A Tramp's Wallet / stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France

by William Duthie

CHAPTER VI.

the german workman.

That workmen in England may have some clear knowledge of the ways and customs of a large number of their brethren on the Continent, I here intend to put down for their use a part of my own knowledge and experience.

The majority of trades in Germany are formed into guilds, or companies. At the head of each guild stands an officer chosen by the government, whatever it may be—for you may find a government of any sort in Germany, between an emperor and a senate—this officer being always a master, and a member of the guild. His title differs in almost every German state, but he is generally called Trade-master, or Deputy. Associated with him are two or three of the oldest employers; or, in some cases, workmen in the trade, under the titles of Eldermen, or Masters’ Representatives. These three or four men govern the guild, and have under them, for the proper transaction of business, a secretary and a messenger. Such

officers, however, do not represent their trade in the whole state or kingdom, but are chosen, in every large town, to conduct the multifarious business that may require attention within its limits.

Although all these guilds are, in their original constitution, formed on the same model, they differ materially in their internal arrangements. Much depends upon the ruling government of the state in which they are situated; for, while in despotic Prussia, what is there called Freedom of Trade is declared for all, in the “free” town of Hamburg everything is bound and locked up in small monopolies.

In some parts of Germany there are “close trades,” which means to say that the number of masters in each is definitely fixed. This is so in Hamburg. For instance, among the goldsmiths, the number of new masters annually to be elected is three, being about sufficient to fill up the deficiencies occurring from death and other causes. I have heard of as many as five being elected in one year, and I have also heard it asserted that this was to be accounted for on the supposition that the aldermen had been “smeared in the hand,” that is to say, bribed.

There are other trades locked up in a different way. There exist several of this kind in Nuremberg and thereabouts; as, the awl and punch-makers, lead-pencil makers, hand-bell makers, gold and silver wire-drawers, and others. They occupy a particular town or district, and they say, “Here we are. We possess these trades, and we mean to keep them to ourselves. We will teach no strangers our craft; we will confine it among our relatives and townsmen; and in order to prevent the knowledge of it from spreading any farther, we will allow our workmen to travel only within the limits of our town or land;” and so they keep their secrets close.

In other trades, the workmen are allowed to engage themselves only to a privileged employer. That is to say, they dare not execute a private order, but can receive employment from a master of the craft only. In Prussia, and some few other lands, each workman can work on his own account, and can offer his goods for sale in the public market unhindered, so long as they are the production of his own hands alone; but should he employ a journeyman, then he pays a tax to Government of about ten shillings annually, the tax increasing in proportion to the number of men he may employ.

There are also “endowed” and “unendowed” trades. An endowed guild is one the members of which pay a certain small sum monthly

while in work, and thus form a fund for the relief of the sick and the assistance of the travelling members of the trade. There are few trades of the unendowed kind, for the workmen of such trades have to depend upon the generosity of their companions in the craft in the hour of need; and it is generally found more economical to pay a regular sum than to be called on at uncertain intervals for a donation; moreover, the respectability of the craft is better maintained.

While we talk of respectability, we may add that it was formerly the especial care of the heads of each guild, to see that no disreputable persons became members of the trade; and illegitimate children, and even the lawful offspring of shepherds, bailiffs, and town servants were carefully excluded. This practice exists no longer, except in some few insignificant places; but the law is still very general which says that no workman can become a master who has not fulfilled every regulation imposed by his guild; that is to say, he must have been apprenticed at the proper age to a properly-constituted master; must have regularly completed his period of apprenticeship, and have passed the appointed time in travel. The worst part of all these regulations is, that, as they vary in almost every state, the unfortunate wanderer has to conform to a new set of laws in every new land he enters.

One other regulation is almost universal. Each guild must have a place of meeting; not a sumptuous hall, but mere accommodation in a public-house. It is called the “Herberge,” and answers, in many respects, to our “House of Call.” This is the weary traveller’s place of rest—he can claim a shelter here; indeed, in most cases, he dares sleep nowhere else. Here also the guild holds its quarterly meetings. By way of illustration, let us take the Goldsmith’s Herberge in Hamburg; the “Stadt Bremen” is the sign of the house. In it, the goldsmiths use a large, rectangular apartment, furnished with a few rough tables and chairs, and a wooden bench running round its four walls. On the tables are arranged long clay pipes, and in the centre of each table is a small dish of what the uninitiated might take to be dried tea leaves. This is uncut tobacco, which the host, the father of the House of Call, is bound to provide. The secretary and messenger of the guild of goldsmiths are there, together with one or two of the “Altgesellen” (elder journeymen), who perform the active part of the duties of the guild. The minutes of the last meeting, and the incidents of

the quarter—possibly, also, an abstract of the rules—having been read, and new officers, to supersede those who retire, having been balloted for, the business of the evening closes. Then commences a confusion of tongues; for here are congregated Russians, Hungarians, Danes, Hamburgers, Prussians, Austrians; possibly there may be found here a member of every state in the German Union. None are silent, and the dialect of each is distinct. Assiduously, in the pauses of his private conversation, every man smokes his long pipe, and drinks his beer or punch. Presently two female harp-players enter—sources of refreshment quite as popular in Hamburg as the punch. They strike up an infatuating waltz. The effect is wonderful. Two or three couples (men waltzing with men, of course) are immediately on their feet, scrambling, kicking, and scraping round the room; hugging each other in the most awkward manner. Chairs and tables are huddled into corners; for the mania has seized upon two-thirds of the company. The rest cannot forsake their beer, but congregate in the corners, and yell, and scream toasts and “Lebe-hoch!” till they are hoarse.

Two girls enter, with trifling articles of male attire for sale; stocks, pomatum, brushes, and beard-wax; but the said damsels are immediately pounced upon for partners. In the intervals of the music a grand tournament takes place; the weapons being clay-pipes, which are speedily shattered into a thousand pieces, and strewn about the room to facilitate dancing. Such a scene of shuffling, whirling, shouting, and pipe-crunching could scarcely be seen elsewhere.

We will take a German youth destined to become an artisan, and endeavour to follow him through the complication of conflicting usages of which he stands the ordeal. Hans is fourteen years of age, and has just left school with a decent education. Hans has his trade and master chosen for him; is taken before the heads of the guild, and his indenture duly signed and sealed in their presence, they themselves witnessing the document. His term of apprenticeship is probably four years, perhaps six; a premium is seldom given, and when it is, it shortens the period of apprenticeship. The indenture, together with a certificate of baptism, in some cases that of confirmation (which ceremony serves as an important epoch in Germany), and even a documentary proof of vaccination, are deposited in the coffers of the guild, and kept at the Herberge for future reference.

Obedience to elders and superiors is the one great duty inculcated in the minds of all Germans, and Hans is taught to look upon his master as a second father; to consider short commons as a regulation for his especial good, and to bear cuffing—if he should fall in the way of it—patiently. If he be an apprentice in Vienna, he may possibly breakfast upon a hunch of brown bread, and an unlimited supply of water; dine upon a thin soup and a block of tasteless, fresh-boiled beef; and sup upon a cold crust. He may fare better or worse; but, as a general rule, he will sleep in a vile hole, will look upon coffee and butter as undeniable luxuries, and know the weight of his master’s hand.

Hans has one great source of pleasure. There is a state school, which he attends on Sundays, and where he is instructed in drawing and modelling. In his future travels he will find the advantage he has acquired over less educated mechanics in this necessary knowledge; and should he come to England, he will discover that his skill as a draughtsman will place him at once in a position superior to that of the chance-taught workmen about him. He completes his apprenticeship without attempting to run away. That is practically impossible; but he yearns, with all the ardour of a young heart, for the happy day when he may tramp out of his native town with his knapsack on his back, and the wide world before him.

We will suppose Hans out of his time, and declared a free journeyman by the guild. The law of his country now has it that he must travel—generally for three years, perhaps four or six—before he can take up the position of a master. He may work for a short period in his native town as a journeyman, but forth he must; nor is he in any way loth. One only contingency there is, which may serve to arrest him in his course,—he may be drawn as a conscript—and, possibly, forget in the next two or three years, as a soldier, all he has previously learned in four as a mechanic. But we suppose Hans to have escaped this peril, and to be on the eve of his departure.

When an English gentleman, or mechanic, or beggar, in these isles, has resolved upon making a journey, he has but to pack up his traps, whether it be in his portmanteau, his deal-box, or his pocket-handkerchief; to purchase his ticket at the railway or steam-packet station; and without asking or consulting with anybody about the matter, to take his seat in the vehicle, and off he goes.

Not so Hans. He gives his master fourteen days’ notice of his intention to wander; applies to the aldermen of his guild for copies of the various documents concerning himself in their possession; and obtains from his employer a written attestation of his past services. This document is called a “Kundschaft;” is written in set form, acknowledges his probity and industry, and is countersigned by the two aldermen. He is now in a condition to wait upon the “Herberges-Vater” (the landlord of the House of Call), and request his signature also. The Vater, seeing that Hans owes nothing to him or to any other townsman—and all creditors know that they have only to report their claims at the Herberge to obtain for them a strict attention—signs his paper, “all quit.” Surely he may start forth now! Not so; the most important document is still wanting. He has, as yet, no passport or wander-book.

