I found the middle, beginning at Bingen, charming. Bishop Hatto's Tower had become a cockneyfied affair, and the castles, banks, and islands were disagreeably suggestive of Richmond Hill. But Drachenfels, Nonnenswerth, and Rolandseck, were charming, and I quite felt the truth of the saying, that this is one of the paradises of Germany. At Düsseldorf the river became old and ugly, and so continued till Rotterdam.
Wiesbaden in those days was intensely "German and ordinary," as Horace Walpole says. It was a kind of Teutonic Margate, with a chic of its own. In the days before railways, this was the case with all these "Baths," where people either went to play, or to get rid of what the Germans call eine sehr schöne corpulenz, a corporation acquired by stuffing food of three kinds, salt, sour, or greasy, during nine or ten months of the year. It was impossible to mistake princely Baden-Baden and its glorious Black Forest, for invalid Kissingen or for Homberg, which combined mineral waters and gambling tables. Wiesbaden was so far interesting that it showed the pure and unadulterated summer life of middle-class Germans. There you see in perfection the grave blue-green German eye.
You are surprised at the frequency of the name of Johann. Johann was a servant; Johannes, a professor; Schani, a swell; Jean, a kind of fréluqué; Hans, a peasant; and Hansl, a village idiot. Albrecht, with flat occiput, and bat-like ears, long straight hair and cap, with unclean hands, and a huge signet ring on his forefinger, with a pipe rivalling the size of a Turkish chibouque, took his regular seat on one of the wooden benches of the promenade, with Frau Mutter mending his stockings on one side, and Fraülein Gretchen knitting mittens on the other. This kind of thing would continue perhaps for ten seasons, but on the eleventh you met Albrecht, au petit soins, with Mütze as his bride, and Gretchen being waited upon by her bridegroom Fritz, and then everything went on as before. Amongst the women the kaffee-gesellschaft flourished, when coffee and scandal took the place of scandal and tea, the beverage which I irreverently call "chatter-water." The lady of the house invites two or three friends to come and bring their work and drink a cup of coffee. Before the hour arrives the invitations most likely number twenty. They dress in afternoon promenade toilette, which was very unadorned at Wiesbaden, and they drop in one by one—much kissing and shaking of hands and uncloaking; then each one pulls out knitting, or various pieces of work, which are mutually admired, and patterns borrowed, and then they fall to upon children, servants, toilettes, domestic economy, and the reputations of such of their friends as are not there. This goes on for hours, only interrupted by the servant wheeling in a table covered with coffee, cakes, sweetmeats, jam, and kugelhupf.
In the evening there was often a dance at the Kursaal—admirable waltzing, and sometimes quadrilles with steps. Here the bald old Englishman, who in France would collect around him all the old ladies in the room to see him dance, was little noticed. The hearty and homely Germans danced themselves, even when they had grey hair.
Our family found a comfortable house at Wiesbaden, and the German servants received the "boys," as we were still called, with exclamations of "Ach! die schöne schwarze kinder." We paid occasionally furtive visits to the Kursaal, and lost a few sovereigns like men. But our chief amusement was the fencing-room. Here we had found new style of play, with the schläger, a pointless rapier with razor-like edges. It was a favourite student's weapon, used to settle all their affairs of honour, and they used it with the silly hanging guard. Some of them gave half an hour every day to working at the post, a wooden pillar stuck up in the middle of the room and bound with vertical ribbons of iron.
When we were tired of Wiesbaden, we amused ourselves with wandering about the country. We visited the nearer watering-places. The first was Schwalbach, "the Swallows' Brook," where the rusty waters turned all our hair red. We then went off to Schlangenbad, "the Snakes' Bath," whose Kalydor made the Frenchman fall in love with himself. These waters had such a reputation, that one lady (of course she was called a Russian Princess) used to have them sent half across Europe for daily use.
In those days there were not many English in these out-of-the-way places, and the greater number were Oxford and Cambridge men. They were learning German and making the most extraordinary mistakes. One gentleman said that the German particles were difficult, but he made a great confusion of the matter. Amongst others, there were the daughters of Archbishop Whately, at that time very nice girls. We then returned to Wiesbaden, and went over to Heidelberg, which is so charmingly picturesque. Here we found a little colony of English, and all fraternized at once.
We "boys" wanted to enter one of the so-called brigades, and chose the Nassau, which was the fightingest of all. An Irish student, who was one of the champions of the corps, and who had distinguished himself by slitting more than one nose, called upon us, and, over sundry schoppes of beer, declared that we could not be admitted without putting in an appearance at the Hirschgasse. This was a little pot-house at the other side of the river, with a large room where monomachies were fought. The appearance of the combatants was very ridiculous. They had thick felt caps over their heads, whose visors defended their eyes. Their necks were swathed in enormous cravats, and their arms were both padded, and so were their bodies from the waist downwards. There was nothing to hit but the face and the chest. That, however, did not prevent disagreeable accidents. Sometimes too heavy a cut went into the lungs, and at other times took an effect upon either eye. But the grand thing was to walk off with the tip of the adversary's nose, by a dexterous upward snick from the hanging guard. A terrible story was told of a duel between a handsome man and an ugly man. Beauty had a lovely nose, and Beast so managed that presently it was found on the ground. Beauty made a rush for it, but Beast stamped it out of all shape. There was a very little retreating in these affairs, for the lines were chalked upon the ground. The seconds stood by, also armed with swords and protected with masks, to see that there was nothing like a sauhieb or unfair cut. A medical student was always present, and when a cut went home, the affair was stopped to sew it up. Sometimes, however, the artery shrank, and its patient was marked with a cross, as it was necessary to open his cheek above and below in order to tie it up.
A story is told of a doctor who attended a students' duel, when the mask fell, and one of them lost his nose. The doctor flew at it and picked it up, and put it in his mouth to keep it warm, whipped out his instruments, needle and thread, and so skilfully stitched on the nose, and stopped it with plaster, that the edges united, and in a few weeks the nose was as handsome and useful as ever.