A Lesson from Nature—Tramp-Trip through the Black Forests—Heidelberg Castle—Basle, Switzerland—Met by a Friend—Emigrants off for America—Delivering an Address to the Emigrants—The Grave of Erasmus—Gateway to the Heart of the Alps—Snowy Peaks—Rendezvous of the Nations—Beautiful Scene—Moonlight on the Lake—Sweet Music—Pretty Girls—Mountains Shaken with Thunder and Wrapped with Fire.
I BELIEVE it was Zeno who said, “We have only one mouth, but two ears; whereby Nature teaches us that we should speak little, but hear much.” So, having two eyes and only one pen, I must see much and write little. I shall not therefore pause, as I should like, to speak of a few charming days spent in walking through the “Black Forests” of Germany, nor of a visit to Heidelberg, beautiful for situation and famous for its university,
“Half hidden in a gallery of pines,
Nestling on the sunny slope.”
There is no more impressive sight in Germany than the ruins of the Heidelberg Castle. The remains of its frowning battlements, ivy-covered walls, and hanging gardens speak most eloquently of its former greatness and grandeur. I can never forget the moonlight nights that Johnson and I spent in Heidelberg, wandering up and down the banks of the Neckar, listening to the music of her waters as they flow on to join the legendary Rhine, a few hundred yards below.
Leaving Heidelberg at four o’clock in the morning, we travel all day through a comparatively uninteresting country, reaching Basle, Switzerland, in time to break bread with a friend (?) who kindly sent a committee to the depot to meet us. The committee insisted on carrying us up from the station in a carriage, but we told them that as we had no exercise during the day, we preferred to walk and carry our own satchels.
The day after arriving in Basle, we see a hundred and twenty-five German and Swiss emigrants starting for America. At the request of the emigration agent, who was possessed of much intelligence and good information, I make a speech to the emigrants the hour before their departure. I tell them not to stop around New York and Boston, but to go West. After speaking briefly of the advantages of the country, I tell them that America is not an Eden, but a wilderness; not a wilderness, either, where people are miraculously fed with manna, as were the Israelites of old, but one where the horny-handed sons of toil have to dig their bread out of the ground; yet it is a wilderness which, when watered by the sweat of the brow, is transformed into a waving harvest field. I tell them that we invite immigration, not that we want foreigners to fill easy places and control political affairs; that a few years ago there were some men in Chicago, who went there with this false idea in their brains, and, in trying to run the government, they made a mistake and ran their heads into a halter. I insist that earnest, honest, persistent, and intelligent laborers are the kind of men we want; that such men are protected by law, and rewarded with a comfortable living. After expressing the wish that they might be freed from sea-sickness while crossing the ocean, and from home-sickness after landing on the other side, I bid them adieu.
A few days suffice to show us the parks, monuments, and public buildings of the city. Among the latter, is the time-honored cathedral in which rest the bones of Erasmus, the scholar of the Reformation.
It was two hours after leaving Basle, before we could realize that we were in Switzerland. Now, however, a great mountain rose up before us. It was too long to surround, and too high to surmount; hence, we had either to stand still, retreat, go under, or else go through the mountain. After boring our way through the solid rock for two miles, we come into the light on the opposite side. We find that this tunnel is only a gateway admitting us into the land of wonders, and to the heart of the Alps, a description of which will occupy the next chapter.