Next to the market the restaurant or beer-and wine-garden is the place to see the people. The Germans eat breakfast, dinner at noon, supper at 6 o’clock, and once more about 10 o’clock. From 7 o’clock to 10 o’clock the whole family sits in the public garden drinking beer or wine (not much, but long), listening to the music and getting hungry for the fourth meal of the day. There are restaurants everywhere—in the public buildings, the art galleries, the churches, on the sidewalks, and in the parks. I have not been to a German cemetery, but I would confidently expect to find there a garden with tables where one could get something to eat and drink.
The valley of the Rhine for more than a hundred miles is one vast vineyard, and the word valley includes the hillsides. The hills are high. The vines begin close to the water’s edge, the vineyards being sometimes terraced and sometimes on a slope so steep that the men and women who cultivate them must wear climbers like telegraph linemen. It is a beautiful sight at this season of the year with the lofty heights clothed in green and pointing up into the blue sky, with brown old ruined taverns and castles and white châteaus and villas here and there among the green. One would wonder what could be done with all the grapes that must come from such a great vineyard if he did not look around him and see everybody drinking the juice and evidently endeavoring to keep pace with the production. At Coblentz the Moselle river joins the Rhine, and it is another charming valley full of history, poetry and grapes. Coblentz is old and quaint, with narrow streets, old-fashioned people, and the appearance of ancient days. On this trip I have seen a good deal of the German people. The class distinctions are about all that make them different from Americans. The poor folks always expect to be poor and do not move around with the aggressive action that ours do. I suppose I talked with a hundred, and every one of them wanted to come to America. Mechanics and artisans, very skillful, are not altogether satisfied with conditions, and they, too, talk America. But the great middle class of farmers and merchants are as full of patriotism and conceit as are true American citizens. They think Germany is the greatest nation on earth, and that all the countries will eventually admit the fact and take subordinate places. They don’t like America or England, and they expect sometime to have war with us unless we give up easier than they anticipate. The typical German is not slow or easy-going, as he is often painted, but is energetic, pushing and “chesty.” He thinks Germany can lick the United States with one hand tied behind, and is ready to have the work begin any time. In fact, Germans are just as offensively and ignorantly patriotic as are Americans, which is saying a good deal, for Americans in Europe nearly always go around with a chip on either shoulder, daring somebody to knock it off.
But the Germans are gentlemen. For the first time since I left Paris I saw men in the street cars give their seats to ladies. In Italy the rule is for the man to have first consideration. It makes American women furious when they meet Italian men on the narrow sidewalks to have to get off into the streets and let the gentlemen pass by. But they must do it or the men will simply walk over them. In Germany the women in the country work in the fields and in the cities they are in the shops and offices more than in the United States, but they are treated decently and politely. The German is in fact more polite than the Frenchman. He even tips his hat to his man friends. If I go into a store to buy a cigar the proprietor or clerk who waits on me will say “good-morning” and “good-by.” They do this with one another, and do not keep their company manners for strangers. German hotels are the best in Europe, and one of the customs is during the meal at hotel or restaurant for the proprietor to walk around and pleasantly greet his patrons, whether he knows them or not, on the comfortable theory that they are his guests. Germans are always willing to guide and advise strangers and they don’t take “tips,” at least not any more than in America. Germany is wealthy and prosperous as a nation and the Germans one meets when traveling are about the best folks you find in Europe.
In Germany a landlord advertises his hotel as “first-class” or “second-class.” The second-class hotels are clean and good, but they have some mighty funny names. I had learned in England not to get worried over the signs of “The Red Lion,” “The White Bull,” etc. But German hotel-keepers go still further. They name their places after animals of all kinds and colors, and often saints and imaginary creatures. The Golden Calf, The Winged Lion, The House of the Weaned Calf, The Wild Man, were some of the names, but at Heidelberg one extreme was reached by the “Hotel Jesus,” and at Worms the other extreme by the “Hotel of the Two Pairs of Drawers.” I suppose every name has a story or a legend behind it and the name is a valuable asset of the property. Speaking of names reminds me that here in Cologne the street that leads to the market-place is called “Kingdom of Heaven street,” and not far away is the “Grace of God street.” I can see how these names might be properly used in Kansas, but they are out of place in Cologne.