ON OLD-WORLD

HIGHWAYS

By the Same Author

British Highways and Byways from a

Motor Car

THIRD IMPRESSION

WITH FORTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS AND TWO MAPS

Sixteen Reproductions in Color, and Thirty-two Duogravures

320 Pages, 8vo, Decorated Cloth

Price (Boxed), $3.00

In Unfamiliar England With a Motor Car

SECOND IMPRESSION

WITH SIXTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS AND TWO MAPS

Sixteen Reproductions in Color and Forty-eight Duogravures

400 Pages, 8vo, Decorated Cloth

Price (Boxed), $3.00

Three Wonderlands of the American West

SECOND IMPRESSION

WITH FORTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS AND TWO MAPS

Sixteen Reproductions in Color and Thirty-two Duogravures

180 Pages, Tall 8vo, Decorated Cloth

Price (Boxed) $3.00 Net

L. C. PAGE & COMPANY

BOSTON

THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS, BAVARIAN TYROL
From original painting by the late John MacWhirter, R. A.

ON OLD-WORLD HIGHWAYS

A Book of Motor Rambles in France and Germany and

the Record of a Pilgrimage from Land’s End

to John O’Groats in Britain.

BY THOS. D. MURPHY

AUTHOR OF “THREE WONDERLANDS OF THE AMERICAN WEST,”

“BRITISH HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS FROM A MOTOR CAR”

AND “IN UNFAMILIAR ENGLAND WITH A MOTOR CAR.”

WITH SIXTEEN REPRODUCTIONS IN COLORS FROM ORIGINAL

PAINTINGS BY EMINENT ARTISTS AND FORTY DUOGRAVURES

FROM PHOTOGRAPHS. ALSO MAPS

SHOWING ROUTES OF AUTHOR.

BOSTON

L. C. PAGE & COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

MDCCCCXIV

Copyright, 1914

By L. C. Page & Company

(INCORPORATED)

All rights reserved

First Impression, January, 1914

Preface

I know that of making books of travel there is no limit—they come from the press in a never-ending stream; but no one can say that any one of these is superfluous if it finds appreciative readers, even though they be but few.

My chief excuse for the present volume is the success of my previous books of motor travel, which have run through several fair-sized editions. I have had many warmly appreciative letters concerning these from native Englishmen and the books were commended by the Royal Automobile Club Journal as accurate and readable. So I take it that my point of view from the wheel of a motor car interests some people, and I shall feel justified in writing such books so long as this is the case.

I know that in some instances I have had to deal with hackneyed subjects; but I have striven for a different viewpoint and I hope I have contributed something worth while in describing even well-known places. On the other hand, I know that I have discovered many delightful nooks and corners in Britain that even the guide-books have overlooked.

Besides, I am sure that books of travel have ample justification in the fact that travel itself is one of the greatest of educators and civilizers. It teaches us that we are not the only people—that wisdom shall not die with us alone. It shows us that in some things other people may do better than we are doing and it may enable us to avoid mistakes that others make. In short, it widens our horizon and tones down our self-conceit—or it should do all of this if we keep ears and eyes open when abroad.

I make no apology for the fact that the greater bulk of the present volume deals with the Motherland, even if its title does not so indicate. Her romantic charm is as limitless as the sea that encircles her. Even now, after our long journeyings in every corner of the Island, I would not undertake to say to what extent we might still carry our exploration in historic and picturesque Britain. Should one delight in ivy-covered castles, rambling old manors, ruined abbeys, romantic country-seats, haunted houses, great cathedrals and storied churches past numbering, I know not where the limit may be. But I do know that the little party upon whose experiences this book is founded is still far from being satisfied after nearly twenty thousand miles of motoring in the Kingdom, and if I fail to make plain why we still think of the highways and byways of Britain with an undiminished longing, the fault is mine rather than that of my subject.

In this book, as in my previous ones, the illustrations play a principal part. The color plates are from originals by distinguished artists and the photographs have been carefully selected and perfectly reproduced. The maps will also be of assistance in following the text. I hope that these valuable adjuncts may make amends for the many literary shortcomings of my text.

THOMAS D. MURPHY

Red Oak, Iowa, January 1, 1914.

Through Summer France

and

The Fatherland

SUNSET IN TOURAINE
From original painting by Leon Richet

On Old-World Highways

I
BOULOGNE TO ROUEN

Our three summer pilgrimages in Britain have left few unexplored corners in the tight little island—we are thinking of new worlds to conquer. Beyond the narrow channel the green hills of France offer the nearest and most attractive field. Certainly it is the most accessible of foreign countries for the motorist in England and every year increasing numbers of English-speaking tourists are seen in the neighboring republic. The service of the Royal Automobile Club, with its usual enterprise and thoroughness, leaves little to be desired in arranging the details of a trip and supplies complete information as to route. An associate membership was accorded me on behalf of the Automobile Club of America, whose card I presented and which serves an American many useful ends in European motordom. Mr. Maroney, the genial touring secretary, at once interested himself in our proposed tour. He undertook to outline a route, to arrange for transportation of our car across the Channel, to provide for duties and licenses and, lastly, to secure a courier-guide familiar with the countries we proposed to invade and proficient in the French and German languages. The necessary guide-books and road-maps are carried in stock by the club and the only charge made is for these. Our proposed route was traced on the map, a typewritten list of towns and distances was made and a day or two later I was advised that a guide had been engaged. Mr Maroney expressed regret that the young men who serve the club regularly in this capacity were already employed, but he had investigated the man secured for us and found him competent and reliable.

“Still,” said Mr. Maroney with characteristic British caution, “we would feel better satisfied with one of our own men on the job; but it is the best we can do for you under the circumstances.”

We learned that our guide was a young Englishman of good family, at present in somewhat straitened circumstances, which made him willing to accept any position for which his talents might fit him. He had previously piloted motor parties through France and Italy and spoke four languages with perfect fluency. He had done a lot of knocking about, having recently been in a shipwreck off the coast of South America and having held a captain’s commission in the South African War. We therefore called him “the Captain,” and I may as well adopt that designation in referring to him in these pages, since his real name would interest no one. He was able to drive the car and declared willingness to do a chauffeur’s part in caring for it. The only doubt expressed by Mr. Maroney was that the Captain might “forget his place”—that of a servant—and before long consider himself a member of our party, and with characteristic frankness the touring secretary cautioned our guide in my presence against any such presumption.

It is a fine May afternoon when we drive from London to Folkestone to be on hand in time to attend to the formalities for crossing the Channel on the following day. Police traps, we are warned, abound along the road and we proceed quite soberly, taking some four hours for the seventy-five miles including the slow work of getting out of London. The Royal Pavilion Hotel on low ground near the docks is strictly first-class and its rates prove more moderate than we found at its competitors on the cliff.

Our car is left at the dock, arrangements for its transport having been made beforehand by the Royal Automobile Club; but we saunter down in the morning to see it loaded. We need not worry about this, for it goes “at the company’s risk,” a provision which costs us ten shillings extra. It is pushed upon a large platform and a steam crane soon swings it high in the air preparatory to depositing it on the steamer deck.

“She’s an airship now,” said an old salt as the car reached its highest point. “We did fetch over a sure-enough airship last week—belonged to that fellow Paulhan and he’s a decentish chap, too; you’d never think he was a Frenchman!”—which would seem to indicate that the entente cordiale had not entirely cleared away prejudice from the mind of our sailor-friend.

Our crossing was as comfortable as any Channel crossing could be—which in our case is not saying much, for that green, rushing streak of salt water, the English Channel, always gives us a squeamish feeling, no matter how “smooth” it may be. We are only too glad to get on terra firma in Boulogne and to see our car almost immediately swung to the dock.

I had read in a recently published book by a motor tourist of the dreadful ordeal he underwent in securing his license to drive; a stern official sat beside him and put him through all his paces to ascertain if he was competent to pilot a car in France. I was expecting to be compelled to give a similar exhibit, when the Captain came out of the station with driving licenses for both himself and me and announced that we would be ready to proceed as soon as he attached a pair of very indistinct number plates.

“But the examination ‘pour competence,’” I said.

“O,” he replied, “I just explained to his nobs that we were in a great hurry and couldn’t wait for an examination—and a five-franc piece did the rest.” A piece of diplomacy which no doubt left the honest official feeling happier than if I had given him a joy-ride over the cobbles of Boulogne.

Filling our tank with “essence,” which we learn, after translating some jargon concerning “litres” and “francs,” will cost about thirty-five cents per gallon—we strike out on the road to Montreuil. It proves a typical French highway and our first impressions are confirmed later on. The road is broad, with perfect contour and easy grades, running straight away for miles—or should I say kilometers?—and showing every evidence of engineering skill and careful construction. But it is old-fashioned macadam without any binding material. The motor car has torn up the surface and scattered it in loose dust which rises in clouds from our wheels or has been swept away by the wind, leaving the roadbed bare but rough and jagged—a perfect grindstone on rubber tires. The same description applies to nearly all the roads we traversed in France, and no doubt the vast preponderance of them are still in the same state or worse. A movement for re-surfacing the main highways is now in progress and in a few years France will again be at the front, though at this time she is far behind England in the matter of modern automobile roads. The long straight stretches and the absence of police traps in the country make fast time possible—if one is willing to pay the tire bill. Thirty miles an hour is an easy jog and though we left Boulogne after three, we find we have covered one hundred and ten miles at nightfall, including a stop for luncheon. At Montreuil we strike the first and only serious grade, a long, steep hill up which winds the cobble-paved main street of the town—our first experience with the cobble pavement of the provincial towns, of which more anon.

A few miles beyond Montreuil the Captain steers us into a narrow byroad which leads into the quaint little fisher town of Berck-sur-Mer and, indeed, the much-abused “quaint” is not misapplied here. The old buildings straggle along the single street, quite devoid of any touch of the picturesque and thronged by people of all degrees. We see many queer four-wheeled vehicles—not much larger than toy wagons—drawn by ponies and donkeys, the drivers lying at full length on their backs, staring at the sky or asleep, their motive power wandering along at its own sweet will. It is indeed ridiculous to see full-grown men riding in such a primitive fashion, but the sight is not unusual. We meet a troop of prawn fishers coming in from the sea—as miserable specimens of humanity as we ever beheld—ragged, bedraggled, bare-headed and bare-footed creatures; many old women among them, prancing along like animated rag-bags.

Swinging back into the main highway, we soon reach Abbeville, whose roughly paved streets wind between bare, unattractive buildings. In places malodorous streams run along the streets—practically open sewers, if the smell is any indication. Abbeville affords an example of the terrible cobblestone pavement that we found in nearly all French cities of the second class. The round, uneven stones—in the States we call them “niggerheads”—have probably lain undisturbed for centuries. Besides the natural roughness of such a pavement, there are numerous chuck-holes. No matter how slowly we drive, we bounce and jump over these stones, which strike the tires with sledge-hammer force, sending a series of shivers throughout the car. It is no wonder that such pavements and the grindstone roads often limit the life of tires to a few hundred miles.

Out of Abbeville we “hit up” pretty strongly, for it is nearly dark and we plan to reach Rouen for the night. The straight fine road offers temptation to speed, under the circumstances, and our odometer does not vary much from forty miles—when we are suddenly treated to a surprise that makes us more cautious about speeding on French roads at dusk. In a little hollow we strike a ditch six inches deep by two or three feet in width—a “canivau,” as they designate it in France—with a terrific jolt which almost threatens the car with destruction. The frame strikes the axles with fearful force; it seems impossible that nothing should be broken. A careful search fails to reveal any apparent damage, though a fractured axle-rod a short time later is undoubtedly a result of the violent blow. It seems strange that an important main road should have such a dangerous defect, though we find many similar cases later; but as we travel no more after dusk, and generally at much more moderate speed, we have no further mishap of the kind. We light our lamps and proceed at a more sober pace to Neufchatel, where we decide to stop for the night at the rather unattractive-looking Lion d’Or. We have reason to congratulate ourselves, for the wayside inn is really preferable to the Angleterre at Rouen and the rates are scarcely half so much. It is a rambling old house, partly surrounding a stable-yard court where the motor is stored for the night. The regular meal time is past, but a plain supper is prepared for us. We are tired enough not to be too critical of our accommodations and the rooms and beds are clean and fairly comfortable. We have breakfast at a long table where the guests all sit together and the fare, while plain, is good.

There is nothing of interest in Neufchatel, though its cheese has given it a world-wide fame. It is a market town of four or five thousand people, depending largely on the prosperous country surrounding it.