Hans goes to the police-bureau, and, as he is poor, has to wait a long while. If Hans were rich, or an artist, or a master’s son, it is highly probable that ho would be able to obtain a passport—and the possession of a passport guarantees many advantages—but as Hans is simply a workman, a “wander-book” only is granted to him. This does indeed cost him less money, but it thrusts him into an unwelcome position, from which it is not easy to escape. He is placed under stricter rule, and, among other things, is forced, during his wandering, to sleep at his trade Herberge, which, from the very monopoly it thus enjoys, is about the worst place he could go to for a lodging.

The good magistrate of Perleberg—the frontier town of Prussia, as you enter from Mecklenburg—had the kindness to affix to my passport a document entitled, “Ordinance concerning the Wandering of Working-men.” I will briefly translate its contents. The “Verordnung” commences with a preamble, to the effect that, notwithstanding the various things that have been done and undone with respect to the aforesaid journeymen, it still happens that numbers of them wander purposeless about the land, to the great burden of their particular trades and the public in general, and to the imminent danger of the common safety. Therefore, be it enacted, that “passports,” that is to say, “passes,” in which the distinct purpose of the journey is stated, such as a search for employment; or “wander-books,” in which occupation by manual labour is the especial object, are to be granted to those natives of Prussia only who pursue a trade or art for the perfection of which

travelling may be considered useful or necessary. To those only who are irreproachable in character, and perfectly healthy in body; this latter to be attested by a medical certificate. To those only who have not passed their thirtieth year, nor have travelled for the five previous years without intermission. To those only who possess a proper amount of clothing, including linen, as well as a sum of money not less than five dollars (about sixteen shillings) for travelling expenses. So much for natives. Foreigners must possess all the above-named requisites; must be provided with proper credentials from their home authorities, and may not have been more than four weeks without employment on their arrival at the frontier. Again, every wanderer must distinctly state in what particular town or city he intends to seek employment, and by what route he purposes to get there; and any deviation from the chosen road (which will be marked in the wander-book) will be visited by the punishment of expulsion from the country. A fixed number of days will be allotted to the wanderer in which to reach his destination, but should he overstep that period, a similar punishment awaits him; expulsion from the country always meaning that the offender shall retrace his steps, and quit the land by the way he had entered it. This is the substance of the “ordinance.”

Hans is ready for the road. He has only now to take his farewell. A farewell among workmen is simply a drinking-bout, a parting glass taken overnight. Hans has many friends; these appoint a place of assemblage, and invite him thither. It is a point of honour among them that the “wandering boy” shall pay nothing. Imagine a large, half-lighted room; a crowded board of bearded faces. On the table steams a huge bowl of punch, which the chosen head of the party, perhaps Johann’s late master, ladles into the tiny glasses. He proclaims the toast, “The Health of the Wanderer!” The little crowd are on their feet, and amid a pretty tinkling of glasses, an irregular shout arises, a small hurricane of voices, wishing him good speed.

What songs are sung, what healths are drunk, what heartfelt wishes are expressed! The German workmen are good friends to one another—men who are already away from friends and home, and whose tenderest recollections are awakened in the farewell expressed to a departing companion. Many tears are shed, many hearty presses of the hand are given, and not a few kisses impressed upon the cheek. Little tokens of affection are interchanged, and

promises to write are made, but seldom kept. With this mingling and outpouring of full hearts, the stream of punch still flows through tiny glasses: but, since “Many a little makes a mickle,” the farewell thus taken ends sometimes as a debauch.

Hans, in the morning, is perhaps a little the worse for last night’s punch. He is attired in a clean white blouse, strapped round the waist; a neat travelling-cap; low, stout shoes; and, possibly, linen wrappers, instead of socks. The knapsack, strapped to his back, contains a sufficient change of linen, a coat artistically packed, which is to be worn in cities, and a few necessary tools; the whole stock weighing, perhaps, twenty or thirty pounds. On the sides of the knapsack are little pouches, containing brushes, blacking, and soap; and in his breast-pocket is stowed away a little flask of brandy-schnaps, to revive his drooping spirits on the road. A stout stick completes his equipment. A last adieu from the one friend of his heart, who will walk a few miles with him on the way—and so he is launched fairly on his journey.

Hans finds the road much harder, and his knapsack heavier than he had expected. Now he is drenched with rain, and can get no shelter; and, when he does, he will find straw an inconvenient substitute for a bed. At last he arrives at Berlin. He has picked up a companion on the road; and, as it frequently happens that several trades hold their meetings in the same house, they both are bound to the same Herberge. Through strange, half-lighted streets, along narrow edges of pavement, they proceed till they enter a court, or wynd, with no footpath at all, and they are in the Schuster Gasse, before the door of the Herberge. The comrade of Hans announces them as they pass the bar, and the next moment they are in the travellers’ room, amid as motley a group as ever met within four walls.

Tumult and hubbub. An indescribable odour of tobacco, cummin (carraway), and potato-salad. A variety of hustled blouses. Sunburnt and haggard faces. Ragged beards and unkempt locks. A strong pipe hanging from every lip; beer, or kümmil (a spirit prepared with cummin) at every hand. Wild snatches of song, and hurried bursts of dialogue. Some are all violence and uproar; some are half dead with sleep and fatigue, their arms sprawling about the tables. Such is the inside of a German trade traveller’s room.

Hans and his companion hand over their papers to the “father” as a security, and their knapsacks to a sluttish-looking girl, who

deposits them in a cupboard in the corner of the room, and locks the door upon them. Our travellers order a measure of Berliner Weiss Bier, to be in keeping with the rest, and long for the hour of sleep. At length, a stout young man enters, carrying a lighted lantern, and in a loud voice of authority summonses all to bed. And there is a scrambling and hustling among some of the travellers, a hasty guzzling of beer and spirits, and a few low murmurs at being disturbed, but none dare disobey.

A shambling troop of sixteen or eighteen, they quit the room, and enter a small paved yard, preceded by the young man with the lantern. There is a rough building resembling a stable, at the other end of the yard; and, in one corner, a steep ladder, with a handrail, which leads to a chamber above. They ascend, and enter a long, low loft, so completely crowded with rough bedsteads that there remains but a narrow alley between them, just sufficient to allow a single person to pass. Eight double beds, and the ceiling so low that the companion of Hans can scarcely stand upright with his hat on.

“New-comers this way,” shouts the conductor.

“What’s the matter, now?” inquires Hans of his comrade.

“Take off your coat,” is the answer in a whisper; “undo the wristbands, and throw open the collar of your shirt.”

“What for?”

“To be examined.”

So they are examined; and, being pronounced sound, are allowed to sleep with the rest of the flock. In this loft, each bed with at least two occupants, and the door locked—without consideration for fire, accident, or sudden indisposition,—Hans passes the first night in Berlin.

But there is no work in Berlin, and Hans must pursue his journey. He waits for hours at the police-office, as play-goers wait at the door of a London theatre. By and by, he gets into the small bureau with a desperate rush. That business is settled, and he is off again. Time runs on; and, after a further tramp of good two hundred miles, Hans gets settled at last in the free city of Hamburg.

With the exception of a few factories, such as the silk-works at Chemnitz, in Saxony, and the colony of goldsmiths at Pfortzheim, in Wurtemburg, there are few extensive manufactories in Germany. Trade is split up into little masterships of from one to five or six men.

This circumstance materially affects the relation between the employer and employed.

The master under whom Hans serves at Hamburg is a pleasant, affable gentleman; his apprentice Peter may be of a different opinion, but that is of no consequence. The master has spent the best years of his life in England and France; has learned to speak the languages of both countries with perfect facility, and is one of the lucky monopolists of his trade. He employs three workmen; one of them, who is possessed of that peculiar cast of countenance generally attributed to the children of Israel, has been demurred to by the Guild,—and why? Because a Jew is legally incapable of working in Hamburg. He is, however, allowed the usual privileges on attesting that he is not an Israelite.

Our master accommodates under his own roof one workman and his apprentice Peter. The others, whom he cannot lodge, are allowed each one mark-banco (fourteen pence) per week, to enable them to find a bed-chamber elsewhere. They suffer a pecuniary loss by the arrangement. Hans sleeps in a narrow box, built on the landing, into which no ray of heaven’s light had ever penetrated. His bedding is a very simple affair. He is troubled with neither blankets nor sheets. An “under” and an “over” bed, the latter rather lighter than the former, and both supposed to be of feathers, form his bed and bedding. Hans is as well off as others, so he does not complain. As for the apprentice, Peter, it was known that he disappeared at a certain hour every evening; and from his appearance when he turned out in the morning, Hans was under the impression that he wildly shot himself into some deep and narrow hole, and slept the night through on his head.

And how does Hans fare under his master’s roof? Considering the reminiscences of his apprenticeship, he relishes his cup of coffee in the morning; his tiny round roll of white bread; the heavy black rye-loaf, into which he is allowed to hew his way unchecked; and the beautiful Holstein butter. Not being accustomed to better food, it is possible that he enjoys the tasteless, fresh boiled beef, and the sodden baked meat, with no atom of fat, which form the staple food at dinner. Whether he can comprehend the soups which are sometimes placed before him,—now made of shredded lemons, now of strained apples, and occasionally of plain water, with a sprinkling of rice, is another matter; but the sourkraut and bacon, the boiled beef and raisins,

and the baked veal and prunes, are certain to be looked upon by him as unusual luxuries.

