EUROPE ON A VANISHING BANK-ROLL
My journey through Europe was a foot-race. I was trying to beat a bank-roll which was rapidly diminishing and which I feared would be totally exhausted before I reached England, where I hoped to get work. If my money had been rubber I could not have stretched it over a greater distance.
From Milan to Zurich is a big jump in Europe and especially is this true when one considers the perfect Paradise of things there are to see. But with my depleted financial condition always confronting me I had to press on and to content myself with a train-window view of the beautiful Italian "lake country" and the rugged scenery of Switzerland.
Why I went to Zurich, I don't exactly know, but I suppose it must have been the cheapest trip open to me. Aside from scenery Zurich possesses little of interest. After a few hours there, during which I visited the Ton-halle, the cathedral in which Zwingli—the Swiss reformer—set forth his peculiar doctrines and made an excursion of the town, I went on my way to Munich.
My train journey was broken by a trip on a little steamer across Lake Constance. This small body of water is on the boundary line between Switzerland and Germany and, on landing, I was received by a German policeman who evidently sized me up for a spy. I took him for a baggageman and when he spoke to me told him to "beat it." He resented my tone and manner and pressed his solicitations with a little more severity. At last it dawned on me that he was an officer and I decided that for my general welfare it would be well to treat him more courteously. I soon learned from him that he wanted my passport. I had that document in my possession but knew that it was not necessary for an American citizen to present such an instrument in Germany so I declined to produce it. I was able to satisfy the inquisitiveness of the gentleman by answering a few questions, and he allowed me to go on my way.
In my diary I find the following entry concerning Munich:—"Munich is celebrated for two things, its art and its beer. I spent little time on the art but confined myself to the beer. I sampled it thoroughly and can say that it is a high-class liquid. For the equivalent of two cents one gets a large glass, and for five cents a toilet pitcher sufficiently large to drown a ten-pound baby.
"There are no saloons in Germany or on the continent of Europe, liquor being sold in restaurants and cafés, all respectable places frequented by women as well as men. I once knew a good American Baptist woman who was as strict an abstainer as ever lived, but she could not withstand the temptation to partake of beer in Munich during her sojourn there. I understand that many staunch prohibitionists temporarily fall off the wagon in this manner.