We are early away for Rouen and in course of an hour we come in sight of the cathedral spire, the highest in all France, rising nearly five hundred feet and overtopping Salisbury, the loftiest in England, by almost one hundred feet. At the Captain’s recommendation we seek the Hotel Angleterre—which means the Hotel England—a bid, no doubt, for the patronage of the numerous English-speaking tourists who visit the city. There is a deal of dickering before we get settled, for the rates are unreasonably high; but after considerable parley a bargain is made. We enter the diminutive “lift,” which holds two persons by a little crowding, but after the first trip we use the stairway to save time.

One could not “do” Rouen in the guide-book sense in less than a week—but such is not the object of our present tour. If one brings a motor to France he can hardly afford to let it stand idle to spend several days in any city. We shall see what we can of Rouen in a day and take the road again in the morning.

Our first thought is of Jeanne d’Arc and her martyrdom in the old city and our second of the cathedral, in some respects one of the most remarkable in Europe. It is but a stone’s throw from our hotel and is consequently our first attraction. The facade is imposing despite its incongruous architectural details and has a world of intricate carving and sculpture, partly concealed by scaffolding, for the church is being restored. The towers flanking the facade are unfinished, both lacking the tall Gothic spire originally planned and, indeed, necessary to give a harmonious effect to the whole. A spire of open iron-work nearly five hundred feet in height replaces the original wooden structure burned by lightning in 1822 and is severely criticised as being out of keeping with the elaborate stone building which it surmounts.

Once inside we are overwhelmed by a sense of vastness—the great church is nearly five hundred feet in length, while the transept is a third as wide. The arches of the nave seem almost lost in the dim, softly toned light that streams in from the richly colored windows, some of which date from the twelfth century. If the exterior is incongruous, the interior is indeed a symphony in stone, despite a few jarring notes in the decorations of some of the private chapels. There are many beautiful monuments, mainly to French church dignitaries whom we never heard of and care little about, but the battered gigantic limestone effigy discovered in 1838 is full of fascinating interest, for it represents Richard the Lion-Hearted—the Richard of “Ivanhoe”—whose heart, enclosed in a triple casket of lead, wood and silver, is buried beneath. The figure is nearly seven feet in length and we wonder if this is a true representation of the stature of our childhood’s hero, who,

“starred with idle glory, came

Bearing from leaguered Ascalon

The barren splendour of his fame,

And, vanquished by an unknown bow,

Lies vainly great at Fontevraud.”

For Richard’s body was interred at Fontevraud, near Orleans, with other members of English royalty. Henry II. is also buried in Rouen Cathedral—all indicative that there was a day when English kings regarded Normandy as their home!

Another memorial which interests us is dedicated to LaSalle, the great explorer, who was born in Rouen. He was buried, as every schoolboy knows, in the great river which he discovered, but his memory is cherished by his native city as the man who gave the empire of Louisiana to France.

Rouen has at least two other churches of first magnitude—St. Ouen and St. Maclou—but we shall have to content ourselves with a cursory glance at their magnificence. The former is declared to be “one of the most beautiful Gothic churches in existence, surpassing the cathedral both in extent and excellence of style.” Such is the pronouncement of that final authority on such matters, Herr Baedeker!

But, after all, is not Rouen best known to the world because of its connection with the strange figure of Jeanne d’Arc? Indeed, her career savors of myth and legend—not the sober fact of history—and it is hard to conceive of the scene that took place around the fatal spot in the Vieux-Marche, now marked with a large stone bearing the inscription, “Jeanne d’Arc, 30 Mar. 1431.” Here a tender young woman whose only crime was an implicit belief that she was divinely inspired, was burned at the stake by order of a reverend bishop who, surrounded by his satellites, approvingly looked on the dreadful scene. And these men were not painted savages, but high dignitaries of Christendom. Much of old Rouen stands to-day as it stood then, but what a vast change has been wrought in humankind! Only a single ruinous tower remains of the castle where the Maid was confined. While imprisoned here she was intimidated by being shown the instruments of torture; but she withstood the callous brutality of her persecutors with fortitude and heroism that baffled them, though it only enraged them the more.

We acknowledge the hopelessness of getting any adequate idea of a city of such antiquity and importance in a day and the Captain says we may as well quit trying. He suggests that we take the tram for Bonsecours, situated on the steep hill towering high over the town from the right bank of the river. Here is a modern Catholic cemetery with many handsome tombs and monuments and, in the center, a recently erected memorial to Joan of Arc. This consists of three little temples in the Renaissance style, the central chapel enclosing a marble statue of the Maid. There is a modern church near by whose interior—a solid mass of bright green, red and gold—is the most gorgeous we have seen. The specialty of this church is “votive tablets”—the walls are covered with little marble placards telling what some particular saint has done for the donor in response to a vow. A round charge, the Captain says, is made for each tablet, so that the income of Bonsecours Church must be a good one.

But one will not visit Bonsecours to see the church or the memorial, though both are interesting in their way, but for the unmatched view of the city and the Seine Valley, which good authorities pronounce one of the finest panoramas in Europe. From the memorial the whole city lies spread out like a map—so far beneath that the five-hundred-foot spire of Notre Dame is below the level of our vision. The city, with its splendid spires rising amidst the wilderness of streets and house-roofs, fills the valley near at hand and the broad, shining folds of the Seine, with its old bridges and wooded shores, lends a glorious variety to the scene. The view up and down the river is quite unobstructed, covering a beautiful and prosperous valley bounded on either side by the verdant hills of Normandy. This view alone well repays a visit to Bonsecours, whether one’s stay in Rouen be short or long.

In leaving Rouen we cross the Seine and follow the fine straight road which runs through Pont Audemer to Honfleur on the coast. This was not our prearranged route, but the Captain apparently gravitates toward the sea whenever possible, and he is responsible for the diversion. From Honfleur we follow the narrow road along the coast—its sharp turns, devious windings, short steep hills and the hedgerows which border it in places recalling the byways of Devon and Cornwall. We again come out on the shore at Trouville-sur-Mer, a watering place with an array of imposing hotels. It is not yet the “season” and many of the hotels are closed, but the Belvue, one of the largest, is doing business and we have an elaborate luncheon here which costs more than we like to pay.

Out of Trouville our road still pursues the coast, running through a series of resorts and fishing villages until it swings inland for Caen—a quaint, irregular old place which, next to Rouen, declares Baedeker, is the most interesting city in Normandy. We are sorry that many of its show-places are closed to us, for it is Sunday and the churches are not open to tourist inspection. In St. Stephen’s we might have seen the tomb of William the Conqueror, though his remains no longer rest beneath it, having been disinterred and scattered by the Huguenots in 1562. Caen has two other great churches—St. Peter’s and Trinity, which we can view only from the outside.

It is Pentecost Sunday and the streets are thronged with young girls in white who have taken part in confirmation services; we have seen others at many places during the day. It is about the only thing to remind us that it is Sunday, for the shops are open, work is going on in the fields, and road-making is in progress; we note little suspension of week-day activities. The peasants whom we see by the roadside and in the little villages are generally very dirty but seem happy and content. The farm houses are usually unattractive, often with filthy surroundings—muck-heaps in front of the doors—not unlike what we saw in some parts of Ireland.

The road from Caen to Bayeux runs as straight as an arrow’s flight, broad, level and bordered—as most main roads are in France—by rows of stately trees. We give the motor full rein and the green sunny fields flit joyously past us. What a relief to “open her up” without thought of a policeman behind every bush! Is it any wonder that the oft-trapped Englishman considers France a motorist’s paradise?

The spires of Bayeux Cathedral soon rise before us and we must content ourselves with the exterior of this magnificent church. Not so with the museum which contains the Bayeux Tapestry, for the lady member of our party is determined to see this famous piece of needlework, willy nilly. The custodian is finally located and we are admitted to view the relic. It is a strip of linen cloth eighteen inches wide and two hundred thirty feet long, embroidered in colored thread with scenes representing the Conquest of England by William of Normandy. It is claimed that the work was done by Queen Matilda and her maidens, though this is disputed by some authorities; but its importance as a contemporary representation of historic events of the time of William I. far outweighs its artistic significance.

The main road from Bayeux to St. Lo is one of the most glorious highways in France. It runs through an almost unbroken forest of giant trees for a good part of the distance—a little more than twenty miles—and the sunset sky gleaming through the stately trunks relieves the otherwise somber effect.

By happy accident we reach St. Lo at nightfall and turn into the courtyard of the Hotel de Univers, a comfortable-looking old house invitingly close to the roadside. I say by happy accident, for we never planned to stop at St. Lo and but for chance might have remained in ignorance of one of the most charming little cathedral towns in France. Indeed, we feel that St. Lo is ours by right of discovery, for we find but scant mention of it in the guide-books. After an excellent though unpretentious dinner, we sally forth from our inn to view our surroundings in the deepening twilight. The town is situated on the margin of a still little river which wonderfully reflects the ancient vine-covered houses that climb the sharply sloping hillside. The huge bulk of the cathedral looms mysteriously over the town and its soaring twin spires are sharply outlined against the dim moonlit sky. The towers are not exact duplicates, as they appear from a distance, but both exhibit the same general characteristics of Gothic style. The whole scene is one of enchanting beauty; the dull glow of the river, the houses massed on the hillside, with lighted windows gleaming here and there and and crowning all the vast sentinellike form of the cathedral—a scene that would lose half its charm if viewed by the flaunting light of day. And we secretly resolve that we shall have no such disenchantment; we shall steal quietly out of St. Lo in the early morning with never a backward glance. We do not, therefore, see the interior of the church, which has several features of peculiar interest, and we may be pardoned for adopting the description of an English writer:

“Notre Dame de Saint-Lo has a very unusual and original plan, widening towards the east and adding another aisle to the north and south ambulatories. On the north side is its chief curiosity, an out-door pulpit, built at the end of the fifteenth century and probably used by Huguenot preachers, to whom a sermon was a sermon, whether preached under a vaulted roof or the open sky. What strikes one most about the interior of the church is its want of light. The nave is absolutely unlighted, having neither tri-forium nor clerestory, and the aisles have only one tier of large windows, whose glass is old and very fine, though in most cases pieced together; the nave piers are massive, with a cluster of three shafts; those of the choir are quite simple, and have one noticeable feature, the absence of capitals, the vault mouldings dying away into the pier.”

ST. LO FROM THE RIVER

We shall remember our hotel as the best type of the small-town French inn—a simple, old-fashioned house where we had attentive service and a studied effort to please was made by all connected with the place. And not the least of its merits are its moderate charges—less than half we paid at many of the larger places, often for less satisfactory accommodations.

Twenty miles westward from St. Lo we come to Coutances, which boasts of a cathedral church of the first magnitude and one of the oldest in Normandy, dating almost in entirety from the thirteenth century. Leaving the main highway a little beyond Coutances, we follow the narrow byroad running about a mile from the coast through Granville, a well-known seaside resort, to Avranches. This road is scarcely more than a winding lane with many sharp little hills, hedge-bordered in places and often overarched by trees—a little like the roads of Southern England, a type not very common in France. South of Granville it closely follows the shore for a few miles, then swings inland for a mile or two, affording only occasional glimpses of the sea. Avranches, from its commanding site on a lofty hill, soon breaks into view, and the Captain suggests luncheon at the Grand Hotel de France et de Londres, which he says is famous in this section. Besides, it is well worth while to ascend the hill for the panorama of St. Michel’s Bay, with its cathedral-crowned islet, which may be seen to the best advantage from the town. It is a stiff, winding climb to the summit, but we reach the cobble-paved, vine-embowered court of the hotel just in time for dinner. I suppose the “Londres” was added to the name of the inn with a view of catching the English-speaking trade, which is considerable in Avranches, since the town is the stopping-place of many tourists who visit Mont St. Michel. From the courtyard we are ushered into the dining-room where, after the fashion of country inns in France, a single long table serves all the guests. At the head sits the proprietor, a suave, gray-bearded gentleman who graciously does the courtesies of the table. The meal is quite an elaborate one and there is plenty of old port wine for the bibulously inclined. I might say here that this inclusion of wines without extra charge is a common but not universal practice with the French country inns; generally these liquors are of the cheapest quality, little better than vinegar, and one trial will make the average tourist a teetotaler unless he wishes to order a better grade as an “extra.” After the meal our host comes out to wish us “bon voyage” as we depart and we are at a loss to understand his intention when he picks up a small ladder and begins climbing up the wall. We see, however, that a rose-vine bearing a few beautiful blossoms clings to the stones above a window. The old gentleman cuts some of the choicest flowers and presents them, with a gracious bow, to the lady of our party.