The master presides at the table, and blesses the meat with the air of a father of his people. Although workmen in Germany are little better than old apprentices, this daily and familiar intercourse has the effect of breaking down the formal barriers which in England effectually divide the capitalist and the labourer. It creates a respectful familiarity, which raises the workman without lowering the master. The manners of both are thereby decidedly improved.

Hans gradually learns other trade customs. His comrade falls sick, and is taken to the free hospital, a little way out of the city. This hospital is clean and well kept, but fearfully crowded. The elder journeymen of the Guild are there too, and they comfort the sick man, and hand him the weekly stipend, half-a-crown, allowed out of the sick-fund. Hans contributes to this sick-fund two marks—two shillings and fourpence—a quarter. He does it willingly, but the master has power to deduct it from his wages in the name of the Guild. His poor sick friend dies; away from home and friends—a desolate being among strangers. But he is not, therefore, to be neglected. Every workman in the trade is called upon to contribute his share—about sevenpence—towards the expenses of the funeral; and the two senior, assisted by four other journeymen, in full evening dress, attend his funeral. His effects are then carefully packed up, and sent—a melancholy memorial of the dead—to his relations.

From the same fund which relieves the sick, are the “wandering boys” also assisted. But the “Geschenk” (gift), as it is called, is a mere trifle; sometimes but a few pence, and in a large city like Berlin it amounts to but twenty silver groschen—little more than two shillings. It is not considered disgraceful to accept this donation; as all, when in work, contribute towards the fund from which it is supplied.

And what is the amount of wages that German workmen receive? In Hamburg wages vary from five to eight marks per week, that is, from seven shillings to ten and sixpence, paid monthly. In Leipsic they are paid fortnightly, and average about ten shillings per week. In Berlin wages are paid by the calendar month, and average twenty-four dollars (a dollar is rather more than three shillings), for that period; so that a workman may be said to earn about eighteen shillings a week, but is dependent on his own resources for food and lodging. In Vienna the same regulation exists, and wages range

from five to eight guldens—ten to sixteen shillings per week—paid weekly, as in England. But a workman in Vienna may be respectably lodged, lighted, and washed for at the rate of half-a-crown a week. In Berlin and Vienna married journeymen are to be met with, but not in great numbers, and in smaller towns they may almost be said to be unknown. Dr. Korth, in his address to his young friends, the “travelling boys,” on this subject, emphatically says—“Avoid, in God’s name, all attachments to womankind, more especially to those of whom your hearts would say, ‘These could I love.’” And then the quaint old gentleman proceeds to say a number of ungallant things, which are not worth translating.

No! the German workman is taught to hold himself free, that he may carry out the law of his land to the letter; that he may return from his travels at the appointed time “a wiser and a better man;” that he may show proofs of his acquired skill in his trade, and thereupon claim the master’s right and position. He is then free to marry, and is looked upon as an “eligible party.” But how seldom does all this come to pass, may the thousands who swarm in London and Paris; may the German colonies which dot the American States, sufficiently tell. Many linger in large cities till they feel that to return to the little native village, and its old, poor, plodding ways, would be little better than burial alive; and some return, wasted with foreign vice and purchased adversity, premature old men, to die upon the threshold of their early homes.

One more question—what are their amusements? It would be a long story to tell, but certainly home-reading is not a prominent enjoyment among them. German governments, as a rule, take care that the people’s amusements shall not be interfered with. The workmen throng in dance-houses, beer-cellars, cafés, and theatres, which are all liveliest and most attractive on a Sunday; and, as they are tolerably cheap, they are generally a successful lure from deep thinking or study. Besides, the German workman has no home. If he stay there at all in holiday hours, it is to draw, or model, or sing romances to the strumming of his guitar.

CHAPTER VII.

hamburg to lübeck.

The bleak, icy winter of North Germany is past. We have trodden its accumulated snows as they lay in crisp heaps in the streets of Hamburg; and have watched the muffled crowd upon the frozen Alster, darting and reeling, skating, sliding, and sleighing upon its opaque and motionless surface. We have alternately loved and execrated the massive German oven, which warmed us indeed, but never showed us a cheerful face. We have sipped our coffee or our punch in the beautiful winter garden of Tivoli, under the shade of lemon-trees, with fragrant flowers and shrubs around us; and finally, have looked upon the ice-bound Elbe with its black vessels, slippery masts, and rigid cordage, and seen the Hanoverian milk lasses skimming its dun expanse laden with their precious burdens. We have got over the slop and drizzle, and half-thawed slush, too; and the boisterous March wind dashes among the houses; and what is better than all, the fresh mornings are growing brighter and longer with every returning sun.

Away, then, out of the old city, alone on the flat, sandy road that lies between Hamburg and Berlin. Here we are, with hope before us, resolution spurring us on, and a twenty-eight pound knapsack on our backs. Tighten the straps, my friend, and you will walk easier with your load.

My journey as a workman on the tramp from Hamburg to Berlin I propose to tell, as simply as I can. I have no great adventures to describe, but I desire to illustrate some part of what has already been said about the workmen in Germany, and I can do this best by relating, just as it was, a small part of my own road experience, neither more nor less wonderful than the experience which is every day common to thousands of Germans.

I was very poor when I set out from Hamburg in the month of March, with my knapsack strapped to my back, my stick in my hand, and my bottle of strong comfort slung about my neck after

the manner of a locket. I was not poor in my own conceit, for I had in my fob—the safest pocket for so large a sum of money—two gold ducats and some Prussian dollars: English money, thirty-five shillings. I thought I was a proper fellow with that quantity of ready cash upon my person, and a six weeks’ beard on my chin.

Many adieus had been spoken in Hamburg at our last night’s revel, but a Danish friend was up betimes to see me out of town. At length he also bade the wanderer farewell, and for the comfort of us both my locket having passed from hand to hand, he left me to tramp on alone, over the dull, flat, sandy road. There was scarcely a tree to be seen, and the sky looked like a heavy sheet of lead, but I stepped out boldly and made steady progress. The road got to be worse; I came among deep ruts and treacherous sloughs, and the fields on each side of the road were flooded. In some parts the road was a sand swamp, and the walk became converted into a gymnastic exercise; a leaping about towards what seemed the hard and knobby places that appeared among the mud. This exercise soon made me conscious of the knapsack, to which I was then not thoroughly accustomed. It was not so much the weight that I felt, but the tightness of the belt across the chest, which caused pain and impediment of breathing. Custom, however, caused the knapsack to become even an aid to me in walking.

A sturdy young fellow who did not object to mud was pushing his way recklessly behind me. I was soon overtaken, we exchanged kind greetings, and jogged on together, shoulder to shoulder. He had been upon his travels; had been in Denmark for two years, and had left Copenhagen to return to his native village, that lay then only eight or ten miles before us. What was his reason for returning? He was required to perform military service, and for the next two years at least—or for a longer time, should war break out—was doomed to be a soldier. He did not think the doom particularly hard, and we jogged on together in a cheerful mood until his knowledge of the ground became distressingly familiar, and he illustrated portions of the scenery with tales of robbery and murder. The scenery of the road became at every turn more picturesque. Instead of passing between swampy fields, it ran along a hollow, and the ground was on each side broken into deep holes with rugged edges; black leafless bushes stood out from the grey and yellow sand, while farther away in the background, against the leaden sky, there was a sombre fringe of thickly planted fir-trees.

The daylight, dim at noon, had become dimmer as evening drew near; the grey sky darkened, and the tales of robbery and murder made my thoughts anything but cheerful. As the hills grew higher on each side of us, it occurred to us both that here was a fine place for a murder, and I let my companion go before, handling my stick at the same time as one ready to strike instantly if any injury were offered. I was just demonstrative enough to frighten my companion. We were a mere couple of rabbits. Each of us in his innocence feared that the other might be a guilty monster, and so we were both glad enough to get out of the narrow pass. On the other side of the glen the road widened, and my companion paused at the head of a little path that led down to a deeper corner of the hollow, and across the fields. That was his way home. He had but a mile to go, and was already anticipating all the kisses of his household. He wished me a prosperous journey; I wished him a happy welcome in his village; and we shook hands like two young men who owed amends to one another.

He had told me before we parted that there were two houses of entertainment not far in advance. Already I saw the red-tiled roof of one, that looked like a respectable farm-house. From the door of that house, however, I was turned away; and as the darkness of the evening was changing into night, I ran as fast as I was able to the next place of shelter. By the pump, the horse-trough, and the dirty pool I knew that there was entertainment there for man and horse. I therefore raised the wooden latch, and in a modest tone made my request for a bed. A vixenish landlady from the midst of a group of screaming children cried to me, “You can’t have a bed, you can have straw.” That would do quite as well, I said.

