I have been in Germany a week, and I have not seen a half-dozen men smoking pipes. I thought Germans were great pipe-smokers, but they are not in this part. The Heidelberg pipes are mostly made to sell to Americans and English. The Germans smoke a little the worst cigars I have ever met. They are cheap in price and the Germans consume them in large quantities. The kind the high-class Germans use closely resembles a brand known in our country as “The Pride of the Sewer,” and sells at about two for 5 cents. An American who is accustomed at home to buying “a good nickel cigar” can’t find anything that good in Germany, unless it may be in the big hotels where they cater to American and English trade. I had always had Germans pictured to me as big fat men with long pipes in their mouths, sitting around tables on which were large steins of beer. The beer is here all right, but the men are as bright and energetic as Americans, and they smoke cigars and not pipes.
Another dream gone up in smoke.
It is a great country for castles and “legends.” I think the average yield of legends per acre is larger in Germany than in any other country on earth, especially in the Black Forest and on the Rhine. That is one thing our country is short of—legends. Aside from a few old Indian stories, a tale of woe about the grasshoppers and reminiscences of the Populists, we haven’t anything that approaches the legends which hang on almost every tree in the Black Forest and stick out of every castle-window. And yet Kansas could raise legends as well as Germany, for a legend is nothing but a lie told so often that nobody knows where it started; and Kansas has her share of liars. Here is a sample “legend” from the old castle of Heidelberg which we visited to-day:
A HEIDELBERG LEGEND.
The count of Heidelberg had a beautiful daughter. (They all do—in legends.) Her reputation for beauty went all over Germany and reached the shores of Great Britain. The king of England saw the photograph of the fair lady dressed in her bicycle suit, and instantly fell in love with her. But he did not want the German beauty to marry him for his money and title, so he disguised himself as a cook, got a job in Heidelberg castle and made eyes at the princess. It was a case of two-hearts-that-beat-as-one, and the princess soon began to make dates and meet the supposed cook back of the castle and down on the Neckar. He revealed his real identity to her, but made her promise not to tell. He then went to the old man and asked him for the hand of his daughter. The count laughed at the cook, which made the latter mad and so he blurted out that the maiden loved him. Then the cook skipped out and the count sent for his daughter. She confessed to being in love with the cook, but on account of her promise did not tell his right name. The old count got into an awful rage and ordered his daughter whipped, and the lash was applied so well that the princess died. Before she passed away she told her father who the cook really was, and the count of Heidelberg was truly sorry; but that did no good. A few days later the king of England with an imposing suite arrived to ask the hand of the princess, and when he found out what had happened he took the old man out behind the barn and sliced him up in fine pieces.
There is a song which tells all about this affair, and the music is about as good as the legend.
WORMS AND OTHER THINGS.
Worms, Germany, July 23, 1905.