The new causeway makes Mont St. Michel easily accessible to motorists and affords a splendid view as one approaches the towered and pinnacled rock and the little town that climbs its steep sides. Formerly the tide covered the rough road that led to the mount, much the same as it still covers the approach to the Cornish St. Michael; but the new grade is above high-tide level and the abbey may be reached at any time of the day. It is a wearisome climb to the summit—for the car cannot enter the narrow streets of the town—and for some time we wait the pleasure of the guide, who, being a government official, does not permit himself to be unduly hurried. He speaks only French and but for the Captain’s services we should know little of his story. To our half-serious remark that a lift would save visitors some hard work he replies with a shrug,

“A lift in Mont St. Michel? It wouldn’t be Mont St. Michel any longer!”—a hint of how carefully the atmosphere of mediaevalism is preserved here.

The abbey as it stands to-day is largely the result of an extensive restoration begun by the government in 1863. This accounts for the surprisingly perfect condition of much of the building, and it also confirms the wisdom of the undertaking by which a great service has been rendered to architecture. Previous to the restoration the abbey was used as a prison, but it is now chiefly a show-place, though services are regularly conducted in the chapel. Especially noteworthy are the cloisters, a thirteenth-century reproduction, with two hundred and twenty columns of polished granite embedded in the wall and ranged in double arcades, the graceful vaults decorated with exquisite carving and a beautiful frieze. The most notable apartment is the Hall of the Chevaliers, likewise a thirteenth-century replica. The vaulting of solid stone is supported by a triple row of massive columns running the full length of nearly one hundred feet—like ranks of giant tree trunks. There is a beautiful chapel and dungeons and crypts galore, the names of which we made no attempt to remember. Likewise we gave little attention to the historic episodes of the mount, which are not of great importance. The interest of the tourist centers in the remarkably striking effect of the great group of Gothic buildings crowning the rock and in the artistic beauty of the architectural details. Many wonderful views of the sea and of the hills and towns around the bay may be seen to splendid advantage from the terraces and battlements. There are a number of pleasant little tea gardens where one may order light refreshments and in the meanwhile enjoy a most inspiring view of the sea and distant landscape. The little town at the foot of the rock is a quaint old-world place with a single street but a few feet wide. The small population subsists on tourist trade—restaurants and souvenir shops making up the village. Little is doing to-day, as we are in advance of the liveliest season. The greatest number of visitors come on Sunday—a gala day at Mont St. Michel in summer.

A rough, stony road takes us to St. Malo and adds considerable wearisome tire trouble to an already strenuous day. We are glad to stop at the Hotel de Univers, even though it is not prepossessing from without.

A STREET IN ST. MALO

St. Malo’s antiquity and quaintness are its stock in trade, and these, together with its position on a peninsula, with the sea on every hand, make it one of the most popular resorts in France. Steamers from Southampton bring numbers of English visitors—we find no interpreter needed at the hotel. The town is encircled by walls, the greater part recently restored. They are none the less picturesque and the mighty towers at the entrance gateways savor strongly indeed of mediaevalism. In the older part of the town the streets are so narrow and crooked as to exclude motors, the widest not exceeding twenty feet, and there are seldom walks on either side. The houses bordering them show every evidence of age—St. Malo is best described by the often overworked term, “old-world.” The huge church—formerly a cathedral—is so hedged in by buildings that it is impossible to get a good view of the exterior or to take a satisfactory photograph. As a result of such crowding it is poorly lighted inside, though it really has an impressive interior. A walk round the walls or ramparts of St. Malo affords a wonderful view of the sea and surrounding country and also many interesting glimpses of queer nooks and corners in the town itself. The bay is finest at full tide, which rises here to the astonishing height of forty-nine feet above low water. There are numerous fortified islands and it is possible to reach some of these on foot when the tide is out. St. Malo was besieged many times during the endless wars between England and France, but owing to its remarkable fortifications was never taken.

There is more rough, badly worn road between St. Malo and Rennes, though in the main it is broad and level. Its effect on tires is indeed disheartening—we have run less than a thousand miles since landing and new envelopes are showing signs of dissolution. Part of the game, no doubt, but it is hard to be cheerful losers in such a game, to say the least.

Rennes, we find, has other claims to fame than the Dreyfus trial, which is the first distinction that comes to mind. Its public museum and galleries contain one of the best provincial collections in France, and there is an imposing modern cathedral. We have an excellent lunch at the Grand Hotel, though it is a dingy-looking place that would hardly invite a lengthy stop if appearances should be considered. It is not Baedeker’s number one and there is doubtless a better hotel in Rennes.

The road which we follow in leaving the town is the best we have yet traversed in France; it is broad, straight and newly surfaced, and the thirty or more miles to Chateaubriant are rapidly covered. Here we find an ancient town of a few thousand people, and an enormous old castle partly in ruins, a fit match for Conway or Harlech in Britain. Its square-topped, crenelated towers and long embrasured battlements are quite different from the pointed Gothic style of the usual French chateau.

Beyond Chateaubriant the road runs broad and straight for miles through a beautiful and prosperous country. Evidently the land is immensely fertile and tilled with the thoroughness that characterizes French agriculture. The small village is the only discordant note. We pass through several all alike, bare, dirty and uninteresting, quite different from the trim, flower-decked beauty of the English village. And they grow steadily more repulsive as we progress farther inland until, as we near the German border—but the subject is not pleasant enough to anticipate!

WOODS IN BRITTANY
From original painting by Leon Richet

Angers is a cathedral town of eighty thousand people on the River Maine, two or three miles above its confluence with the Loire. It is of ancient origin, but the French passion for making everything new (according to an English critic) has swept away most of its old-time landmarks save the castle and cathedral. The former was one of the most extensive mediaeval fortresses in all France and is still imposing, despite the fact that several of its original seventeen towers have been razed and its great moat filled up. It is now more massive than picturesque. “It has no beauty, no grace, no detail, nothing to charm or detain you; it is simply very old and very big and it takes its place in your recollections as a perfect specimen of a superannuated feudal stronghold.” The huge bastions, girded with iron bands, and the high perpendicular walls springing out of the dark waters of the moat must have made the castle impregnable against any method of assault before the days of artillery. The castle is easily the most distinctive feature of Angers and the one every visitor should see, though I must confess we failed to visit it. We should also have seen the cathedral and museum, but museums consume time and time is the first consideration on a motor tour.

Our Hotel, the Grand, though old, is cleanly and pleasant, with high ceilings and broad corridors which have immense full-length mirrors at every turn. The prices for all this magnificence are quite moderate—largely due, no doubt, to the Captain’s prearrangement with the manager. The service, however, is a little slack, especially at the table.

At Angers we are in the edge of the Chateau District, and as my chapter has already run to considerable length, I shall avail myself of this logical stopping place. The story of the French chateaus has filled many a good-sized volume and may well occupy a separate chapter in this rather hurried record.

II
THE CHATEAU DISTRICT

For more than two hundred miles after leaving Angers we follow a road that may justly be described as one of the most unique and picturesque in France. It seldom takes us out of sight of the shining Loire and most of the way it runs on an embankment directly overlooking the river, affording a panoramic view of the fertile valley which stretches to green hills on either side. The embankment is primarily to confine the waters during freshets, but its broad level top makes an excellent roadbed, which is generally in good condition. A few miles out of Angers we get our first view of the Loire, a majestic river three or four hundred yards in width and in full flow at the present time. Occasional islets add to the beauty of the scene and the landscape on either hand is studded with splendid trees. It is an opulent-looking country and we pass miles of green fields interspersed at times with unbroken stretches of forest. There are several towns and villages on both sides of the river and they are cleaner and better in appearance than those we passed yesterday. Near Tours the country becomes more broken and the hillsides are covered with endless vineyards. In places the clifflike hills rise close to the roadside and these are honeycombed with caves; some are occupied as dwellings by the peasants, but the greater number serve as storage cellars for wine, which is produced in large quantities in this vicinity. These modern “cliff-dwellers” are not so poor as their homes would indicate; there are many well-to-do peasants among them. In fact, the very poor are scarce in rural France; the universal habits of industry and economy have spread prosperity among all classes of people; rough attire and squalid surroundings are seldom indicative of real poverty, as in England. Everybody is engaged in some useful occupation—old women may be seen herding a cow, donkey or geese by the roadside and knitting industriously the while.

Tours is one of the most beautiful of the older French provincial cities. We have a fine view of the town from across the Loire as we approach, for it lies on the south side of the river. It is a famous tourist center—perhaps the first objective, after Paris, of the majority of Americans and English, and it has several pretentious hotels. We choose the newest, the Metropole, which proves very satisfactory. Here the Captain’s wiles fail to reduce the first-named tariff, for the hotel is full, and we can only guess what the charge might have been if not agreed upon in advance. In defense of his bargaining the Captain tells a story of a previous trip he made with an American party in Italy. English was spoken at a hotel where one of the party asked the rates and the proprietor, assuming that his prospective guests did not understand the language of the country, had a little by-talk with a henchman as to charges and remarked that the tourists, being Americans, would probably stand three or four times the regular rates, which the inn-keeper proceeded to ask. He was greatly chagrinned when the Captain repeated the substance of the conversation he had heard and told the would-be robber that the party would seek accommodations elsewhere.

I will let this little digression take the place of descriptive remarks concerning Tours, which has probably been written about more than any other city in France excepting Paris. The cathedral everyone will see; it is especially noteworthy for the facade, which is the best and most ornate example of the so-called Flamboyant style in existence. The great Renaissance towers are comparatively modern and to our mind lack the grace and fitness of the pointed Gothic style.

The country about Tours has more to attract the tourist than the city itself, for within a few miles are the famous chateaus which have been exploited by literary travelers of all degrees. But it has lost none of its charm on that account and perhaps every writer has presented to some extent a different viewpoint of its beauty and romance. Touraine is quite unlike any other part of France; its vistas of grayish-green levels, diversified with slim shimmering poplars and flashes of its broad lazy rivers, are quite unique and characteristic. And when such a landscape is dotted with an array of splendid historic palaces such as Blois, Amboise, Chinon, Chaumont and Chenonceaux, it assuredly reaches the height of romantic interest. All of these, it is true, are not within the exact political limits of Touraine, but all are within easy reach of Tours.

We make Chenonceaux our objective for the afternoon. It lies a little more than twenty miles east of Tours and the road follows the course of the Cher almost the whole distance. The palace stands directly above the river, supported on massive arches which rest on piles in the bed of the stream. A narrow drawbridge at either end cuts the entrances from the shore, though these bridges were never intended as a means of defense. Chenonceaux was in no sense a military fortress—its memories are of love and jealousy and not of war or assassination. It was built early in the sixteenth century by a receiver of taxes to King Francis, but so much of the public funds went into the work that its projector died in disgrace and his son atoned as best he could by turning the chateau over to the king.

CHENONCEAUX—THE ORIENTAL FRONT

And here, in the heart of old France, we come upon another memory of Mary Stuart, for here, with Francis II., she spent her honeymoon—if, indeed, we may style her short loveless marriage a honeymoon—coming direct from Amboise, where she had unwillingly witnessed the awful scenes of the massacre of the Huguenots. What must have been the reveries of the girl-queen at Chenonceaux! In a foreign land, surrounded by a wicked, intriguing court, with scenes of bloodshed and death on every hand and wedded to a hopeless imbecile, foredoomed to early death—surely even the strange beauty of the river palace could not have driven these terrible ghosts from her mind.

Chenonceaux has many memories of love and intrigue, for here in 1546 Francis I. and his mistress, the famous Diane of Poitiers, gave a great hunting party; but the heir-apparent, Prince Henry, soon gained the affections of the fair Diane and on his accession to the throne presented her with the chateau, to which she had taken a great fancy. She it was who built the bridgelike hall connecting the castle with the south bank of the river and she otherwise improved the palace and grounds; but on the death of the king, twelve years later, the queen—the terrible Catherine de Medici—compelled Diane to give up Chenonceaux and to betake herself to the older and less attractive Chaumont. The chateau escaped serious injury during the fiery period of the Revolution, but the insurrectionists compelled the then owner, Madame Dupin, to surrender her securities, furniture, priceless paintings and objects of art—the collection of nearly three centuries—and all were destroyed in a bonfire.

Chenonceaux is now the property of a wealthy Cuban who has spent a fortune in its restoration and improving the grounds, which accounts for the trim, new appearance of the place. The great avenue leading from the public entrance passes through formal gardens brilliant with flowers and beautified with rare shrubbery and majestic trees. It is a pleasant and romantic place and the considerateness of the owner in opening it to visitors for a trifling fee deserves commendation.

AMBOISE FROM ACROSS THE LOIRE

Quite different are the memories of Amboise, the vast, acropolislike pile which towers over the Loire some dozen miles beyond Tours and which we reach early the next day after a delightful run along the broad river. We have kept to the north bank and cross the river into the little village, from which a steep ascent leads to the chateau. The present structure is largely the result of modern restoration, the huge round tower being about all that remains of the ancient castle. This contains a circular inclined plane, up which Emperor Charles V. of the Holy Roman Empire rode on horseback when he visited Francis I. in 1539, and it is possible for a medium-sized automobile to make the ascent to-day.

