The people of the Black Forest are a charming, friendly lot. I suppose they are as happy as anybody, although one of them was very proud of a brother who had gone to America and was making “much geld,” and whom he would follow if he could. All through Europe I meet people who have relatives in America, and that may account for the friendly treatment I have everywhere received. These American relatives have all gotten “rich” according to their European relatives, which shows that the immigrants to our country all succeed or keep a stiff upper lip when they write to the folks in the fatherland.
The architecture of the Black Forest houses is as striking as any I have seen. Nearly every farmhouse is very large, at least three stories high, and on one or more sides the roof “gambrels” off from the high ridge nearly to the ground. The effect is like a tent-covering, and the roof is often thatched or tiled in two or three colors,—on some the green grass is growing. Part of the house is the barn. The winter here is said to be severe, and the Forest peasant evidently believes in having his family and his horses, cows and chickens where they can be comfortable and sociable. The houses are extra clean, and the furniture, dishes and utensils of the kitchen shine with the good polishing they must receive. The little farms are tilled to the limit, and are generally irrigated and always fertilized. Just to show how these people manage to get a living out of the ground and the care they use to get it all, I saw women and men on the roadside with baskets cleaning the road of manure and carrying it to their land.
We have had to learn a new money system in Germany. France, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium have what is called a “Latin league,” with interchangeable currency, the unit being the franc (France, Switzerland, and Belgium), and the lire (Italy). But Germany joins no Latin leagues. The unit of the German currency is the “mark,” equivalent to twenty-five cents American. This is divided into one hundred pfennigs. Prices are carried out to the pfennig, and one-pfennig coins (in value one-fourth of one cent) are seen more than our one-cent pieces at home. That illustrates the close, exact, economical German spirit. The first time I made a small purchase in Germany I got a pocketful of change. Mrs. Morgan wanted a little money, and I gave her a couple of handfuls. She said she didn’t want so much, as she only intended to buy inexpensive things. I had actually given her about fifty cents. When one hundred copper coins make twenty-five cents and they are used in most transactions, you can realize what a heavy load you carry and how you can get that wealthy feeling without much actual expense.
Soon after leaving Constance our road turned away from the Rhine, and going through a tunnel we were in the valley of the Danube. It startled me a little, as I had always connected the Danube with Austria and Turkey. But sure enough, we were riding along the banks of the Danube, which has been made famous by history, poetry and music. If a raindrop fell on one side of that hill it would go down to the Rhine to the Baltic, and if the wind blew it over to the other side before it struck the earth it would start eastward and journey down the Danube to the Black sea. Rivers are like human beings,—they get their directions from the place where they start and go onward along the road of least resistance to the place appointed, unless dammed or taken up by man or God, in which case they will struggle and work to seep back to the channel in which it was intended they should make their course.
By the way, the “Beautiful Blue Danube” is not blue at all in this part of its career, but almost black, seemingly taking its hue from the forests in which it has its origin.
The town of Triberg is a quaint little place near the top of the mountain, and apparently about one hundred miles from Nowhere. I have had my first experience with what I understand is not infrequent in old German towns. There is a tax on strangers, thirty pfennigs a day or one mark a week, and our hotel has to pay and charge in our bill. Ministers of the gospel, and paupers, are exempt. In America if they had a fool tax like that they would also exempt newspaper men. The only way I could get out of paying the tax was to make affidavit that I was a minister or a pauper, so I reluctantly gave up the offer to dodge taxation and the town of Triberg is fifteen cents to the good on account of our stay. However, there is a very fine waterfall, and we looked fifteen cents’ worth at that and called it even.