A TRAMP ABROAD, Part 1
By Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) First published in 1880
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I A Tramp over Europe--On the
Holsatia--Hamburg--Frankfort-on-the-Main--How it Won its Name--A Lesson in Political Economy--Neatness in Dress--Rhine Legends--"The Knave
of Bergen" The Famous Ball--The Strange Knight--Dancing with the
Queen--Removal of the Masks--The Disclosure--Wrath of the Emperor--The
Ending
CHAPTER II At Heidelberg--Great Stir at a Hotel--The Portier--Arrival of the Empress--The Schloss Hotel--Location of Heidelberg--The River Neckar--New Feature in a Hotel--Heidelberg Castle--View from the
Hotel--A Tramp in the Woods--Meeting a Raven--Can Ravens Talk?--Laughed
at and Vanquished--Language of Animals--Jim Baker--BlueJays
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CHAPTER III Baker's BlueJay Yarn--Jay Language--The Cabin--"Hello, I
reckon I've struck something"--A Knot Hole--Attempt to fill it--A Ton
of Acorns--Friends Called In--A Great Mystery--More Jays called A Blue
Flush--A Discovery--A Rich Joke--One that Couldn't See It
CHAPTER IV Student Life--The Five Corps--The Beet King--A Free Life--Attending Lectures--An Immense Audience--Industrious Students--Politeness of the Students--Intercourse with the Professors
Scenes at the Castle Garden--Abundance of Dogs--Symbol of Blighted
Love--How the Ladies Advertise
CHAPTER V The Students' Dueling Ground--The Dueling Room--The Sword
Grinder--Frequency of the Duels--The Duelists--Protection against
Injury--The Surgeon--Arrangements for the Duels--The First
Duel--The First Wound--A Drawn Battle--The Second Duel--Cutting and
Slashing--Interference of the Surgeon
CHAPTER VI The Third Duel--A Sickening Spectacle--Dinner between
Fights--The Last Duel--Fighting in Earnest--Faces and Heads
Mutilated--Great Nerve of the Duelists--Fatal Results not
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Infrequent--The World's View of these Fights
CHAPTER VII Corps--laws and Usages--Volunteering to Fight--Coolness of the Wounded--Wounds Honorable--Newly bandaged Students around Heidelberg--Scarred Faces Abundant--A Badge of Honor--Prince Bismark as a Duelist--Statistics--Constant Sword Practice--Color of the
Corps--Corps Etiquette
CHAPTER I
[The Knighted Knave of Bergen]
One day it occurred to me that it had been many years since the world
had been afforded the spectacle of a man adventurous enough to undertake a journey through Europe on foot. After much thought, I decided that
I was a person fitted to furnish to mankind this spectacle. So I
determined to do it. This was in March, 1878.
I looked about me for the right sort of person to accompany me in the
capacity of agent, and finally hired a Mr. Harris for this service.
It was also my purpose to study art while in Europe. Mr. Harris was in sympathy with me in this. He was as much of an enthusiast in art as
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I was, and not less anxious to learn to paint. I desired to learn the
German language; so did Harris.
Toward the middle of April we sailed in the HOLSATIA, Captain Brandt, and had a very pleasant trip, indeed.
After a brief rest at Hamburg, we made preparations for a long pedestrian trip southward in the soft spring weather, but at the
last moment we changed the program, for private reasons, and took the express-train.
We made a short halt at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and found it an interesting city. I would have liked to visit the birthplace of
Gutenburg, but it could not be done, as no memorandum of the site of the house has been kept. So we spent an hour in the Goethe mansion instead. The city permits this house to belong to private parties, instead
of gracing and dignifying herself with the honor of possessing and protecting it.
Frankfort is one of the sixteen cities which have the distinction of being the place where the following incident occurred. Charlemagne,
while chasing the Saxons (as HE said), or being chased by them (as THEY
said), arrived at the bank of the river at dawn, in a fog. The enemy
were either before him or behind him; but in any case he wanted to get across, very badly. He would have given anything for a guide, but none was to be had. Presently he saw a deer, followed by her young, approach the water. He watched her, judging that she would seek a ford, and he was right. She waded over, and the army followed. So a great Frankish
victory or defeat was gained or avoided; and in order to commemorate the
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episode, Charlemagne commanded a city to be built there, which he named
Frankfort--the ford of the Franks. None of the other cities where this event happened were named for it. This is good evidence that Frankfort was the first place it occurred at.
Frankfort has another distinction--it is the birthplace of the German alphabet; or at least of the German word for alphabet --BUCHSTABEN. They say that the first movable types were made on birch
sticks--BUCHSTABE--hence the name.
I was taught a lesson in political economy in Frankfort. I had brought from home a box containing a thousand very cheap cigars. By way of experiment, I stepped into a little shop in a queer old back street,
took four gaily decorated boxes of wax matches and three cigars, and laid down a silver piece worth 48 cents. The man gave me 43 cents change.
In Frankfort everybody wears clean clothes, and I think we noticed that this strange thing was the case in Hamburg, too, and in the villages along the road. Even in the narrowest and poorest and most ancient quarters of Frankfort neat and clean clothes were the rule. The little children of both sexes were nearly always nice enough to take into a body's lap. And as for the uniforms of the soldiers, they were newness and brightness carried to perfection. One could never detect a smirch
or a grain of dust upon them. The street-car conductors and drivers wore pretty uniforms which seemed to be just out of the bandbox, and their
manners were as fine as their clothes.
In one of the shops I had the luck to stumble upon a book which has
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charmed me nearly to death. It is entitled THE LEGENDS OF THE RHINE FROM BASLE TO ROTTERDAM, by F. J. Kiefer; translated by L. W. Garnham, B.A.
All tourists MENTION the Rhine legends--in that sort of way which quietly pretends that the mentioner has been familiar with them all his life, and that the reader cannot possibly be ignorant of them--but no tourist ever TELLS them. So this little book fed me in a very hungry place; and I, in my turn, intend to feed my reader, with one or
two little lunches from the same larder. I shall not mar Garnham's translation by meddling with its English; for the most toothsome thing about it is its quaint fashion of building English sentences on the German plan--and punctuating them accordingly to no plan at all.
In the chapter devoted to "Legends of Frankfort," I find the following:
"THE KNAVE OF BERGEN" "In Frankfort at the Romer was a great mask-ball, at the coronation festival, and in the illuminated saloon, the clanging
music invited to dance,