Amboise is chiefly remembered for the awful deeds of Catherine de Medici, who from the balcony overlooking the town watched the massacre, which she personally directed, of twelve hundred Huguenots. With her were the young king, Francis II., and his bride, Mary Stuart, who were compelled to witness the series of horrible executions which were carried out in the presence of the court. The leaders were hung from the iron balconies and others were murdered in the courtyard. They met their fate with stern religious enthusiasm, singing, it is recorded, until death silenced their voices. The direct cause of the massacre was the discovery of a plot on the part of the Huguenot leaders to abduct the young king in order to get him from under the evil influence of his mother.

The chateau contains a tomb that alone should make it the shrine of innumerable pilgrims, for here is buried that many-sided genius, Leonardo da Vinci, who died in Amboise in 1519 and whom many authorities regard as the most remarkable man the human race has yet produced.

But enough of horrors and tombs; we go out on the balcony, where the old tigress stood in that far-off day, and contemplate the enchanting scene that lies beneath us. Out beyond the blue river a wide peaceful plain stretches to the purple hills in the far distance; just below are the gray roofs of the town and there are glorious vistas up and down the broad stream. This is the memory we should prefer to carry away with us, rather than that of the murderous deeds of Catherine de Medici!

On arriving at Blois, twenty miles farther down the river road, thoughts of belated luncheon first engage our minds and the Hotel de Angleterre sounds good, looks good, and proves good, indeed. Its dining-room is a glass-enclosed balcony overhanging the river, which adds a picturesque view to a very excellent meal. The chateau, a vast quadrangular pile surrounding a great court, is but a short distance from the hotel. Only the historic apartments are shown—quite enough, since several hours would be required to make a complete round of the enormous edifice. The castle has passed into the hands of the government and is being carefully restored. It is planned to make it a great museum of art and history and several rooms already contain an important collection. The palace was built at different periods, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, and was originally a nobleman’s home, but later a residence of the kings of France.

GRAND STAIRWAY OF FRANCIS I. AT BLOIS

Inside the court our attention is attracted by the elaborate decorations and carvings of the walls. On one side is a long open gallery supported by richly wrought columns; but most marvelous is the great winding stairway projecting from the wall and open on the inner side. Every inch of this structure—its balconies, its pillars and its huge central column—is wrought over with beautiful images and strange devices, among which the salamander of Francis I. is most noticeable. When we have admired the details of the court to our satisfaction, the guide conducts us through a labyrinth of gorgeously decorated rooms with many magnificent fireplaces and mantels but otherwise quite unfurnished. The apartments of the crafty and cruel Catherine de Medici are especially noteworthy, one of them—her study—having no fewer than one hundred and fifty carved panels which conceal secret crypts and hiding-places. These range from small boxes—evidently for jewels or papers—to a closet large enough for one to hide in.

The overshadowing tragic event of Blois—there were a host of minor ones—was the assassination of the Duke of Guise in 1588. Henry III., a weak and vacillating king, was completely dominated by this powerful nobleman, whose fanatical religious zeal led him to establish a league to restore the supremacy of the Catholic religion. The king was forced to proclaim the duke lieutenant-general of the kingdom and to pledge himself to extirpate the heretics; but despite his outward compliance Henry was resolved on vengeance. According to the ideas of the times an objectionable courtier could best be removed by assassination and this the king determined upon. He piously ordered two court priests to pray for the success of his plan and summoned the duke to his presence. Guise was standing before the fire in the great dining-room and though he doubtless suspected his royal master’s kind intentions toward him, walked into the next room, where nine of the king’s henchmen awaited him. They offered no immediate violence, but followed him into the corridor, where they at once drew swords and fell upon him. Even against such odds the duke, who was a powerful man, made a strong resistance and though repeatedly stabbed, fought his way to the king’s room, where he fell at the foot of the royal bed. Henry, when assured that his enemy was really dead, came trembling out of the adjoining room and kicking the corpse, exclaimed, “How big he is; bigger dead than alive!” The next morning the duke’s brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, was also murdered in the castle as he was hastening to obey a summons from the king.

There is little suggestion of such horrors in the polished floors and gilded walls that surround us today as we hear the Captain translate the gruesome details from the guide’s voluble sentences. We listen only perfunctorily; it all seems unreasonable and unreal as the sun, breaking from the clouds that have prevailed much of the day, floods the great apartments with light. We have not followed this tale of blood and treachery closely; it is only another reminder that cruelty and inhumanity were very common a few centuries ago.

There is a minor cathedral in Blois, but the most interesting church is St. Nicholas, formerly a part of the abbey and dating from 1138. Its handsome facade with twin towers is the product of recent restoration. There are also many quaint timbered houses in Blois, dating from the fifteenth century and later, but we pay little attention to them. I hardly know why our enthusiasm for old French houses is so limited, considering how eagerly we sought such bits of antiquity in England.

We pursue the river road the rest of the day, though in places it swings several miles from the Loire—or does the Loire swing from the road, which seems arrow-straight everywhere?—and cuts across some lovely rural country. Fields of grain, just beginning to ripen, predominate and there are also green meadows and patches of carmine clover. Crimson poppies and blue cornflowers gleam among the wheat, lending a touch of brilliant color to the billowy fields.

The village of Beaugency, which we passed about midway between Tours and Orleans, is one that will arrest the attention of the casual passerby. It is more reminiscent of the castellated small town of England than one often finds in France. It is overshadowed by a huge Norman keep with sheltered, ivy-grown parapets, the sole remaining portion of an eleventh-century castle. The remainder of the present castle was built as a stronghold against the English, only to be taken by them shortly after its completion. The invaders, however, were driven out by the French army under Joan of Arc in 1429. The bridge at Beaugency is the oldest on the Loire, having spanned the river since the thirteenth century. The town has stood several sieges and was the scene of terrible excesses in the religious wars of the sixteenth century, the abbey having been burned by the Protestants in 1567.

Towards evening we again come to the river bank and ere long the towers of Orleans break on our view. Despite its great antiquity the city appears quite modern, for it has been so rebuilt that but few of its ancient landmarks remain. Even the cathedral is a modern restoration—almost in toto—and there is scarcely a complete building in the town antedating 1500. The main streets are broad and well-paved and electric trams run on many of them. Our hotel, the Grand Aignan, is rather old-fashioned and somewhat dingy, but it is clean and comfortable and its rates are not exorbitant. There is a modern and more fashionable hotel in the city, but we have learned that second-class inns in cities of medium size are often good and much easier on one’s purse.

Our first thought, when we begin our after-dinner ramble, is that Orleans should change its name to Jeanne d’Arcville. I know of no other instance where a city of seventy thousand people is so completely dominated by a single name. The statues, the streets, the galleries, museums, churches and shops—all remind one of the immortal Maid who made her first triumphal entry into Orleans in 1429, when the city was hard pressed by the English besiegers. Every postcard and souvenir urged upon the visitor has something to do with the patron saint of the town and, after a little, one falls in with the spirit of the place, rejoicing that the memories of Orleans are only of success and triumph and forgetting Rouen’s dark chapter of defeat and death.

In the morning we first go to the cathedral—an ornate and imposing church, though one that the critics have dealt with rather roughly. It faces the wide Rue Jeanne d’Arc—again Orleans’ charmed name—and it seems to us that the whole vast structure might well be styled a memorial to the immortal Maid of France. The facade is remarkable for its Late-Gothic towers, nearly three hundred feet high, while between them to the rear rises the central spire, some fifty feet higher. There are three great portals beneath massive arches, rising perhaps one-fourth the height of the towers, and above each of these is an immense rose window. Perhaps the design as a whole is not according to the best architectural tenets, but the cathedral seems grand to such unsophisticated critics as ourselves. Being a rather late restoration, it does not show the wear and tear of the ages, like so many of its ancient rivals, and perhaps loses a little charm on this account. The vast vaultlike interior is quite free from obstructions to one’s vision and is lighted by windows of beautifully toned modern glass. These depict scenes in the life of Joan of Arc, beginning with the appearance of her heavenly monitors and ending with her martyrdom at the stake. The designing is of remarkably high order and the color toning is much more effective than one often finds in modern glass. There are a number of paintings and images, many of them referring to the career of the now venerated Maid. The usual gaudy chapels and altars of French cathedrals are in evidence, though none are especially interesting.

Orleans has several other churches and all pay some tribute to the heroine of the town. A small part of St. Peter’s dates from the ninth century, one of the few relics of antiquity to be found in Orleans. The Hotel de Ville, built about 1530, has a beautiful marble figure of Joan in the court, and an equestrian statue of the Maid is in the Grand Salon of the building, representing her horse in the act of trampling a mortally wounded Englishman. Both of these statues are the work of Princess Marie of Orleans—a scion of the old royal family of France. The Hotel de Ville also recalls a memory of Mary Stuart; here in 1560 her boy-husband, Francis II., expired in the arms of his wife, and her career was soon transferred from the French court to its no less troubled and cruel contemporary in Scotland. The town possesses an unusually good museum, which includes a large historical collection, and the gallery contains a number of paintings and sculptures of real merit. Of course one will wish to see the house where the patron saint of the town lodged, and this may be found at No. 37 Rue de Tabour. There is also on the same street the Musee Jeanne d’Arc, which contains a number of relics and paintings relating to the heroine and her times.

But for all the worship of Joan of Arc in Orleans, she was not a native of the place and actually spent only a short time within the walls of the old city. The Maid was born in the little village of Domremy in Lorraine, some two hundred miles eastward, where her humble birthplace may still be seen and which we hope to visit when we make our next incursion into France.

III
ORLEANS TO THE GERMAN BORDER

We have no more delightful run in France than our easy jaunt from Orleans to Nevers. We still follow the Loire Valley, though the road only occasionally brings us in sight of the somewhat diminished river. The distance is but ninety-six miles over the most perfect of roads and we proceed leisurely, often pausing to admire the landscapes—beautiful beyond any ability of mine to adequately describe. The roadside resembles a well-kept lawn; it is bordered by endless rows of majestic trees and on either hand are fertile fields which show every evidence of the careful work of the farmer. The silken sheen of bearded wheat and rye is dotted with crimson poppies and starred with pale-blue cornflowers. At times the poppies have gained the mastery and burn like a spot of flame amidst the emerald-green of the fields. Patches of dark-red clover lend another color variation, and here and there are dashes of bright yellow or gleaming white of buttercups and daisies. With such surroundings and on such a clear, exhilarating day our preconceived ideals of the beauty of Summer France suffer no disenchantment.

Cosne is an old river town now rather dominated by manufactories and here Pope Pius VII. sojourned when he came to France upon the neighborly invitation of Napoleon I. He stopped at the Hotel du Cerf, but we try the Moderne for luncheon, which proves unusually good.

About three o’clock we reach Nevers and a sudden thunder shower determines us to stop for the night at the Hotel de France. Outside it is quite unpretending, though queer ornamental panels between the windows and a roof of moss-green tiles redeem it somewhat from the commonplace. We have no reason to repent our decision, for the rambling old inn is scrupulously clean and the service has the personal touch that indicates the watchful eye of a managing proprietor. We are somewhat surprised to see a white-clad chef very much in evidence about the hotel and even taking a lively interest in guests who have suffered a break-down and are wrestling with their car in the stable-yard garage. We learn that this chef is the proprietor, and his wife, an English woman, is the manageress. The combination is an effective one; English-speaking guests are made very much at home and the excellence of the meals is sufficient proof of the competence of the proprietor-chef.

PORT DU CROUX—A MEDIEVAL WATCHTOWER AT NEVERS

Nevers has a cathedral dating in part from the twelfth century, though the elaborate tower with its host of sculptured prophets, apostles and saints was built some three hundred years later. The most notable relic of mediaevalism in the town is the queer old Port du Croux, a fourteenth-century watch-tower which one time formed part of the fortifications. It is a noble example of mediaeval defense—a tall gateway tower with long lancet openings and two pointed turrets flanking the steep, tile-covered roof. The ducal palace and the Hotel de Ville are also interesting old-time structures, though neither is of great historic importance. The history of Nevers is in sharp contrast with the checkered career of its neighbor, Orleans, being quite uneventful and prosaic. It is a quiet place to-day, its chief industry being the potteries, which have been in existence some centuries.

