forum, in Venice you
must see St. Mark’s, and in Strassburg you must have some pâté de
fois gras. The food combination which the four French words stand for
is based on goose-liver, and corresponds to about what we would call
“goose-liver smothered in roses.” It is very good, and you never forget
the delicious taste or the price. Strassburg chefs make the stuff, can
it and ship it all over the world to people who like delicate things
to eat and who have sufficient credit to get a good stand-off. Pâté de
fois gras is sweeter than chocolate, more luscious than peaches and
more delicious than lemon pop at a Fourth of July picnic. It is a proof
that Strassburgers have French stomachs as well as French hearts.
[Illustration]
Speaking of eatables, we had the first loaf of bread in Switzerland
that we had seen since we left home. After nearly two months on hard,
stale rolls the sight of a reasonably good loaf of bread at Geneva
made as strong an impression on my mind as Mont Blanc. Anybody who has
traveled in Europe or in Arkansas will appreciate the feelings of a
Kansan when he puts a slice of fairly soft bread between his teeth.
It is better than pâté de fois gras, and it is almost exclusively an
American institution.
IN OLD HEIDELBERG.
HEIDELBERG, GERMANY, July 22, 1905.
This is the old and famous university town of Germany. It is about two
miles long and 200 yards wide, lying between the river Neckar and the
steep hills which rise 500 feet high and which can only be ascended by
terraced roads or a modern tunnel railway. The town is of comparatively
recent origin, being really started only 850 years ago, when a Rhenish
count who wanted to build a strong and impregnable fortress selected
a spot 400 feet straight up the hill from the river and built the
old castle of Heidelberg. Being thus the capital of a little German
state, the Palatinate of the Rhine, it was an important place during
the Middle Ages, and was fought over every few years for several
centuries. In the fourteenth century the ruling count, whose title
was Elector, developed a literary streak and founded the university,
which became the center of learning and scientific study in Germany,
and has continued so until the present day, although some of the newer
universities like Berlin and Leipsig are now larger. The valley of the
Neckar joins the valley of the Rhine here and makes a fertile territory
and a prosperous city, but the university and the students are the main
features of modern Heidelberg, now that counts, electors and castles
are ruins or relics. There are many students in Heidelberg from
America and other countries, but it is the rollicking German “yunkers”
who make the life of the place.
German universities differ somewhat from American universities in the
character and method of work. There are no recitations—only lectures
and examinations. A student does not have to attend either. He can
attend Heidelberg year in and year out and devote himself exclusively
to the beer-garden and the dueling-ground. Or he can work hard, receive
the ablest instruction and the highest degrees. The discipline of
the common schools in Germany is severe—military in its character.
But at the university the young man or young woman (for women now
attend lectures at Heidelberg) can do as they please and go to Hades
if they desire. The university buildings are plain and ordinary. The
picturesque feature is the students, especially the young men who
belong to the various “corps.” Less than 10 per cent. of the students
are members of these societies, but they color the town, for each corps
has a distinctive cap,—red, yellow, white, etc. These organizations
are the social life of the university, and at all hours of the day
or night they are in evidence, parading with their caps and canes,
occupying the beer-gardens and the promenade, jollying the girl waiters
and having what is called in America a High Old Time.
[Illustration]
Everybody has heard of the duel or sword-fighting. It is as much an
institution at Heidelberg as football is at Princeton or K. U. Not many
students take part in it, only members of the six corps, but it is
the show feature of student life. Each corps has about twenty members.
Each member has to fight at least one duel a term with a member of some
other corps. This morning we went to the dueling-place just outside of
the city and saw the game.
One gets a great deal of misinformation about this student dueling,
but as near as I can find out it is done in a genteel and cold-blooded
manner. When it is the turn of one of the corps members to fight he
makes a face or refuses to salute a member of another corps. That
constitutes cause for the duel, and the preliminaries are then arranged
by the officers of the respective corps according to the rules and
regulations that have come down through generations. The fighting is
done in an inner court of a wine-garden. This morning there were ten
duels on the program, and when we arrived the third was in progress.
A young man of the bright-red-cap corps was trying to slice the face
of a member of the dark-red-cap corps. Each was covered with felt
armor, which protected all of his body, and also had goggles and
nose-pad, a little bit more so than a football player. The seconds,
very similarly attired, stood by the side of the principals and struck
up the swords at the end of each round or when the blood came. The
only unprotected places were the head and face, and the game was to
slash the opponent there, not to stick him. Thrusting is evidently
against the rules. A surgeon with an apron like a butcher attended to
the cuts and the members of both corps stood quietly and calmly by,
giving vent to no expression of feeling whatever. The officers of
each corps saluted, the word was given, the two swords clashed away
for a minute, and each fellow had a nice long cut on his cheek. When
the round was over the seconds sponged the cuts. There is no specified
number of rounds, but whenever the two seconds are satisfied that one
man is cut enough the other is declared the victor and they salute
and retire to get court-plastered or sewed up as is necessary. We saw
four duels and got tired of the fun. In the last fought one of the men
was apparently an experienced swordsman and his opponent apparently a
beginner. (I understand that in order to show his courage a new man
always challenges an expert.) After four rounds the face of the weaker
swordsman was streaming with blood from a half-dozen cuts. I suppose he
looked upon his defeat as a real victory because he showed the fellows
that he could stand up and take punishment and never wince. Some people
have curious ideas of greatness.