I sat down at a table in a corner of the large room, called for a glass of beer, produced some bread and sausage that I had brought with me from Hamburg, and made a comfortable supper. There was a large wood fire blazing on the ample hearth, but the landlord and his family engrossed its whole vicinity. The house contained no other sitting-room and no other sleeping accommodation than the one family bedroom and the barn.

While I was at supper there came in other wandering boys like myself. I had escaped the rain, but they had not; they came in dripping: a stout man, and a tall, lank stripling. The youth wore a white blouse and hat covered with oil-skin; his trousers were tucked halfway up his legs, and he had mud up to his ankles. We

soon exchanged our scraps of information about one another. The stout man was a baker from Lübeck on the way to Hamburg; the stripling, probably not yet out of his teens, was part brazier, part coppersmith, part tinman; had been three weeks on his travels, and had come, like myself, from Hamburg since morning. He was very poor. He did not tell us that; but he ordered nothing to eat or drink, and except the draught of comfort that he got out of my bottle, the poor fellow went supperless to bed. Not altogether supperless though, for he had some smoke. We made a snug little party in the corner, and talked, smoked, and comforted ourselves, after the children had been put to bed, and while the landlord, landlady, and an old grandfather told stories to each other in Low German by the fire. At nine o’clock the landlord lighted his lantern, and told us bluffly that we might go to bed. We therefore, having handed him our papers—passports and wander-books—for his security and for our own, followed into the barn. That was a place large enough to hold straw for a regiment of soldiers. It was a continuation of the dwelling-house, sheltered under the same roof. We mounted three rude ladders, and so got from floor to floor into the loft. Having guided us safely thither, he quitted us at once with a “good night;” taking his lantern with him, and leaving us to make our beds in the thick darkness as we could. The straw was not straw: it was short-cut hay, old enough to have lost all scent of hay, and to have acquired some other scents less pleasing to the nose; hay, trodden, pressed, and matted down, without a vestige in it of its ancient elasticity. There was nothing in it to remind us of a summer tumble on the hay-cock. The barn roof was open, and the March night wind whistled over us. I took off my boots to ease my swollen feet; took my coat off that I might spread it over my chest as a counterpane; and struggled in vain to work a hole for my feet into the hard knotted bank of hay. So I spent the night, just so much not asleep that I was always conscious, dimly, of the snoring of the baker, and awoke sometimes to wonder what the landlord’s cock had supped upon, for it was continually crowing in its sleep, on the barn-floor below. When morning broke we rose and had a brisk wash at the pump, scraped the mud from our boots, and breakfasted. The baker and I had plain dry bread and hot coffee. The tinman breakfasted on milk. He said it was better—poor fellow! he knew it was cheaper. By

seven o’clock we were all afoot again, the baker journeying to Hamburg, the tinman and I road-companions to Lübeck.

At noon, after a five hours’ walk, a pleasant roadside inn with a deep gable roof and snug curtains behind its lattice windows, tempted me to rest and dine. “We shall get a good dinner here,” I said; “let us go in.” The tinman would hear of no such thing. “We must get on to Lübeck,” he replied. “Two more hours of steady walking and we shall be there.” Poor youth! At Lübeck he could demand a dinner at his herberge, and he had no chance of any other. So we trudged on till the tall turrets and steeples of Lübeck rose on the horizon. The tinman desired to know what my intentions were. Was I going straight on to Berlin without working? Should I seek work at Lübeck? If not, of course I would take the viaticum. “I thought not,” I told him. “Ah, then,” he said, “you have some money.” The viaticum is the tramp-money that may be claimed from his guild by the travelling workman. Germans, like other people, like to take pills gilded, and so they cloak the awkward incident of poverty under a Latin name.

Lübeck being in sight we sat down upon a grassy bank to make our toilet. A tramp’s knapsack always has little pouches at the side for soap, brushes, and blacking. We were not so near to the tall steeples as we thought, and it took us a good hour and a half before we reached the city gates. The approaches are through pretty avenues of young trees and ornamental flower-plots. The town entrance at which we arrived was simply a double iron gate, like a park gate in England. As we were about to pass in, the sentinel beckoned and pointed us towards a little whitened watchbox, at which we stopped to hand our papers through a pigeon-hole. In a few minutes the police officer came out, handed to me my passport with great politeness, and in a sharp voice bade the tinman follow him. Such is the difference between a passport and a wander-book. I, owner of a passport, might go whither I would: tinman, carrying a wander-book, was marched off by the police to his appointed house of call. I took full advantage of my liberty, and, as became a weary young man with two gold ducats in his fob, went to recruit my strength with the best dinner I could get. Having taken off my knapsack and my blouse, I soon, therefore, was indulging in a lounge upon the sofa of one of the best hotels in the sleepy and old-fashioned free city of Lübeck.

CHAPTER VIII.

lübeck to berlin.

By right of churches full of relics, antique buildings, and places curiously named, Lübeck is, no doubt, a jewel of a town to antiquarians. Its streets are badly paved, but infinitely cleaner than the streets of Hamburg. I did not much wonder at that, for I saw no people out of doors to make them dirty, when I exposed myself to notice from within doors as a solitary pedestrian, upon my way to take a letter to a goldsmith in the market place. The market place is a kind of exchange; a square building with an open court in the centre, around which there is a covered way roofed quaintly with carved timbers. In this building the mechanical trades of Lübeck are collected, each trade occupying a space exclusively its own under the colonnade. Here, all the tradesmen are compelled to work, but are not permitted to reside. Each master has his tiny shop-front with a trifling show of goods exposed in it, and his small workshop behind, in which, at most, two or three men can be employed. In some odd little nooks the doors of these boxes are so arranged, that two masters cannot go out of adjoining premises at the same time without collision.

Though my friend in Lübeck was a stranger, as a brother jeweller he gave me friendly welcome. Having inquired into my resources, he said, “You must take the viaticum.”—“It is like begging,” I answered.—“Nonsense,” he replied; “you pay for it when you are in work, and have a right to it when travelling.”—“But I might find employment, on inquiry.”—“Do not be alarmed, my friend; there is not a job to be done in the whole city.” I was forced, therefore, by my friend’s good-natured earnestness, to make the usual demand throughout the little group of goldsmiths, and having thus satisfied the form, I was conducted to our Guild alderman and treasurer. A little quiet conversation passed between them, and the cash-box was then emptied out into my hand;

it contained twenty-eight Hamburg shillings, equal to two shillings in English money.

I returned to my hotel and slept in a good bed that night. The morning broke heavily, and promised a day’s rain. Through the lowering weather and the dismal streets I went to the police office to get my passport viséd for Schwerin in Mecklenburg. Most dismal streets! The Lübeckers were complaining of loss of trade, and yearned for a railway from Lübeck to Hamburg. But the line would run through a corner of Holstein, and no such thing would be tolerated by the Duke. The Lübeckers wanted the Russian traffic to come through their town and on to Hamburg by rail. The Duke of Holstein wished to bring it through his little port of Kiel upon the Baltic.

Too poor to loiter on the road, having got my passport viséd, I again strapped the knapsack to my back, and set out through the long avenues of trees over the long, wet road, through bitter wind and driving rain. Soaked with rain, and shivering with cold, I entered the village of Schöneberg at two o’clock, just after the rain had ceased, as deplorable a figure as a man commonly presents when all the vigour has been washed out of his face, and his clothes hang limp and damp about his body. Wearied to death, I halted at the door of an inn, but was told inhospitably—miserable tramp as I seemed, and was—that “I could go to the next house.” At the next house they again refused me, already humbled, and advised me to go to The Tall Grenadier. That is a house of call for masons. I went to it, and was received there hospitably. My knapsack being waterproof, I could put on dry clothes, and hang my wet garments round the stove, while the uproarious masons—terrible men for beer and music—comforted me with unending joviality. They got into their hands a book of German songs that dropped out of my knapsack, and having appointed a reader, set him upon the table to declaim them. Presently, another jolly mason cried out over a drinking song—declaimed among the others in a loud monotonous bawl—“I know that song;” and having hemmed and tuned his voice a little, broke out into music with tremendous power. The example warmed the others; they began to look out songs with choruses, and so continued singing to the praise of wine and beauty out of my book, until they were warned home by the host. I climbed a ladder to

my bedroom, and slept well. The Grenadier was not an expensive hotel, for in the morning when I paid my bill for bed and breakfast, I found that the accommodation cost me fourpence-halfpenny.

Since it is my desire not to fatigue the reader of this uneventful narrative, but simply to illustrate by a few notes drawn from my own experience the life of a German workman on the tramp, I shall now pass over a portion of the road between Hamburg and Berlin in silence. My way lay through Schwerin; from Schöneberg to Schwerin is twenty-six English miles, and we find it a long way. In reckoning distances, the Germans count by “stunden”—i.e. hours—and two “stunden” make one German mile. From experience, I should say that five miles English were about equal to one mile German; but they vary considerably. Having spent a night in the exceedingly neat city of Schwerin beside its pleasant waters, and under the protection of the cannon in the antiquated castle overhead, I set out for a walk of twenty miles onward to Ludwigslust. The road was a pleasant one, firm and dry, with trim grass edgings and sylvan seats on either side. The country itself was flat and dull, enlivened only now and then by a fir plantation or a pretty village. Brother tramps passed me from time to time with a cheerful salutation, and at three o’clock I passed within the new brick walls of Ludwigslust; a town dignified as a pleasure seat with a military garrison, a ducal palace, and an English park.