The next day, thirty miles on the road to Autun, we experience our first break-down in eighteen thousand miles of motoring in Europe—that is, a break-down that means we must abandon the car for the time. Near the little village of Tamnay-Chatillon an axle-rod breaks and a new one must be made before we can proceed. Our objective point, Dijon, is the nearest place where we will be likely to find facilities for repair and we resolve to go thither by train. We have been so delayed that train-time is past and we shall have to pass the night at the village inn. It is extremely annoying at the time, though in retrospect we are glad of our experience with at least one very small country road-house in France. The inn people spare no effort to make us as comfortable as possible and we have had many worse meals in good-sized cities than is served to us this evening. Our beds, though apparently clean, are not very restful, but we are too weary to be excessively critical. The next morning, leaving the crippled car in the stable-yard, we take the train for Dijon. The Captain carries the broken axle-rod as a pattern and soon after our arrival a workman is shaping a new one from a steel bar. And in this connection I might remark that we found the average French mechanic quick and intelligent, with almost an intuitive understanding of a piece of machinery. Our job proves slower than we anticipated; the work can be done by only one man at a time and it is not completed before midnight of the following day.

In the meanwhile we have established ourselves at the Grand Hotel de la Cloche, a pretentious—and, as it proves, a very expensive stopping-place. We have large, well-furnished rooms which afford an outlook upon a small park fronting the hotel. Our enforced leisure allows us considerably more time to look about Dijon than we have been giving to such towns and we endeavor to make the most of it. The town is one of the military centers of France, being defended by no fewer than eight detached forts, and we see numerous companies of soldiers on the streets.

The museum, we are assured, is the greatest “object of interest” in the city and, indeed, it comes up to the claims made for it. The municipal art gallery contains possibly the best provincial collection of paintings in France—an endless array of pictures of priceless value, representing the greatest names of French art. There is also a splendid showing of sculpture, occupying five separate rooms. The marble tombs of Philip the Brave and John the Fearless, old-time dukes of Burgundy, are wonderful creations. They were originally in the Church of Chartreuse, destroyed in 1793, when the tombs were removed to the cathedral in a somewhat damaged condition. They were later placed in the museum and restored as nearly as possible to their original state. Both have a multitude of marble statuettes, every one a distinct artistic study—some representing mourners for the deceased—and each little face has some peculiar and characteristic expression of grief. The strong contrast of white and black marbles is relieved by judicious gilding and, altogether, we count these the most elaborate and artistic mediaeval tombs we have seen, if we except the Percy monument at Beverly in England. The museum also has an important archaeological collection, including a number of historical relics found in the vicinity, for the city dates back to Roman times. The showing of coins, gems, vases, ivory, cabinets and jewelry would do credit to any metropolitan museum. And all this in a town of but seventy-five thousand people—which shows how far the French municipalities have advanced in such matters. Dijon is no exception in this regard, though other cities of the class may not quite equal this collection, which I have described in merest outline.

Dijon has several churches of the first order, though none of them has any notable distinguishing feature. The Cathedral of St. Benigne is the oldest, dating in its present form from about 1280, though there are portions which go back still farther. It was originally built as an abbey church, but the remainder of the abbatial buildings have disappeared. St. Michael’s Church is some four hundred years later than the cathedral, and has, according to the guide-books, a Renaissance facade, though it seems to us to be better described as a Moorish adaptation of the Gothic style. At any rate, it is an inartistic and unattractive structure and illustrates the poor results often attained in too great an effort after the unusual. Notre Dame is about the same date as the cathedral, though it has been so extensively restored as to have quite a new appearance. Its most remarkable feature is its queer statuettes—nearly a hundred little figures contorted into endless expressions and attitudes—which serve as gargoyles. The churches of Dijon are not particularly noteworthy for their interiors and none has especially good windows. Our extended sojourn in the city enables us to visit a number of shops, for which we have heretofore found little time. These are well-stocked and attractive and quite in keeping with a city of the size of Dijon. According to Herr Baedeker, the town is famous “for wine and corn, and its mustard and gingerbread enjoy a wide reputation.”

The Captain and myself take an early train for Tamnay-Chatillon and have the satisfaction of finding the new axle-rod a perfect fit. We enjoy the open car and the fine road more than ever after our enforced experience with the railway train. The country between Tamnay and Dijon is rolling and the road often winds up or down a great hill for two or three miles at a stretch, always with even and well-engineered gradients that insure an easy climb or a long exhilarating coast. There are many glorious panoramas from the hill-crests—wide reaches of hill and valley, with groves and vineyards and red-tiled villages nestling in wooded vales or lying on the sunny slopes. Most of the towns remain unknown to us by name, but the Captain points out Chateau Chinon clinging to a rather steep hillside and overshadowed by the vast ruined castle which once defended it. A portion of the old wall with three watch-towers still stands—the whole effect being very grim and ancient. Near the town of Pommard the hills are literally “vine-clad,”—vineyards everywhere running up to the very edge of the town.

The Hotel St. Louis et de la Poste at Autun does not present a very attractive exterior, but it proves a pleasant surprise and we are hungry enough to do justice to an excellent luncheon, having breakfasted in Dijon at five o’clock. Autun has an unusual cathedral—“a curious building of the transition period”—some parts of which go back as far as the tenth century. The beautiful Gothic spire—the first object to greet our eyes when approaching the town—was built about 1470. Portions of the old fortifications still remain. St. Andrew’s Gate, partly a restoration, is an imposing portal pierced by four archways and forms one of the main entrances. There is also the usual museum and Hotel de Ville to be found in all enterprising provincial towns of France.

Beyond Autun the character of the country changes again; we come into a less prosperous section, intersected by stone fences which cut the rocky hillsides into small irregular fields. We pass an occasional bare-looking village and one or two ruined chateaus and we remark on the scarcity of ruins in France, so far as we have seen it, as compared with England. A more fertile and thriving country surrounds Dijon, which we reach in the late afternoon.

We have had quite enough of Dijon, but we shall remain until morning; an early start should carry us well toward the German frontier before night. We find some terribly rough roads to Gray and Vesoul—macadam which has begun to disintegrate. The country grows quite hilly and while, in the words of the old hymn, “every prospect pleases,” we are indeed tempted to add that “only man is vile.” For the filthiness of some of the villages and people can only be designated as unspeakable; if I should describe in plain language the conditions we behold, my book might be excluded from the mails! The houses of these miserable little hamlets stretch in single file along both sides of the broad highway. In one end of the house lives the family and in the other the domestic animals—pigs, cows and donkeys. Along the road on each side the muck-piles are almost continuous and reach to the windows of the cottages. Recent rains have flooded the streets with seepage, which covers the road to a depth of two or three inches, and the odors may be imagined—if one feels adequate to such a task. The muck is drained into pools and cisterns from which huge wooden or iron pumps tower above the street. By means of these the malodorous liquid is elevated into wagon-tanks to be hauled away to the fields. And this work is usually done by the women! In fact, women are accorded equal privileges with a vengeance in this part of rural France—they outnumber the men in the fields and no occupation appears too heavy or degraded for them to engage in. We see many of the older ones herding domestic animals—or even geese and ducks—by the roadside. Sometimes it is only a single animal—a cow, donkey, goat or pig—that engages the old crone, who is usually knitting as well. The pigs, no doubt because of their headstrong proclivities, are usually confined by a cord held by their keepers, and with one of these we have an amusing adventure. The pig becomes unruly, heading straight for our car, and only a vigorous application of the brakes prevents disaster to the obstreperous brute. But the guardian of his hogship—who has been hauled around pretty roughly while hanging to the cord—is in a towering rage and screams no end of scathing language at us. “You, too, are pigs,” is one of her compliments which the Captain translates, and he says it is just as well to let some of her remarks stand in the original!

As we approach Remiremont, where we propose to stop for the night, we enter the great range of hills which form the boundary between France and Germany and which afford many fine vistas. Endless pine forests clothe the hillsides and deep narrow valleys slope away from the road which winds upward along the edges of the hills. Remiremont is a pleasant old frontier town lying along the Moselle River at the base of a fortified hill two thousand feet in height. It is cleaner than the average French town of ten thousand and clear streams of mountain water run alongside many of its streets. The Hotel du Cheval de Bronze seems a solid, comfortable old inn and we turn into the courtyard for our nightly stop. The courtyard immediately adjoins the hotel apartments on the rear and is not entirely free from objectionable odors—our only complaint against the Cheval de Bronze. Our rooms front on the street, the noise being decidedly preferable to the assortment of smells in the rear. The town has nothing to detain one, and is rather unattractive, despite its pleasing appearance from a distance. On the main street near our hotel are the arcades, which have a considerable resemblance to the famous rows of Chester.

We are awakened early in the morning by the tramp of a large company of soldiers along the street, for Remiremont, being so near the frontier, is heavily garrisoned. These French soldiers we have seen everywhere, in the towns and on the roads, enough of them to remind us that the country is really a vast military camp. They are rather undersized, as a rule, and their attire is often slouchy and worse for wear. Their bearing seems to us anything but soldierly as they shuffle along the streets. Perhaps we remember this the more because of the contrast we see in Germany a little later. A good authority, however, tells us that the French army is in a fine state of preparedness and would give a good account of itself if called into action.

We are early away from Remiremont on a fine road winding among the pine-clad hills. Some sixteen miles out of the town we find a splendid hotel at Gerardmer on a beautiful little lake of the same name in the Vosges Forest, where we should no doubt have had quite different service from the Cheval de Bronze. We have no regrets, however, since Remiremont is worth seeing as a typical small frontier town. At Gerardmer we begin the long climb over the mountain pass which crosses the German border; there are several miles of the ascent and in some places the grades are steep enough to seriously heat the motor. We stop many times on the way and there is a clear little stream by the roadside from which we replenish the water in the heated engine. The air grows cooler and more bracing as we ascend and though it is a fine June day, we see banks of snow along the road. On either side are great pine trees, through which we catch occasional glimpses of wooded hills and verdant valleys lying far beneath us. Despite the cool air, flowers bloom along the road and the ascent, though rather strenuous, is a delightful one.

At the summit we come to the customs offices of the two countries, a few yards apart. Here we bid farewell to France and slip across the border into the Fatherland, as its natives so love to call it. A wonderful old official, who seems to embody all the dignity and power of the empire he serves, comes out of the customs house. His flowing gray beard is a full yard long and the stem of his mighty porcelain pipe is still longer. He is clad in a faultless uniform and wears a military cap bespangled with appropriate emblems—altogether, a marvel of that official glory in which the Germans so delight. His functions, however, do not correspond with his personal splendor, for he only officially countersigns our Royal Automobile Club passport, delivers us a pair of number plates and, lastly, collects a fee of some fifteen marks. He gives us a certificate showing that we are now entitled to travel the highways of the empire for two weeks, and should we remain longer we shall have to pay an additional fee on leaving the country. The Captain waves an approved military adieu, to which the official solemnly responds and we set out in search of adventure in the land of the Kaiser.

IV
COLMAR TO OBERAMMERGAU

Had we crossed a sea instead of an imaginary dividing line we could hardly have found a more abrupt change in the characteristics of people and country than we discover when we descend into the broad green valley of the Rhine. We have a series of fine views as we glide down the easy grades and around the sweeping curves of the splendid road that leads from the crest to the wide plain along the river—glimpses of towns and villages lying far beneath, beyond long stretches of wooded hills. On our way we meet peasants driving teams of huge horses hitched to heavy logging wagons. The horses go into a panic at the sight of the car and the drivers seem even more panicky than the brutes; it is quite apparent that the motor is not so common in Germany as in England and France.

The province of Alsace, by which we enter Germany, was held by France from the time of Napoleon until 1871, but it never entirely lost its German peculiarities during the French occupation. Its villages and farmhouses are distinctly Teutonic, though the larger towns show more traces of French influence. Colmar, some twenty miles from the border, is the first city—a place of about forty thousand people and interesting to Americans as the birthplace of the sculptor, Bartholdi, who designed the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. It is a substantially built town with an enormous Gothic church and its museum has a famous collection of pictures by early German masters.

A few miles from Colmar we come to the Rhine, so famed in German song and story, a green, rushing flood that seems momentarily to threaten the destruction of the pontoon bridge which bears us across. Beyond the river the level but poorly surfaced road leads to Freiburg, a handsome city of about seventy-five thousand people. It is a noted manufacturing town and has an ancient university with about two thousand students. Its cathedral is one of the finest Gothic structures in Germany, the great tower, three hundred and eighty feet in height, being the earliest and most perfect of its kind. The windows of fourteenth-century glass are particularly fine and there are many remarkable paintings of a little later date. The city has other important churches and many beautiful public buildings and monuments. Indeed, Freiburg is a good example of the neatness, cleanliness and civic pride that prevails in most of the larger German cities. It has many excellent hotels and we have a well-served luncheon at the Victoria. We should stop for the day at Freiburg were it not for our unexpected delay at Dijon; we must hasten if we are to reach Oberammergau in time for our reservations. In the three remaining daylight hours we make a swift run to Tuttlingen, some sixty miles eastward, passing several small villages and two good-sized towns, Neustadt and Donaueschingen, on the way. The latter is near the head waters of the Danube, and from here we follow the river to Tuttlingen. We pass through a beautifully wooded country and several inns along the way indicate that this section is a frequented pleasure resort. There are many charming panoramas from the road, which in places swings around the hillsides some distance above the river.

