We have seen the great Passion Play, and the day is nearly over which we have anticipated so long, and to which every plan has been made subservient, since we crossed the ocean. And now, while the streets are full of people and the twilight shadows are falling over Mt. Kofel, where the tall cross shows so conspicuously, I sit down to write my impressions of the wonderful drama, which, during the summer, has attracted nearly 100,000 visitors to this little, quiet, old-fashioned town, among the hills of Bavaria. The high and the low, the rich and the poor, the titled lord and the lowly peasant meet here together, jostling side by side, sharing the same fatigue and discomfort, and deeming neither too great a price to pay for the object they have in view.
Before speaking of the play in detail, it may not be out of place to say something of the way to reach Oberammergau, and of the town itself; and so, first, the journey there.
Nearly all the Americans and English who visit Oberammergau, make Munich their starting-point; consequently the city is at this season crowded to its utmost capacity, and reminds one of Philadelphia during the Centennial. Naturally a great deal of anxiety is felt by the tourist with regard to his pilgrimage to the valley of the Ammer, especially as he hears such exaggerated accounts of the difficulties to be encountered on the way, and he is at times half tempted to give it up as something unattainable. When we reached Munich, on Friday, August 20th, and made inquiries at our hotel as to the probability of our getting tickets for August 29th, we were looked upon as lunatics for entertaining such a thought.
It was impossible under any circumstances to procure a place for the 29th, we were told by the clerk. There would be at least 6,000 people there, with accommodations for 2,000, and our only way was to wait quietly at the hotel until Sunday, the 29th; then take Gaze’s tickets, which were to be had in the office for forty-five marks each, and go to see the play on Monday, as it was sure to be repeated.
Gaze, let me say, is an enterprising English tourist agent, who has opened a hotel at Oberammergau, and advertizes to board and lodge you for two days and carry you to and from the railway station at Murnau, where you leave the cars, for forty-five marks, which are equal to $11.25 of American money,—a pretty good price, it seemed to us, to pay for two days’ board and a drive of sixteen miles; but we accepted it as inevitable, and settled down quietly to wait, until Providence threw in our way an English clergyman, who changed our plans entirely.
“Don’t believe one word they tell you at the hotels,” he said. “They wish to keep you here as long as possible. Don’t listen to them. Don’t touch a Gaze ticket. Don’t touch a Cook ticket. Don’t touch anybody’s ticket, but just run your own canoe.”
On second considerations I am inclined to think he did not use that last expression, which I believe is purely American, but that was what he meant, and he went on to say: “Write to the burgomaster yourself and ask for the highest priced tickets. You’ll not get them, but you will get something. Neither will he answer your letter, but your name will be recorded and remembered when you prefer your claim. Go on Friday by the early train to Murnau, where you will find hundreds of carriages waiting to take you to Oberammergau, and once there, get a place for yourself at half the sum charged by Gaze or his agents.”
We followed the Englishman’s advice and wrote to the burgomaster, and on Friday took the train for Murnau, distant from Munich sixty miles, and from Oberammergau sixteen. Here we expected our troubles to commence, for we doubted a little our English friend’s story of the carriages waiting for us there; but he was right. There were hundreds of them,—vehicles of every kind,—some good enough for a princess, and some which looked as if Eve herself might have driven in them, had driving been one of her pastimes. I even noticed a cow and a horse harnessed together, but I hardly think they were there for the purpose of getting passengers. At all events we did not take that establishment, but chartering one, which had a pair of strong looking horses, we were soon started on what proved to be the pleasantest drive we ever experienced, and one we shall never forget.
There are two routes from Murnau to Oberammergau,—one through the little village of Oberau and up the famous Mt. Ettal, which is so steep and long that passengers are obliged to walk up it, or as a writer has expressed it, “Rich and poor have to struggle with the steepness of Mt. Ettal for over half an hour, while a pair of the best horses are struggling hard to draw up an empty carriage.” Marvelous stories are told of people who have had the apoplexy, and of horses which have died toiling up this hill, and as none of our party had a fancy to try it, we chose the other, and to my mind the pleasanter route of the two. It is a little longer than the one through Ettal, but the road winds alternately up and over hills neither too long or tiresome, and down through grassy valleys fresh from a recent shower and sweet with the perfume of new mown hay, and into which little brooks came tumbling from the mountains which shelter Oberammergau and which are always in view. Long before we reached the town I singled out one tall peak which from its peculiar shape attracted my curiosity and which I found to be the far-famed Kofel, on which the cross is erected and which bends over the little hamlet as if in benediction. For this peak the people have a kind of superstitious reverence, and when asked to repeat their play in America, they replied, “We would do so gladly, but we must bring our Kofel with us.”