The inn to which I went in Ludwigslust, was the house of call for carpenters. The carpenters were there assembled in great force, laughing, smoking, and enjoying their red wine, which may have come from France, for Mecklenburg is no wine country. It was the quarter-day and pay-day of the carpenters, who were about to celebrate the date as usual with a supper. I went to sit down in the small travellers’ room, and was assailed instantly by the whole army of joiners, some with bleared eyes; with flushed faces under caps of every shape and colour; and a flexible pipe hanging from every mouth—Who was I?—What was I?—Whence did I come?—Where was I born? and whither was I going? etc., etc. When they had found out all about me and confirmed their knowledge by examination of my passport, which one dull dog persisted in regarding as a book of ballads, out of which he sang, I began to ask concerning food. “Nothing warm in the house,” said the housefather, a carpenter himself. “There will be a grand supper at six

o’clock, and everything and everybody is wanted in the preparation of it. Make yourself easy for the present with brown bread and dripping, and a glass of beer, and then you can make your dinner with us when we sup.” That suited me well enough.

The carpenters flowed out into the street, to take a stroll and get their appetites, leaving behind them one besotted man, who propped himself against the oven, and there gave himself a lecture on the blessings of equanimity under all circumstances of distress.

“Do you sleep here to-night?” inquired the host. Certainly, I desired to do so. “Then you must go to the police bureau for a permission.”—“But you have my passport; is not that sufficient?”—“Not in Ludwigslust; your passport must be held by the police, and they will give you in exchange for it a ticket, which I must hold, or else I dare not let you have a lodging.” I went to the police office at once; through the ill-paved street into the middle of the town. I went by a large gravelled square, which serves as a riding ground for the cavalry in the adjoining barracks; and a long broad street of no great beauty, ending in a flight of steps, led me then to the police office, and would have led me also, had that been my destination, to the ducal palace. The palace fronts to a paved square; it is a massive, noble edifice of stone, having before it a fine cascade with a treble fall. To the left, across a green meadow, I observed the church—the only church—a simple whitewashed building with a colonnaded front. At the foot of the low flight of steps was the police office, in which I found one man, who civilly copied my passport into a book, put it aside, and gave me a ticket of permission to remain one night in Ludwigslust. I was desired to call for my passport before leaving in the morning.

At seven o’clock there was no sign of supper. At eight o’clock the cloth was spread in a long, low lumber-room at the back of the inn, and the assembled carpenters took their seats before the board, or rather boards supported upon tressels. I took my place and waited hungrily. Very soon there was a great steam over the whole table sent up from huge tureens of boiled potatoes; smaller dishes of preserved prunes, boiled also, occupied the intervals. A bottle of red wine was placed for every two men. We then began our meal with soup; thin, sorry stuff. Then came the chief dishes, baked veal and baked pig’s head. The prunes were to be eaten with the veal, which meat, having been first boiled to make the soup, and then baked in a deep dish in a close oven to bring out some of the

faded flavour, was a sodden mass, and the whole meal was removed a very long way from the roast fillet of veal and pickled pork known to an Englishman. Our pig’s head was, however, capital,—no soup had been made out of that. The carpenters, with assiduous kindness, heaped choice bits upon my plate, and as I had not dined, I supped with energy. The drunken man who had fallen asleep by the stove sat by my side with greedy looks, eating nothing, for he had not paid his share; he was a man who drank away his gains, and he received no pity.

Then after supper there came toasts. The president was on his legs, all glasses were filled; men ready. “Long live the Guild of carpenters! Vivat h—o!” The ho! was a howl; the glasses clashed. “Long live all carpenters! Vivat ho—o!” At ten o’clock there was a bustle and confusion at the door, and a long string of lads marched, two and two, cap in hand, into the room. These were all the carpenters’ apprentices in Ludwigslust. Every quarterly night the hospitable carpenters have them in after supper to be regaled with beer and cordials, and initiated into the mysteries of jollity that are connected with the existence of a master carpenter. “Long live all carpenters’ apprentices! Vivat ho—o—o!” The apprentices having revelled in as much beer and spirits as could be got through, shouting included, in a quarter of an hour, formed double line again, and marched out under a fire of lusty cheers into the street. Some jolly carpenters still lingered in the supper room, smoking or singing choruses, or making partners of each other for mad waltzes round the table to the music of their tongues.

Longing for bed, I was obliged to wait until the landlord was at leisure to attend to me. After I rose next morning, I waited for three hours impatiently enough until the sleepy host had risen; for until I had received my ticket back from him I was unable to get my passport and go on. At length, however, I got out of the brick walls of Ludwigslust, and marched forward under a clear sky on the way to Perleberg, my next stage, distant about fifteen English miles.

Having passed through two dirty, ill-paved towns, and being in some uncertainty about the road, I asked my way of a short, red-faced man who, being himself bound for the frontier station, favoured me so far with his company. He was a post-boy whose vocation was destroyed, but who was nevertheless blessed with

philosophy enough to recognise the merits of the railway system, and to point out the posts marking the line between Berlin and Hamburg, with the comment that “the world must move.” It seemed to be enough for him that he lived in the recollection of the people on his old road-side, and that he could stop with me outside a toll-gate, the first I had seen in Germany, sure of the production of a bottle for a social dram, in which I cordially joined. Then presently we came to a small newly-built village, the Prussian military station. A sentinel standing silent and alone by his sentry box striped with the Prussian colours, black and white, marked where the road crossed the Prussian frontier. We passed unchallenged, and found dinner upon the territory of the Black Eagle, in a very modest house of entertainment.

Travelling alone onward to Perleberg, I stopped once more for refreshment at a melancholy, dirty place, having one common room, of which the chairs and tables contained as much heavy timber as would build a house. I wanted an hour’s rest, for my knapsack had become a burden to me, and the handles of the few tools I was obliged to carry dug themselves relentlessly into my back. “White or brown beer?” asked the attendant. Dolt that I was to answer Brown! They brought me a vile treacley compound that I could not drink; whereas the Berlin white beer is a famous effervescing liquor; so good, says a Berliner, that you cannot distinguish it from champagne if you drink it rapidly with closed eyes, and at the same time press your nose between your fingers. In the evening I got to Perleberg, and walking wearily up the old, irregular High Street, established myself at the Londoner Schenke—the London Tavern. I found the parlour pleasant and almost private, the hostess quiet and lady-like. While she was getting coffee ready for me, I paid my call of duty upon the police; for though my passport had been viséd to Berlin in half a dozen places, the law required that I should not sleep in a new kingdom without first announcing my arrival.

At the upper end of the market place I found a red brick building with a gloomy door, opening upon a broad stone staircase, by which I mounted to the magistrate’s room. That was a lofty hall, badly lighted by two little windows, and scantily furnished with a few seats. Behind a railing sat the magistrate in a velvet skull-cap and black robe; a short fat man with a satisfied face, but unsatisfied and restless eyes. Two armed soldiers shared with him the space beyond the rail. Two townsmen, hat in hand, were patiently

waiting for their passes. Having mentioned my business, I was told that I might wait; standing, of course. The heavy quiet of the room was broken presently by the entrance of two young workmen in clean blouses, bound upon an errand like my own, who hovered in a tremulous condition near the doorway.

The magistrate of Perleberg, after awhile, looked at my passport, and asked “Have you the requisite amount of travelling money to show?” I had not expected such a question, but the two gold ducats were still in my fob, and I produced them with the air of a fine gentleman. One of the soldiers took them in his hand, examined them and passed them to his comrade, who passed them to the townspeople. “They are good,” said the soldier, as he put them back into my hand.—“Is that enough?” I asked, as though there had been thousands of such things about other parts of my person, for I saw that I had made an impression. “That will do,” said the magistrate, “you may sit down.” O miserable homage before wealth! They would not keep me standing.

It had grown dark, and a lighted candle had been placed upon the desk of the chief magistrate, a most diligent man in his office, who, seeing no description of my person in the passport, set to work with the zest of an artist upon the depiction of my features. Examining each feature minutely with a candle, he put down the results of his researches, and then finally read off his work to me with this note at the bottom—“The little finger of his left hand is crooked.”

The hostess of the London Tavern, when I got back to my quarters, must have heard about my wealth. That pleasant little maiden lady told me all about her house, and how it had been named afresh after the King of Prussia slept there on his way to London, where he was to act as sponsor to the Prince of Wales. I, who had been turned away from the doors of the humblest inns, was flattered and courted by a landlady who had entertained His Majesty of Prussia. The neatest of chambermaids conducted me to an elegant bedchamber—“her own room,” the little old maid had said as I left her—and there I slept upon the couch sacred to her maiden meditations, among hangings white as snow.