Had we known the fate in store for us at Tuttlingen, we should surely have stopped at one of the hotels which we hastily passed in our dash for that town. But we reach it just at dusk—a place of about fifteen thousand people—and turn in rather dubiously at the unattractive Post Hotel. If the Post is a fair sample of the country inns of Germany, the tourist should keep clear of country inns when possible. On entering we meet an assortment of odors not especially conducive to good appetite for the evening meal, and this proves of the kind that requires a good appetite. We are hungry, but not hungry enough to eat the Post’s fare with anything like relish and we are haunted by considerable misgivings about the little we do consume. The Post, however, does not lack patronage, though it seems to come mainly from German commercial men who are seeking trade in the thriving town.

We are away early in the morning, following a rough, neglected road some dozen miles to Ludwigshaven at the head of Lake Constance, or the Boden See, as the Germans style it. A new highway leading down to the lake shore is not yet open, though nearly ready, and we descend over a temporary road which winds among tree stumps and drops down twenty per cent grades for a couple of miles. We are thankful that we have only the descent to make; I doubt whether our forty-horse engine would ever have pulled us up the “bank,” as a Yorkshire man would describe it.

But having reached the level of the lake, we find a splendid road closely following the shore for forty miles and affording views of some of the finest and most famous scenery in Europe. In all our journeyings we have had few more glorious runs. The clear balmy June day floods everything with light and color. The lake lies still and blue as the heavens above, and beyond its shining expanse rise the snow-capped forms of the Swiss Alps, their rugged ranks standing sharply against the silvery horizon. At their feet stretches the green line of the shore and above it the dense shadows of the pines that cover the slopes to the snow line. It is a scene of inspiring beauty that one sees to best advantage from the open road. Near at hand green fields stretch to the hills, no great distance away, and the belated fruit-tree blossoms load the air with perfume. Hay-making is in progress in the little fields—women swing the scythes or handle the rakes and pitchforks while staid old cows draw the heavy, awkward carts. There are several pleasant little towns along the shore, rather neater and cleaner than the average German village, though even these are not free from occasional touches of filthiness. Near the center of the lake is Friedrichshafen, a popular resort with numerous hotels. There is a beautiful drive along the lake, bordered with shrubs and trees, and fronting on this is the comfortable-looking Deutsches Haus, surrounded by gardens which extend to the shore. We remember the Deutsches Haus particularly, since on its glass-enclosed veranda we are served with an excellent luncheon. As we resume our journey, feeling at peace with the world, and open up a little on the smooth lakeside road, the Captain exclaims:

“If I had all the money I could possibly want, do you know what I’d do? I’d just buy a motor, don’t you know, and do nothing on earth but tour about Europe!”

And we all agree that under such conditions and on such a day his proposed vocation seems an ideal one.

Friedrichshafen, I should have said, was the home of Count Zeppelin of airship fame, and as we passed through the town his immense craft was being made ready for an experimental trip. It was then attracting much attention in Germany and was the precourser of the only line of commercial airships now in existence.

Lindau, a small resort built on an island about three hundred yards from the shore, marks the point of our departure from Lake Constance. We enter the town over a narrow causeway which connects it with the main road, but find little to detain us. We climb the steep winding road leading out of the valley and for the remainder of the day our course wends among the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. It proves a delightful run; we witness constantly changing displays of color and glorious effects of light and shadow. Thunder storms are raging in the mountains and at intervals they sweep down and envelop our road in a dash of summer rain. Above us tower the majestic Alps; in places the dazzling whiteness of the snow still lies against the barren rocks or amidst the dense green of the pines, while above the summits roll blue-gray cumulus clouds glowing with vivid lightning or brilliant with occasional bursts of sunshine. Near at hand stretch green meadows of the foothills, variegated with great splashes of blue or yellow flowers as though some giant painter had swept his brush across the landscape. The effect is shown with striking fidelity in the picture by the late John MacWhirter R. A. which I have reproduced, though it is quite impossible on so small a scale to give an adequate idea of the original canvas—much less of the enchanting scene itself.

Among the foothills and often well up the mountainsides are the characteristic chalets of Tyrol and an occasional ruined castle crowns some seemingly inaccessible rock. We pass several quaint little towns and many isolated houses, all very different from any we have seen elsewhere. The houses are mostly of plaster and often ornamented with queer designs and pictures in brilliant colors. The people are picturesque, too; the women and girls dress in the peculiar costume of the country; the men wear knitted jackets and knee pants with silver buckles and their peaked hats are often decorated with a feather or two.

Our road averages fair, though a few short stretches are desperately bad—this unevenness we have noted in German roads generally. In one place where the rain has been especially heavy we plunge through a veritable quagmire, and we find spots so rough and stony as to make very uncomfortable going. We finally strike the fine highway which follows the River Lech and brings us into the mountain town of Fussen. It is a snug little place of some five thousand people, nestling in a narrow valley through which rushes a swift, emerald-green river. The Bayerischer-Hof proves a pleasant surprise; one of the cleanest, brightest and best-conducted inns we have found anywhere. Our large, well-lighted rooms afford a magnificent view of the snow-capped mountains, which seem only a little distance away. The landlord, a fine-looking, full-bearded native who speaks English fluently, gives the touch of personal attention that one so much appreciates in the often monotonous round of hotel life. To the rear of the hotel is a beer-garden where brilliant lights and good music in the evening attract the guests and townspeople in considerable numbers. Several other American motor parties stop at the hotel and we especially notice one French car because it carries nine people—and it is not a large car, either! The Bayerischer-Hof is first-class in every particular, and we find when we come to depart that the charges are first-class, too. The Captain is exasperated when we are asked sixty cents per gallon for “benzin” and says we will chance doing better on the way—a decision which, as it happens, causes us no little grief and some expense.

Fussen has an impressive Gothic castle—a vast, turreted, towered, battlemented affair with gray walls and red-tiled roof which looms over the town from the slope above the river. I fear, though, that the castle is a good deal of a sham, for there are spots where the stucco has fallen from the walls, revealing wooden lath beneath, and while in Fussen they call it a “thirteenth-century” building, Baedeker gives its date as two or three hundred years later. It was never intended as a defensive structure, being originally built as the residence of the Bishop of Augsburg. It is now occupied by the district court and the interior is hardly worth a visit.

CASTLE AT FUSSEN

Oberammergau lies over the mountain to the east of Fussen, scarcely ten miles away in a direct line, but to reach it we are compelled to go by the way of Schongau, about four times as far. We pursue a narrow, sinuous mountain road, very muddy in places. We have been warned of one exceptionally bad hill—a twenty-five per cent grade, according to the Royal Automobile Club itinerary—but we give the matter little thought. It proves a straight incline of half a mile and about midway the sharp ascent our motor gasps and comes to a sudden stop. We soon ascertain that the angle is too great for the gasoline to flow from the nearly empty tank, and we regret the Captain’s economy at Fussen. A number of peasants gather about us to stare at our predicament, but they show nothing of the amusement that an American crowd would find in such a situation. A woman engages the Captain in conversation and informs us that she is the owner of a good team of horses, which will be the best solution of our difficulties. “Wie viel?” Seventy-five marks, or about eighteen dollars, looks right to her and she sticks to her price, too. Her only response to the Captain’s indignant protests is that she keeps a road-house at the top of the hill, where he can find her if he decides we need her services. And she departs in the lordly manner of one who has delivered an ultimatum from which there is no appeal. A peasant tells us that the woman makes a good income fleecing stranded motorists and that the German automobile clubs have published warnings against her. He says that a farmer near by will help us out for the modest sum of ten marks and offers to bring him to the scene; he also consoles us by telling us that five cars besides our own have stalled on the hill during the day. The farmer arrives before long with a spanking big team, which gives us the needed lift, and the grade soon permits the motor to get in its work.

We reach Oberammergau about two o’clock, only to find another instance where the Captain’s economical tendency has worked to our disadvantage. He had declined to pay the price asked by Cook’s agency in London for reservation of rooms and seats for the Passion Play and had arranged for these with a German firm, Shenker & Co. at Freiburg. On inquiring at the office of the concern in the village we find no record of our reservations and no tickets to be had. “Shenker is surely a ‘rotter,’” says the Captain, immensely disgusted, and it requires no small effort to find quarters, but we at last secure tiny rooms in a peasant’s cottage in the outskirts of the village. Tickets we finally obtain by an earnest appeal at Cook’s offices, though at considerable premium.

Our quarters are almost primitive in their plainness, but they are tolerably clean; the meals, served in a large dining-hall not far away, are only fair. The people of Oberammergau, our landlord says, face a difficult problem in caring for the Passion Play crowds. These come but once in ten years and during the intervening time visitors to the town are comparatively few. Yet the villagers must care for the great throngs of play years, though many apartments and lodging-houses must stand empty during the interval and the only wonder is that charges are so moderate.

The regular population of Oberammergau is less than two thousand, though during the play it presents the appearance of a much larger place. The houses are nearly all of the prevailing Bavarian style, with wide, overhanging eaves and white walls often decorated with brightly colored frescoes. Through the center of the village rushes the Ammer, a clear, swift mountain stream which sometimes works havoc when flooded. The church is modern, but its Moorish tower and rococo decorations do not impress us as especially harmonious and there is little artistic or pleasing in the angular lines of the new theatre. The shops keep open on every day of the week, including Sunday, until nearly midnight. These are filled with carvings, pottery, postcards and endless trinkets for the souvenir-seeking tourist and perhaps yield more profit to the town than the play itself. There are several good-sized inns, but one has no chance of lodging in one of them unless quarters have been engaged months in advance—not very practicable when coming by motor.

OBERAMMERGAU

One will best appreciate the magnificent situation of the village from a vantage-point on one of the mountains which encompass the wide green valley on every side. On the loftiest crag of all gleams a tall white cross—surely a fit emblem to first greet the stranger who comes to Oberammergau. In the center of the vale is the village, the clean white-walled houses grouped irregularly about the huge church, which forms the social center of the place. The dense green of the trees, the brighter green of the window-shutters, the red and gray-tile roofs and the swift river cleaving its way through the town, afford a pleasing variety of color to complete the picture. The surrounding green pastures with the herds of cattle are the property of the villagers—nearly every family of this thrifty community is a landholder. The scene is a quiet, peaceful one, such as suits the character of the people who inhabit this lovely vale.

And these same villagers, simple and unpretentious as they are, will hardly fail to favorably impress the stranger. The Tyrolese costume is everywhere in evidence and there is a large predominance of full-bearded men, for the play-actors are not allowed to resort to wigs and false whiskers. They exhibit the peculiarities of the Swiss rather than the Germans and their manners and customs are simple and democratic in the extreme. While the head of the community is nominally the burgomaster, the real government is vested in the householders. The freedom from envy and strife is indeed remarkable; quarrels are unknown and very few of the inhabitants are so selfish as to seek for honor or wealth. The greatest distinction that can come to any of them is an important part in the play; yet there is never any contention or bitterness over the allotments. It would be hard to find elsewhere a community more seriously happy, more healthful or morally better than Oberammergau.

I shall not write at length of the world-famous play. It has been so well and widely described that I could add but little new. It is interesting as the sole survival of a vast number of mediaeval miracle plays, though it has cast off the coarser features and progressed into a really artistic production. I must first of all plead my own ignorance of the true spirit and marvelous beauty of the play ere I saw it. I thought it the crude production of a community of ignorant peasants who were shrewd enough to turn their religion into a money-making scheme and I freely declared that I would scarcely cross the street to witness it. But when the great chorus of three hundred singers appeared in the prelude that glorious Sunday morning, I began to realize how mistaken I had been. And as the play progressed I was more and more impressed with its solemn sincerity, its artistic staging and its studied harmony of coloring. Indeed, in the last named particular it brought vividly to mind the rich yet subdued tones of Raphael and Michael Angelo, and the effect of the rare old tapestries one occasionally finds in the museums. The tableaux in many cases closely followed some famous picture—as Leonardo DaVinci’s “Last Supper” or Rubens’ “Descent from the Cross,”—all perfectly carried out in coloring and spirit. The costumes were rich and carefully studied, giving doubtless a true picture of the times of Christ. The acting was the perfection of naturalness and the crude and ridiculous features of the early miracle plays—and, not so very long ago, of the Passion Play itself—have been gradually dropped until scarce a trace of them remains. The devil no longer serves the purpose of the clown, having altogether disappeared; and even the tableau of Jonah and the whale, though given in the printed programs, was omitted, evidently from a sense of its ridiculousness. I found myself strangely affected by the simple story of the play. One indeed might imagine that he saw a real bit of the ancient world were it not for the great steel arches bending above him and the telephone wires stretching across the blue sky over the stage.

But I think the best proof of the real human interest of the play is that it held the undivided attention of five thousand spectators for eight long hours on a spring day whose perfect beauty was a strong lure to the open sky. And it did this not only for one day but for weeks, later in the summer requiring an almost continuous daily performance. And, having seen it once, I have no doubt the greater number of spectators would gladly witness it again, for so great a work of art cannot be grasped from a single performance.

Of course Oberammergau has not escaped the critics, but I fancy the majority of them are, like myself before our visit to the town, quite ignorant of the facts as well as the true spirit of the people. The commonest charge is that the play is a money-making scheme on the part of the promoters, but the fact is that the people are poor and remain poor. The actual profits from the play are not large and these are devoted to some public work, as the new theatre, the hospital and the good cause of public roads. The salaries paid the players are merely nominal, in no case exceeding a few hundred marks. The only source of private profit comes from the sale of souvenirs and the entertaining of visitors, but this can not be great, considering that the harvest comes only once in a decade. The play is “commercialized” only to the extent of placing it on a paying basis and if this were not the case there could be no performance. The very fear of this charge kept the villagers up to 1910 from placing their tickets and reservations in the hands of Cook and other tourist agencies, though they were finally persuaded to yield in this as an accommodation to the public. The most effective answer to the assertion that the chief end of the play is money-making may be found in the constant refusal of the villagers to produce it elsewhere than in Oberammergau. Offers of fabulous sums from promoters in England and the United States for the production of the play in the large centers of these countries have been steadily refused, and the actors have pursued their humble avocations in their quiet little town quite content with their meager earnings. Nor have they yielded to the temptation to give the play oftener, though it would be immensely profitable if presented every year or even every alternate year.

We leave the little mountain-girdled valley with a new conception of its Passion Play and its unique, happy people. The majestic spectacle we have witnessed during our stay will linger with us so long as life shall last and it can never be otherwise than a pleasant and inspiring memory.

V
BAVARIA AND THE RHINE

Munich is sixty miles north of Oberammergau and the road is better than the average of German highways. For some distance out of the village we pursue a winding course among the mountains, which affords some glorious vistas of wooded vales and snow-capped Alps while we descend to the wide plain surrounding Munich. We pass through several sleepy-looking villages, though they prove sufficiently wide-awake to collect a toll of two or three marks for the privilege of traversing their streets. A well-surfaced highway bordered by trees leads us into the broad streets of Munich, where we repair to the Continental Hotel.

We remain here several days and have the opportunity of closely observing the Bavarian capital. We unhesitatingly pronounce it the cleanest, most artistic and most substantial city we have ever seen. A number of drives through the main streets and environs reveal little in the nature of slums; even the poorest quarters of the city are solidly built and clean, and next to its beautiful buildings and artistic monuments the cleanliness of Munich seems to us most noteworthy. Perhaps the ladies should be given credit for this—not the members of the women’s clubs, who are often supposed to influence civic affairs for the better, but the old women who do the sweeping and scrubbing of the streets, for we see them in every part of the city. This spick-and-span cleanliness of the larger German cities forms a sharp contrast to the filth and squalor of the villages, some of which are even worse than anything we saw in France—but of this more anon.

Munich has a population of more than a half million, and having been built within the last century, is essentially modern. It has many notable public buildings, mainly in the German Gothic style—the Rathhaus, with its queer clock which sets a number of life-size automatons in motion every time it strikes the hour, being the most familiar to tourists. The Royal Palace and the National Theatre are splendid structures and the latter is famous for grand opera, in which the Germans take great delight. Munich ranks as an important art capital, having several galleries and museums, among which the Bavarian National and German Museum are the most notable. There are numerous public gardens and parks, all kept with the trim neatness that characterizes the entire city. And one must not forget the beer-gardens, which play so large a part in German life; the whole population frequents these open-air drinking-places, where beer and other refreshments are served at small tables underneath the trees. The best feature of these is the excellent music which is an invariable accompaniment and Munich is famous for its musicians. The most proficient of these think it no detraction to perform in the beer-gardens, which are attended by the best people of all classes; students, artists, professors, business and military men make up a large proportion of the patrons of these resorts. The gardens are conducted by the big brewers and Munich beer is famous the world over. There is comparatively little manufacturing in the city, though we noted one exceptionally large iron foundry and a great engine works.

During our stay we took occasion to have our car overhauled at a public garage and were impressed with the intelligence and efficiency of the German mechanics. They were usually large, fine-looking fellows, always good-natured and accommodating. The wages paid them are quite small as compared with those of American mechanics, being about one-third as much. At four o’clock in the afternoon everything stops for a quarter of an hour while the workmen indulge in a pot of beer and a slice or two of black bread. We saw this in a large foundry, where several hundred men were employed and were told that the custom is universal.

The Captain, while admitting that most of the German workmen were very good fellows, often treated them in a supercilious manner that I fear sometimes worked against our interests. In fact, the Captain’s dislike of everything German was decidedly pronounced and the sight of a company of soldiers usually put him in an ill humor. “I’ll have to take a crack at those fellows some time, myself,” he would say, in the firm conviction that war between England and Germany was inevitable.

He was not put in a better state of feeling towards our Teutonic hosts when he came to pay the bill at the Continental. Through carelessness unusual on his part, he neglected to have an iron-clad understanding when he engaged accommodations and we had to suffer in consequence. He made a vigorous protest without appreciable effect on the suave clerk, who assured us that the rates of the Continental were quite like the laws of the Medes and the Persians. They were high—yes; but only persons of quality were received. Indeed, a princess and a baroness were among the guests at that moment and he hinted that many applicants were turned away because their appearance did not meet the requirements of the Continental. “We just look them over,” said the clerk, “and if we don’t like them we tell them we are full.” All of which the Captain translated to us, though I should judge from his vehemence in replying to the clerk that he used some language which he did not repeat—perhaps it had no equivalent in English. But it was all to no purpose; we paid the bill and were free to get whatever comfort we could from the reflection that we had been fellow-guests with a princess. “I saw her one day,” said the Captain. “She was smoking a cigarette in the parlor and I offered her one of mine, which she declined, though she talked with me very civilly for a few minutes.”

We start rather late in the day with Ulm and Stuttgart as objective points. The weather is fickle and the numerous villages through which we pass would be disgusting enough in the sunshine, but they fairly reek in the drizzling rain. The streets are inches deep in filth and we drive slowly to avoid plastering the car—though the odors would induce us to hasten if it were possible. Along the highroad stretch the low thatched cottages; each one is half stable and the refuse is often piled above the small windows. We dare not think of our plight if a tire should burst as we drive gingerly along, but we fortunately escape such disaster. Everywhere in these villages we see groups of sturdy children—“race suicide” does not trouble Germany, nor does the frightfully insanitary conditions of their homes seem to have affected them adversely. On the contrary, they are fat, healthy-looking rascals who—the Captain declares—scream insulting epithets at us. On all sides, despite the rather inclement weather, we see women in the fields, pulling weeds or using heavy, mattock-shaped hoes. We even see old crones breaking rock for road-work and others engaged in hauling muck from the villages to the fields. Men are more seldom seen at work—what their occupation is we can only surmise. They cannot be caring for the children, all of whom seem to be running the streets. Possibly they are washing the dishes. But, facetiousness aside, it is probable that the millions of young men who are compelled to do army service for three years leave more work for the women at home. The railway traveler in Germany sees little of the conditions I have described in these smaller villages; few of them are on the railroad and the larger towns and tourist centers are usually cleanly.

The dominating feature of Ulm is the cathedral, whose vast bulk looms over the gray roofs of the houses crowding closely around it. It is the second largest church in Germany and has one of the finest organs in existence. The great central spire is the loftiest Gothic structure in the world, rising to a height of five hundred and twenty-eight feet, which overtops even Cologne. It has rather a new appearance, as a complete restoration was finished only a few years ago. The cathedral has made Ulm a tourist center and this no doubt accounts for the numerous hotels of the town. We have a very satisfactory luncheon at the Munster, though the charge startles us a little. We cannot help thinking that some of these inns have a special schedule for the man with an automobile—rating him as an American millionaire, who, according to the popular notion in Germany, is endowed with more money than brains.

ULM AND THE CATHEDRAL

From Ulm we pursue a poor road along the River Fils to Stuttgart, making slow progress through the numerous villages. The streets are thronged with children who delight in worrying our driver by standing in the road until we are nearly upon them. The Captain often addresses vigorous language to the provoking urchins, only to be answered by an epithet or a grimace.

Stuttgart is a clean, well-built city with large commercial enterprises. We see several American flags floating from buildings, for many Stuttgart concerns have branches in the States. It is a famous publishing center and its interest in books is evidenced by its splendid library, which contains more than a half million volumes. Among these is a remarkable collection of bibles, representing eight thousand editions in over one hundred languages. There are the usual museums and galleries to be found in a German city of a quarter of a million people and many fine monuments and memorials grace the streets and parks. The population is largely Protestant, which probably accounts for the absence of a church of the first magnitude. We stop at the old-fashioned Marquardt Hotel, which proves very good and moderate in rates.

The next day we cover one hundred and sixty miles of indifferent road to Frankfort, going by the way of Karlsruhe, Heidelberg and Darmstadt. We come across a few stretches of modern macadam, but these aggregate an insignificant proportion of the distance. The villages exhibit the same unattractive characteristics of those we passed yesterday. Many have ancient cobblestone pavements full of chuck-holes; in others the streets are muddy and filthy beyond description. It is Sunday and the people are in their best attire; work is suspended everywhere—quite the opposite of what we saw in France. The country along our route is level and devoid of interest. From Karlsruhe we follow the course of the Rhine, though at some distance from the river itself. We pass through several forests which the government carefully conserves—in favorable contrast with our reckless and wasteful destruction of trees in America. There is much productive land along our way and the fields of wheat and rye are as fine as we have ever seen. But for all this the country lacks the trim, parklike beauty of England and the sleek prosperity and bright color of France.

Heidelberg, thirty miles north of Karlsruhe, is a town of nearly fifty thousand people. The university, the oldest and most famous school in the empire, is not so large as many in America, having but sixteen hundred students in all departments. It has, however, an imposing array of buildings, some of these dating from the fourteenth century, when the school was founded. The town is picturesquely situated on the Neckar, which is crossed by a high bridge borne on massive arches. There is a fine view down the river from this bridge and one which we pause to contemplate. From the bridge we also get a good view of the town and the ancient castle which dominates the place from a lofty hill. Ruined castles, we have found, are as rare in Germany, outside the Rhine region, as they are common in England.

We reach Frankfort at dusk, more weary than we have been in many a day. The roads have been as trying as any we have traversed in Europe for a like distance, and these, with the cobblestone pavements, have been responsible for an unusual amount of tire trouble, which has not tended to alleviate our weariness or improve our tempers. The Carlton Hotel looks good and proves quite as good as it looks. It is the newest hotel in the city, having been opened within a year by the well-known Ritz-Carlton Corporation. In construction, equipment and service it is up to the highest Continental standard—with prices to correspond.

One would require several days to visit the points of interest in Frankfort, but our plans do not admit of much leisurely sightseeing. It is one of the oldest of German cities, its records running back to the time of Charlemagne in 793. We shall have to content ourselves with a drive about the principal streets and an outside view of the most important buildings. Chief among these is the magnificent opera house, the railway station—said to be the finest on the Continent—the library, the Stadel Museum, the “Schauspielhaus,” or new theatre, and the municipal buildings. The Cathedral of St. Bartholemew is the oldest church, dating from 1235, but architecturally it does not rank with Cologne or Ulm. The interior has a number of important paintings and frescoes. St. Peter’s, the principal Protestant church, is of the modern Renaissance style with an ornate tower two hundred and fifty feet in height.