The next morning I went out into Perleberg,—a ricketty old place, full of rats and legends. There is a colossal figure in the market-place of an armed knight, eighteen or twenty feet high, gazing eternally into the fruit baskets below. He has his head uncovered, his hand upon his sword, and is made of stone; but who he

is nobody seemed to know; I was only told that the statue would turn any one to stone who fixed his eyes upon it in intense gaze for a sufficiently long time. I visited the chief jeweller, a wonderful man, who was said to have visited nearly all parts of the known world except London and Paris. I found him with one workman, very busy, but not doing much; and he was very civil, although manifestly labouring under the fear that I had come to ask for a “viaticum.” I did not. I went back to eat a hearty breakfast at the London Tavern, where I found the mistress gracious, and the handmaid very chatty and coquettish. From her talk I half concluded that I was believed to be an Englishman who travelled like a journeyman for the humour of the thing: the English are so odd, and at the London Tavern they had not been without experience of English ways. My display of the gold pieces must have been communicated to them overnight, by one of the townspeople who heard me tell the magistrate at what inn I was staying.

From Perleberg to Keritz was eighteen miles. Upon the road I came up with a poor fellow limping pitiably. He had a flat wooden box upon his back, being a tramping glazier; and he made snail’s progress, having his left thigh swollen by much walking. I loitered with him as long as my time allowed, and then dashed on to recover the lost ground. Passing at a great pace a neat road-side inn, singing the while, a jolly red face blazed out upon me from the lattice window. “Ei da! You are merry. Whither so fast?”—“To Berlin.”—“Wait an instant and I’m with you.” Two odd figures tumbled almost at the end of the instant out of the house door. One a burly man with a red face and a large moustache, the other a chalky young man with a pair of Wellington boots slung round his neck. They were both native Prussians on the way from Hamburg to Berlin, having come through Magdeburg, travelling, they declared, at the rate of about six-and-twenty English miles a day. These Prussians will talk; but at whatever rate my friends might have travelled, they were nearly dead beat. They had sent on their knapsacks by the waggon, finding them unmercifully heavy. The stout traveller had a white sack over his shoulders, his trousers tucked up to his knees, and his Wellington boots cut down into ankle-jacks to ease his chafed shins, that were already dotted with hectic red spots from over-exertion. His young friend carried his best Wellingtons about his neck, and wore a pair of cracked boots, through which I could see the colour, in some places,

of his dark blue socks, in other places of his dark red flesh. Both were lamed by the same cause, inflammation of the front of the leg, in which part I also had begun to feel some smartings.

We got on merrily, in spite of our legs, and overtook two very young travellers, whom I recognised as the flutterers before the presence of the magistrate at Perleberg. One proved to be a bookbinder, the other a wood-turner. They were fresh upon their travels, and their clean white blouses, the arrangements of their knapsacks, and the little neatnesses and comforts here and there about them, showed that they had not yet travelled many days’ march from a mother’s care. Then we toiled on, until our elder friend grew worse and worse about his feet, laughing and joking himself out of pain as he was able. Finally, he could go no farther, and we waited until we could send him forward in a passing cart.

He being dispatched, we travelled on, I and my friend with the boot-necklace, till we met a little crowd of men in blouses, little queer caps, knapsacks, and ragged beards, all carrying sticks. They were travelling boys like ourselves, bound from Berlin to Hamburg. “Halloo!” they cried. “Halloo!” we answered, shouting in unison as we approached each other. When we met, a little friendly skirmish with our sticks was the first act of greeting. A storm of questions and replies then followed. We all knew each other in a few minutes; carpenters, turners, glovers were there,—not a jeweller among them but myself. We parted soon, for time was precious. “Love to Berlin,” cried one of them back to us. “My compliments to Hamburg,” I replied; and then we all struck up an amatory chorus of the “Fare thee well, love” species, that fitted properly with our position.

Continuing upon our way we found our lame companion smoking a pipe comfortably outside the village inn at Warnow. His cart was resting there for bait to man and horse. We baited also and discussed black bread-and-butter, and Berlin white beer, till the cart carried away our moustachioed friend, never again, perhaps, to meet us in this world, and not likely to be recognised by his moustachios in the other.

My chalky comrade, who was also very lame, lay on the ground in a desperate condition before the day was over, and it was with some difficulty that I brought him safe by nightfall into Wusterhausen. He had become also mysterious, and evidently inquisitive

as to the state of my finances, exhibiting on his own part hasty glimpses of a brass medal wrapped up in fine wool, which he wished me to look upon as a double ducat. When we got to the inn-door, my friend made a hurried proposition very nervously, which made his purpose clear. There were sixty English miles of road between us and Berlin; he was knocked up, and a fast coach, or rumbling omnibus, accommodating six insides, would start for Berlin in the morning. He thought he could bargain with the coachman to take us to Berlin for a dollar—three shillings—a piece, if I did not mind advancing his fare, because he did not want to change the double ducat until he got home. I put no difficulty in his way, for he was a good fellow, and moreover would be well able to help me in return, by telling me the addresses of some people I depended upon finding in Berlin. He proceeded, therefore, into the agonies of bargaining, and was not disappointed in his expectation. At the price of a dollar a-piece we were packed next morning in a frowsy vehicle, tainted with much tobacco-smoke, to which he came with his swollen feet pressed only half-way down into the legs of his best Wellingtons. The ride was long and dull, for there was little prospect to be caught through the small, dirty window; and the air tasted of German tinder. From a cottage villa on the roadside, a German student added himself to the three passengers that started from Wusterhausen. He came to us with a pipe in his mouth, unwashed, and hurriedly swaddled in a morning gown, carelessly tied with a cord about the middle. After a few miles travelling the vehicle was full, and remained full—until we at last reached Berlin.

There I found no work, and wandered listlessly through the museums and picture-galleries; for a troubled mind is a poor critic in works of art. So I squeezed myself into the Police Court, meaning to leave Berlin, and had the distinction of being beckoned, before my turn out of the reeking mass of applicants for passports, because my clothes had a respectable appearance, and I wore a showy pin in my cravat.

CHAPTER IX.

berlin.—our herberge.

Fairly in Prussia! We have passed the frontier town of Perleberg, and press onward in company with a glovemaker of Berlin, last from Copenhagen, whom we have overtaken on the road towards Wusterhausen.

“Thou wouldst know, good friend, the nature of my prospects in Berlin when I arrive there? Have I letters of recommendation—am I provided in case of the worst? Brother, not so! I am provided for nothing. I dare the vicissitudes of fortune. I had a friend in Hamburg, a Frenchman, who departed thence five months ago for Berlin, under a promise to write to me at the lapse of a month. He has never written, and he is my hope. That is all. Let us go on.”

“I have a cousin,” says the glovemaker, “who is a jeweller in Berlin. I will recommend you to him. His name is Kupferkram.”

“Strange! I knew a Kupferkram in Hamburg; a short, sallow man, with no beard.”

“A Prussian?”

“Yes.”

“It cannot be that my cousin was in Hamburg and I not know it. I was there twelve months.”

“Why not? A German will be anywhere in the course of twelve months except where you expect to find him.”

“His name is Gottlob—Gottlob Kupferkram.”

“The very man! Does he not lisp like a child, and his father sell sausages in the stadt?”

“Donnerwetter! Ja!”

This may not appear to be of much importance, but to me it is everything; for upon the discovery of this vender of sausages depends my meeting with my best and only friend in Berlin, Alcibiade Tourniquet, of Argenteuil, the Frenchman before mentioned. It is at least a strange coincidence.

We came into the capital of Prussia in the eil-wagen from Wusterhausen. We had tramped the previous day a distance of good two-and-thirty English miles, through a flat, uninteresting country, and being dead beat, had made an anxious bargain with the driver of the “Fast-coach,” to carry us to Berlin for a dollar a-head. It was late in the evening as we rumbled heavily along the dusty road, and through the long vista of thick plantations which skirt the public way as you enter the city from Spandau. We dismounted, cramped and weary, from our vehicle, and my companion, a native of Berlin, unwilling to disturb his friends at that late hour, and in his then travel-worn guise; and I myself being unknown and unknowing in the huge capital, led the way at once to “Our Herberge.”

The English term “House of Call” is but an inadequate translation of the German “Herberge.” It must be remembered that the German artisan is ruled in everything by the state; for while English workmen, by their own collective will, raise up their trade or other societies, in whatever form or to whatever purpose their intelligence or their caprices may dictate to them, the German, on the contrary, discovers among his very first perceptions that his position and treatment in the world is already fixed and irrevocable. He becomes numbered and labelled from the hour of his birth, and the gathering items of his existence are duly recorded—not in the annals of history—but in the registry of the police. Thus he finds that the State, in the shape of his Zunft or Guild, is his Sick Benefit Club and his Burial Society, his Travellers’ Fund and his Trade Roll-Call; aspires indeed to be everything he ought to desire, and certainly succeeds in being a great deal that he does not want.

I have a little paper at my hand presented to me by the police of Dresden, which may help to elucidate the question of associations of workmen in Germany. It is an “Ordinance” by which “We, Frederick Augustus, by God’s grace King of Saxony, &c., &c., make known to all working journeymen the penalties to which they are liable should they take part in any disallowed ‘workmen’s unions, tribunals, or declarations;’” the said penalties having been determined on by the various governments of the German Union. “Independently,” says the Ordinance, “of the punishment” (not named) “which may be inflicted for the offence, the delinquent shall be deprived of his papers, which shall be sealed up and sent to his home Government. On his release from prison(!) he shall

receive a restricted pass for his immediate and direct return home; and on his arrival there he shall be strictly confined within its limits, nor ever be permitted to travel into the other states of the German Union, until by a long course of repentance and good behaviour his home government may think him worthy of such a favour.” It will easily be understood from this that mechanics’ or other institutions, independent of the government, are unknown.

The German Herberge is the home of the travelling workman. It should be clean and wholesome; there should he be provided, together with simple and nutritious food, every necessary information connected with his trade, and such aid and reasonable solace as his often wearisome pilgrimage requires. All this is to be rendered at a just and remunerative price, and it is usually supposed that the fulfilment of these requisites is guaranteed by the care and surveillance of the police. But this is a fiction.

Our Herberge is in the Schuster-gasse; and a vile, ill-conditioned, uncleanly den it is; nor, I am sorry to say, are its occupants, in appearance at least, unworthy of their abode. But we must not be uncharitable; it is a hard task this tramping through the length and breadth of the land; and he is a smart fellow who can keep his toilet in anything like decent condition amid the dust, the wind, the pelting rain or the weltering sunshine that beset and envelope him on the implacable high road. As there is no help, we take our places among the little herd of weary mortals without a murmur; among the ragged beards and uncombed locks; the soiled blouses and travel-worn shoe-leather; the horny hands and embrowned visages of our motley companions. We are duly marshalled to bed at eight o’clock with the rest; huddled into our loft where nine beds await some sixteen occupants; and having undergone the customary examination as to our freedom from disease and vermin, are safely locked in our dormitory, to be released only at the good will of the “Vater” in the morning.

Your German is truly a patient animal; the laws of his Guild compel him to wander for a period of years, but the laws of his country do not provide him with even the decencies of life upon the road. With his humble pack, and his few hoarded dollars, he sets forth upon the road of life; he is bullied and hustled by the police upon every step of his journey; burdened with vexatious regulations at every halting-place; and while the law forbids him to seek any other shelter than that of his Herberge, it leaves it to the

mercy of his host to yield him the worst fare, spread for him the vilest litter, and to filch him of his scanty savings in the bargain. What, in Heaven’s name! are the accommodations for which we in the Schuster-gasse are called upon to pay? There is the common room with its rude benches and tables; a stone-paved court-yard with offices, doubtless at one period appropriated as stabling, but the ground floor of which is now penned off for some few choice biped occupants; while the story above, reached by a railed ladder, and, in fact, no more than a stable loft, is nightly crammed to the door with sweltering humanity. For the purpose of cleanliness there is no other toilette apparatus than the iron pump in the yard; and for the claims of nature and decency, no better resource than is afforded by the sheltering arch of the nearest bridge over the Spree.

The goldsmiths and jewellers in Berlin are too inconsiderable a body to have a Herberge of their own, and therefore we crowd in with the turners, the carpenters, and the smiths; the glove-makers, bookbinders, and others who claim the hospitalities of the asylum in the Schuster-gasse. Let us take a sketch or two among them that may serve as a sample of the whole.

We have a sturdy young carpenter from Darmstadt, bound to Vienna, or wherever else he may find a resting-place, who makes his morning and almost only meal of Kümmel—corn spirit prepared with caraways—and brown bread; and whose great exploit and daily exercise is that of lifting the great table in the common room with his teeth. An iron-jawed fellow he is, with every muscle in his well-knit body to match. Fortunately, though a Goliath in strength, he is as simple-minded and joyous as a child.

Then comes a restless pigmy of a Hungarian, a jeweller, last from Dresden, full of life and song, but who complains ruefully that the potatoes of Berlin are violently anti-dyspeptic. This suffering wanderer from the banks of the Theiss is also vehemently expressive in his opinion that the indiscriminate use of soap is injurious to the skin, and, as a matter of principle, never uses any.

Near him stands a lank native of Lübeck, a fringe-maker, whose whole pride and happiness is concentrated in his ponderous staff of pilgrimage; a patriarchal wand, indeed! rightly bequeathed as an heirloom from father to son, and in its state and appearance not unworthy of the reverence with which it is regarded. It is no flimsy cane to startle flies with, but a stout stem some six feet long, duly peeled,

scraped and polished, and mounted with a chased head of massive silver.

Close by his side an effeminate leather-dresser from Carlsruhe sits stroking his yellow goat’s beard. Instead of strapping his knapsack to his back like a stalwart youth, after the manly fashion of his forefathers when on the tramp, he trundles behind him as he goes, a little iron chaise loaded with his pack and worldly equipage.

There broods a sombre cordwainer from Bremen, gloating over his enormous pipe, in form and size like a small barrel, raising an atmosphere for himself of the fumes of coarse uncut knaster. He has doffed his white kittel (blouse), and has wriggled himself into a short-waisted, long-skirted, German frock-coat, which, having been badly packed in his knapsack, exhibits every crease and wrinkle it has acquired during a three weeks’ march. Know, friend, that the skilful folding of apparel, to be worn on his arrival in every important town, is one of the necessary acquirements of the German wanderer.

Add to these a rollicking saddler from Heldesheim, who figures in a full beard, a rich cluster of crisp, brown curls, his own especial pride, and the object of deep envy to his less hirsute companions; and who, far too fond of corn brandy-wine, goes about singing continually the song of the German tramp, “Ich Liebe das liederliche Leben!”—This vagabond life I delight in!—an earnest, quiet student, who, for reasons of economy, has made the Schuster-gasse his place of refuge; and a dishevelled button-maker, last from Hamburg, who has just received his geschenck, or trade-gift, amounting to fifteen silver groschens, about eighteenpence in English money; and who ponders drearily over it as it lies in the palm of his hand, wondering how far this slender sum will carry him on the road to Breslau, his native place, still some two hundred miles away.

We have among us the wily and the simple, the boisterous and the patient, the taciturn and the unruly; but though they will sing songs before they go to sleep, and swagger enormously among themselves, they become as still and meek as doves at the voice of the Herberges-Vater (the father of the Herberge), and quake like timid mice beneath the eye of the police.

CHAPTER X.

a street in berlin.

Berlin is a fine city, let the wise Germans of the East say what they will. It may be deficient in those monumental records of “the good old times,” the crumbling church, the thick-walled tower, the halls and dungeons of feudal barbarism, but it abounds with evidences of the vigour and life of modern taste and skill; and instead of daily sinking into rotten significance, like some of its elder brethren, is hourly growing in beauty and strength. It has all the attributes of a great city—spacious “places,” handsome edifices, broad and well-paved streets. Its monuments, while they are evidences of great cultivation in the arts, tell of times and events just old enough to be beyond the ken of our own experiences, yet possess all the truth and vividness of recent history. “Der Alter Fritz,” Blucher, Zieten, Seyditz, Winterfeldt, Keith, and “Der Alter Dessauer”—what names are these in Prussian story!

The entrance into Berlin, on the western side, from Spandau, by the Brandenburger Gate, is the finest that the capital of Prussia has to present. A thickly-planted wood skirts the road for a mile or two before you reach the city. The trees are dwarfed and twisted, for they cannot grow freely in the dense, eternal sands of this part of North Germany, but they form a rough fringing to the white road; while the noble gate itself, built of massive stone in the Doric order of architecture, and surmounted by an effective group of a four-horse chariot, within which stands the figure of Victory raising the Roman eagle above the almost winged steeds, might grace the entrance to the city of the Cæsars.

This Brandenburger Thor, as it is called, is a copy of the Propylæa of the Acropolis of Athens, but built on a much grander scale. The central gate is of iron, eighteen feet high; of the fourteen land gates of Berlin it is immeasurably the finest, and it acquires a still deeper interest when some enthusiastic Berliner, pointing to the prancing steeds upon the summit of the arch, tells you how Napoleon in his admiration had ordered this self-same group to be transported to

Paris in 1807, to ornament a French “arch de triomphe,” and how “We, the Prussians,” had torn the spoil from the eagle’s very nest in 1814, to replant it on its original site. A glow of military ardour flushes over your heart at the recital, and the echoes of a hundred battles thunder in your ears.

Through this gate, which is in the Dorotheen Stadt, after crossing the Square of Paris, we enter upon one of the handsomest streets in the world, and one bearing the most poetical of titles: “Unter-den-Linden,”—“Under the Lime Trees!”—there is something at once charming and imposing in the very sound. Nor is this appellation an empty fiction, for there stand the lime trees themselves, in two double rows with their delicate green leaves rustling in the breeze, forming a two-fold verdant allée, vigorous and fragrant, down the centre of the street, and into the very heart of the city. Unter-den-Linden itself is two thousand seven hundred and fifty-four feet in length, and one hundred and seventy-four in width; but it extends, under another title, for a much greater distance. This is the summer evening’s ramble of your true Berliner, and not a little proud and pompous he is as he parades himself and family beneath the leafy canopy; and here, in the snowy winters, when the city lies half buried in the snowdrift, the gaily dressed sleighs go skimming under the leafless branches, filling the bright cold air with the music of their bells.

As we proceed deeper into the city, we find gay shops and stately houses. A noble range of buildings appropriated to the foreign embassies rises upon the left hand, and is succeeded by the Royal Academy; while some distance beyond stands the University, an edifice of a rather sombre appearance, although graced with columns and pilasters of the Corinthian order. To enter it you traverse a spacious court-yard, and it may be that the nature of its contents impart a melancholy character to the building itself; for, on ascending its stone staircase, and wandering for a brief period among its bottles and cases, its wax models and human preserves, we find them of so unsightly and disgusting a character that we are happy to regain the echoing corridor which had led us into this huge, systematised charnel-house.

As we cross to the opposite side of the broad street, the Royal Library faces us; a massive temple of stored knowledge, polyglot and universal; while to the right of it, in the centre of a paved space of considerable extent, stands the Catholic church of St. Hedwig,

at once a model of Roman architecture, and the emblem of the liberty of faith.

Close at hand is the Opera-house, once already purified by fire, like so many of its companion edifices, and only lately rebuilt. Some idea may be formed of the extent of its interior from the fact that it affords accommodation for three thousand spectators. Our way lies onward still. What noble figure is this? Simple but commanding in character and attitude, it fixes your attention at once. Look at the superscription. Upon a scroll on its pedestal are the words “Frederick William III. to Field Marshal Prince Blucher of Wahlstatt, in the year 1826.” Yes! the impetuous soldier, figured in eternal bronze by the first sculptor of Prussia, Rauch himself, here claims and receives the admiration of his countrymen. Bare-headed stands the old warrior, but is duly crowned with laurels on every returning anniversary of the well remembered day, the 18th of June.

Leaving the sanctuary of the Christian Deity, the heathen temple of Terpsichore, and the effigy of the renowned soldier, thus grouped together, we traverse the fine road, and pause for a moment to look at a severe but elegant structure, erected, we are told, in exact imitation of a Roman castrum, or fortress, and therefore eminently in character with the purpose for which it is intended. The smart Prussian infantry are grouped about its pillared entrance, which is graced also by two statues of military celebrities—for this is the royal guard-house.

“Der Alter Fritz.” “Old Fred!” This is the familiar title bestowed upon a great monarch; and there is something in this nickname a thousand times more telling to the ear and heart of a Prussian than the stately appellation of “Frederick the Great.” The former is for their own hearts and homes, the latter for the world. And for the world also is the noble equestrian statue upon which we now gaze. It is a question whether a work of sterling genius does not speak as effectively to the eye of the uninitiated as to that of the most inveterate stickler for antecedents of grace and technicalities of beauty. This statue of Frederick of Prussia tells upon the sense at once, because it is true to art as established by ancient critics, but more so, because it is imitated nature, which art too often only presumes to be, reckoning too much upon fixed rules and time-honoured dogmas. It is noble and impressive, because it

is like; no antiquated Roman figure in toga and calcei, but the representation of the living man.

Das Zeughaus, or arsenal, which we now approach, is a massive quadrangular building, and the warlike character of its architectural decorations strikingly indicate the nature of its contents. We pass through the open gate into an inner court, and looking round upon the sombre walls which inclose us, see the fearful faces of dead and dying men, cut in stone, which the taste or caprice of the architect has considered their fittest ornament. There is something strangely original and attractive in the grotesque hideousness of these heads, agonised with pain, scowling in anger, or frightful with their upturned eyes in the rigidity of death, all bleached and shadowed as they are by the vicissitudes of the weather.

Within the arsenal we find walls of glistening steel, columns of lances, architectural and other devices worked out in dagger blades and pistol handles; while battered armour and faded draperies, in the shape of pennons and standards, storm and battle-tattered, help to make up trophies, and swing duskily in every corner.

After a rapid survey, we are about to leave this magazine of Bellona, when we are struck by the sight of an object which reminds us so completely of one of those “gorgeous processions” in Eastern “spectacles” at home, that we wonder for a moment whether it be “part of the play,” or tangible, sober reality. Yes! placed upon a scarlet cushion lies an enormous gilt key (such a one as clown in the pantomime might open his writing-desk with, or such as hangs over a locksmith’s door), and above it glistens a golden legend to the effect that the treasure beneath was presented to “William of Prussia by his loving cousin, Nicolas, Emperor of all the Russias,” and is no less a prize than the identical key of the captured city of Adrianople! Has, then, the Russian Emperor so many such trophies of Eastern spoliation that his own museums at Petersburg are insufficient to contain them?

Up the steep way towards the residence of the Prince of Prussia, guarded by its zealous sentries, we pursue our course, and reach the first bridge we have yet seen, being one of the very many which span the Spree as it meanders through the city. This river does not present an imposing appearance in any part of Berlin. The Berliners may shake their heads, and talk of the “Lange Brücke,” but let them remember that in no part does the Spree exceed two hundred feet in width. Moreover, the manner in which it is jammed

up between locks, like a mere canal—one is puzzled sometimes to know which is canal and which river—does not improve its appearance, while the use to which some of its bridges are appropriated does not increase its purity. Passing onwards we come upon the Schloss Platz, which is itself half a garden, and find ourselves in the midst of an assemblage of public wonders—the Museum, the Protestant Cathedral, a handsome basin and fountain (the pride of the true Berliner), the Exchange, and the Old Palace.

The Museum stands on the left-hand, gracefully shaded by young trees. Traversing this miniature grove, which guards its entrance, and passing by the lofty fountain scattering its spray upon the leaves, we come upon an elegant vase of gigantic proportions, sculptured from a solid mass of native granite. Ascending into the body of the building by a sombre stone staircase, we reach the Gallery of Antiquities and the Museum of Paintings. The latter, though no doubt very valuable, appeals unsatisfactorily to me (not presuming to be a critic), and is of a peculiarly rigid, ecclesiastical character, of the early school; certainly one of its chief features is a crowd of martyred St. Sebastians.

The portion of the Museum appropriated to painting, unlike the National Gallery of London, and the Pinakothek at Munich, receives a lateral light. Imagine a long gallery divided into small cabinets by partitions, which advance only so far from the outer wall as to leave a commodious passage along its entire extent; imagine also that each of these cabinets has a lofty window, and that on its side walls (the partitions) are suspended the paintings for exhibition,—and you will form something like a notion of the general arrangement. An effective ensemble is out of the question; but, on the other hand, every painting is well lighted, and a better opportunity is afforded for quiet observation and study.

We descend into the “Platz,” and proceed towards the palace, a huge rectangular building, striped with columns, dotted with windows, and blackened as few continental edifices are.

The palace of the kings of Prussia—few as they have been—has surely its thrilling historical records. Doubtless; and through them all the spirit of the one king, “Der Alter Fritz,” shines, all but visible. Here did he hold his councils, here sit in private study; this was his favourite promenade, here did he take his rest. These details light up the imagination; but when we have traversed the echoing galleries, admired the gilt mouldings and the costly

hangings, the quaint furniture and beautiful pictures: when we have, in short, become wrought into enthusiasm by the clustering memories of a great monarch, by traits and traditions which fill the very air, what do we see next? We are ushered into a private chamber, and called upon to express our especial reverence for a miserable figure, dressed up in the Great Frederick’s “own clothes;” seated in his own chair, stuck into his identical boots; his own redoubtable stick dangling from its splayed fingers, and the whole contemptible effigy crowned by the very three-cornered hat and crisp wig he last wore! The spirit of mountebankism overshadows the spirit of the mighty man, and his very relics are rendered ridiculous.

We turn from this puppet-show to contemplate with a melancholy wonder the truly iron records of the almost life-imprisonment of Baron von Trenck. For here, a silent memorial of at least one bad act of the Prussian monarch, are iron cups and utensils engraved with scrolls and legends; the work, not of the skilled artisan with tempered and well-prepared gravers, but of the patient hands of a state prisoner with a mere nail sharpened on the stony walls of his dungeon, and the painful result of long and weary years. A strange contrast! the waxen image of the jailer, tricked out in his last garments; the solitary labours of his captive.

Thinking more of the soldier and less of the king, we quit the palace and turn on the left hand once more towards the waters of the Spree. Here is one other monument we must not forget in our hasty ramble through the main artery of the Prussian capital. In the centre of the Lange Brücke (the Long Bridge) stands the bronze figure of the last Elector and Duke of Brandenburg, Frederick William, the grandfather of Frederick the Great. It is a well-executed equestrian statue, but to my mind the four figures clustered round the pediment, on whose hands still hang the broken chains of slavery, are better works of art, as well as admirable emblems of the energetic materials—the oppressed but spirited inhabitants of a few small states—of which the now powerful kingdom of Prussia was originally formed.

We might follow the course of the wandering river over whose waters we now stand, and thus penetrate into the heart of the old city, but we should find little that was picturesque, and a great deal that was very unclean. Indeed, in spite of its general beauty, Berlin is lamentably deficient in the modern and common-place

article, sewerage. But even this will come; and in the meantime we may well ponder over the rapid growth of the city, since the brief space of time that has elapsed since it was the little town of Cologne upon the Spree, to distinguish it from the then greater one of Cologne upon the Rhine.