There is one shrine in Frankfort that probably appeals to a greater number of tourists than any of the monumental buildings we have named—the plain old house where the poet Goethe was born in 1749 and where he lived during his earlier years. Goethe occupies a place in German literature analogous only to that of Shakespeare in our own and we may well believe that this house is as much venerated in the Fatherland as the humble structure in Stratford-on-Avon is revered in England. It has been purchased by a patriotic society and restored as nearly as possible to its original condition and now contains a collection of relics connected with the poet—books, original manuscripts, portraits and personal belongings. The custodian shows us about with the officiousness and pride of his race and relates many anecdotes of the great writer, which are duly translated by the Captain. While it is hard for us to become enthusiastic over a German writer about whom we know but little, it is easy to see that the patriotic native might find as much sentiment in the Goethe house as we did in Abbotsford or Alloway.

GOETHE’S HOUSE—FRANKFORT

It is only a short run from Frankfort to Mayence, where we begin the famous Rhine Valley trip. We pause for luncheon at the excellent Hotel d’Angleterre, which overlooks the broad river. The city, declares Herr Baedeker, is one of the most interesting of Rheinish towns and certainly one of the oldest, for it has a continuous history from 368, at which time Christianity was already flourishing. It figured extensively in the endless church and civil wars that raged during the middle ages, and was captured by the French in 1689 and 1792. After the latter fall it was ceded to France, which, however, retained it but a few years. Formerly it was one of the most strongly fortified towns in the kingdom, but its walls and forts have been destroyed, though it still is the seat of a garrison of seventy-five hundred soldiers. It has a cathedral of first importance, founded as early as 400, though few traces of the original building can be found. A notable feature is a pair of bronze doors executed in 988, illustrating historic events of that time. But the greatest distinction of Mayence is that Johann Gutenberg, the father of modern printing, was born here near the end of the fourteenth century. At least this is the general opinion of the savants, though there be those who dispute it. However, there is no doubt that he died in the city about 1468; neither is it disputed that he established his first printing shop in Mayence, and did much important work in the town. The famous Gutenberg Bible, a copy of which sold recently for $50,000, was executed here about 1450. A bronze statue of the famous printer by Thorwaldsen stands in front of the cathedral.

BINGEN ON THE RHINE

The fifty or sixty miles between Mayence and Coblenz comprise the most picturesque section of the Rhine, so famous in song and legend, and our road closely follows the river for the whole distance. The really impressive scenery begins at Bingen, ten miles west of Mayence, where we enter the Rhine Gorge. On either side of the river rise the clifflike hills—literally vine-covered, for the steep slopes have been terraced and planted with vineyards to the very tops. Our road keeps to the north of the river and is often overhung by rocky walls, while far above we catch glimpses of ivy-clad ruins surmounting the beetling crags. The highway is an excellent one, much above the German average. In places it is bordered by fruit-trees—a common practice in Germany—and we pass men who are picking the luscious cherries. So strong is law and order in the Fatherland, we are told, that these public fruit-trees are never molested and the proceeds are used for road improvement. The day is showery, which to some extent obscures the scenery, though the changeful moods of light and color are not without charm. The great hills with their castles and vineyards are alternately cloud-swept and flooded with sunlight—or, more rarely, hidden by a dashing summer shower.

Bingen has gained a wide fame from the old ballad whose melancholy lilt comes quickly to one’s mind—though we do not find the simple country village we had imagined. It has about ten thousand people and lies in a little valley on both sides of the Nahe, a small river which joins the Rhine at this point. It is an ancient place, its history running back to Roman times. Slight remains of a Roman fortress still exist, though the site is now occupied by Klopp Castle, which was restored from complete ruin a half century ago. This castle is open to visitors and from its tower one may look down on the town with its gray roofs and huge churches.

From Bingen to Coblenz, a distance of about forty miles, the gorge of the Rhine is continuous and we are never out of sight of the vine-covered hills and frequent ruins. Nearly all the ruined castles of Germany center here and we see fit matches for Caerphilly, Richmond or Kenilworth in Britain. In this hurried chronicle I cannot even mention all of these picturesque and often imposing ruins, though a few may be chosen as typical.

CASTLE RHEINSTEIN

A short distance from Bingen is Rheinstein, originally built about 1270 and recently restored by Prince Henry as one of his summer residences, though he has visited it, the custodian tells us, but once in two years. A wearisome climb is necessary to reach the castle, which is some two hundred and fifty feet above the road where we leave our car. The mediaeval architecture and furnishings are carried out as closely as possible in the restoration, giving a good idea of the life and state of the old-time barons. There is also an important collection of armor and antiquities relating to German history.

In this same vicinity is Ehrenfels, which has stood in ruin nearly three hundred years. Its towers still stand, proud and threatening, though the residential portions are much shattered. Opposite this ruin, on a small island in the river, is the curious “Mouse Tower,” where, legend asserts, a cruel archbishop was once besieged and finally devoured by an army of mice and rats, a judgment for causing a number of poor people to be burned in order to get rid of them during a famine. But as the bishop lived about 915 and the tower was built some three hundred years later, his connection with it is certainly mythical and let us hope the rest of the story has no better foundation. The old name, Mausturm (arsenal), no doubt suggested the fiction to some early chronicler.

The castles of Sonneck and Falkenburg, dating from the eleventh century, surmount the heights a little farther on our way. These were strongholds of robber-barons who in the middle ages preyed upon the river-borne traffic—their exploits forming the burden of many a ballad and tale. These gentry came to their just deserts about 1300 at the hands of Prince Rudolph, who consigned them to the gallows and destroyed their castles. Sonneck is still in ruins, but Falkenburg has been restored and is now private property.

Almost every foot of the Rhine Gorge boasts of some supernatural or heroic tale—as myth-makers the Germans were not behind their contemporaries. We pass the Devil’s Ladder, where the fiend once aided an ancient knight—no doubt on the score of personal friendship—to scale the perpendicular cliff to gain the hand of a “ladye fair.” A little farther are the Lorelei Rocks, where the sirens enticed the sailors to destruction in the rapids just below. Quite as unfortunate were the seven virgins of Schonburg, who for their prudery were transformed into seven rocky pinnacles not far from the Lorelei—and so on ad infinitum.

EHRENFELS ON THE RHINE

A volume would not catalog the legends and superstitions of the Rhine Gorge. At least the Captain so declares and adds that he knows a strange story of the Rhine that an old German once told him in Bingen. At our solicitation he repeats it as we glide slowly along the river road and I have thought it worth recasting for my book. There will be no harm done if it is skipped by the reader who has no taste for such things. It is a little after the style of several German legends of ancient gentry, who sold themselves to the Evil One to gain some greatly desired point—though I always thought these stories reflected on the business sagacity of the Devil in making him pay for something he was bound to get in the end without cost. The story, I find, is long enough to require a chapter of itself and it may appropriately follow this.

There are endless small towns along the road, but they are quite free from the untoward conditions I have described in the more retired villages off the track of tourist travel. Boppard, St. Goar Oberwesel and Bornhofen are among the number and each has its storied ruin. Near the last-named are the twin castles of The Brothers, with their legend of love and war which the painstaking Baedeker duly chronicles. Above St. Goar towers the vast straggling ruin of Rheinfels, said to be the most extensive in Germany, which has stood in decay since its capture by the French in 1797. It crowns a barren and almost inaccessible rock which rises nearly four hundred feet above the river. Near Boppard is Marxburg, the only old-time castle which has never been in ruin. It has passed through many vicissitudes and at present serves as a museum of ancient weapons and warlike costumes.

As we approach Coblenz we come in sight of the battlemented towers of Stolzenfels rising above the dense forests that cover the great hill on which it stands. The castle is three hundred and ten feet above the river, but the plain square tower rises one hundred and ten feet higher, affording a magnificent outlook. The present structure is modern, having been built in 1842 by the crown prince on the site of an old castle destroyed by the French. It now belongs to the emperor, who opens it to visitors when he is not in residence. It is a splendid edifice and gives some idea of the former magnificence of the ruins we have seen to-day.

RUINS OF CASTLE RHEINFELS

Coblenz, at the junction of the Moselle and Rhine, appeals to us as a stopping-place and we turn in at the Monopol—just why I do not know. There are certainly much better hotels in Coblenz than this old-fashioned and rather slack place, though it has the redeeming feature of very moderate charges. The Captain is in very ill humor; he has quarreled with an employee at the garage and as nearly as I can learn, tried to drive the car over him. I feared the outraged Teuton might drop a wrench in our gear-box as a revenge for the rating the Captain gave him—though, fortunately, we experience no such misfortune.

Coblenz has about fifty thousand people and while it is a very old city—its name indicating Roman origin—it has little to detain the tourist. An hour’s drive about the place will suffice and we especially remember the colossal bronze statue of Emperor William I., which stands on the point of land where the two rivers join—a memorial which Baedeker declares “one of the most impressive personal monuments in the world.” The equestrian figure is forty-six feet high and dominates the landscape in all directions, being especially imposing when seen from the river. Just opposite Coblenz is the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, about four hundred feet above the river. A finely engineered road leads to the fort, where a large garrison of soldiers is stationed. Visitors are admitted provided they can satisfy the officials that they are not foreign military men who might spy out the defenses.

Our route as planned by the Royal Automobile Club was to take us from Coblenz to Treves by way of the Moselle Valley, but our desire to see the cathedral leads us to follow the Rhine road to Cologne. Mr. Maroney of the Club afterwards told me that we made a mistake, since the scenery and storied ruins of Moselle Valley are quite equal to the Rhine Gorge itself. Cologne one can see any time, but the chance to follow the Moselle by motor does not come every day. We are disappointed in the trip to Cologne, since there is little of the picturesqueness and romantic charm that delighted us on the previous day. The castle of Drachenfels, on a mighty hill rising a thousand feet above the river, is the most famous ruin, but we do not undertake the rather difficult ascent. The far-reaching view from the summit was celebrated by Byron in “Childe Harold.”

Just opposite is the ruin of Rolandseck, with its pathetic legend of unrequited love and constancy. This castle, tradition says, was built by Roland, a crusader, who returned to find that his affianced bride had given him up as dead and entered a convent. He thereupon built this retreat whence he could look down upon the convent that imprisoned the fair Hildegund. When after some years he heard of her death he never spoke again, but pined away until death overtook him also a short time afterwards.

Midway we pass through Bonn, the university town, a clean, modern city of sixty thousand people. The university was founded a century ago and has some three thousand students. Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770, in a house which now contains a museum relating to the great composer.

Our road keeps to the right of the river, which is swollen and dirty yellow from recent rains. We pass many villages with miserable streets—the road in no wise compares with the one we followed yesterday through the Gorge. Altogether, the fifty miles between Coblenz and Cologne has little to make the run worth while.

We find ourselves in the narrow, crooked streets of Cologne well before noon and are stopped by—it seems to us—a very officious policeman who tells us we may proceed if we will be careful. This seems ridiculous and the Captain cites it as an example of the itching of every German functionary to show his authority, but later we learn that motors are not allowed on certain streets of Cologne between eleven and two o’clock. Our friend the officer was really showing us a favor on account of our ignorance in permitting us to proceed. We direct our course towards the cathedral, which overshadows everything else in Cologne, and the Savoy Hotel, just opposite, seems the logical place to stop. It proves very satisfactory, though it ranks well down in Baedeker’s list.

Cologne Cathedral is conceded to be the most magnificent church in the world and a lengthy description would be little but useless repetition of well-known data. We find, however, that to really appreciate the vastness and grandeur of the great edifice one must ascend the towers and view the various details at close range. It is not easy to climb five hundred feet of winding stairs, especially if one is inclined to be a little short-winded, but the effort will be rewarded by a better conception of the building and a magnificent view covering a wide scope of country. We are unfortunate today since a gray mist obscures much of the city beneath us and quite shuts out the more distant landscape. The great twin towers, which rise more than five hundred feet into the sky, were completed only a few years ago. In the period between 1842 and 1880 about five million dollars was expended in carrying out the original plans—almost precisely as they were drawn by the architects nearly seven hundred years ago. The corner-stone was laid in 1248 and construction was carried forward at intervals during the period of seven centuries.

Inside, the cathedral is no less impressive than from the exterior. The vaulting, which rises over two hundred feet from the floor, is carried by fifty-six great pillars and the plan is such that one’s vision may cover almost the whole interior from a single viewpoint. It is lighted by softly toned windows—mostly modern, though a few date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and, altogether, the effect is hardly matched by any other church in Christendom.

We make no attempt to see the show-places of Cologne during our stay—it would require a week to do this and we shall have to come again. An afternoon about the city gives us some idea of its monuments and notable buildings as well as glimpses of the narrow and often quaint streets of the old town. The next day we are away for Treves and Luxemburg before the “verboten” hour for motor cars.

If we missed much fine scenery in the Moselle Valley by coming to Cologne, the loss is partly atoned for by the country we see to-day and the unusually excellent roads. Our route as far as Treves runs a little west of south and diverges some seventy-five miles from the Rhine. It is through a high, rolling country, often somewhat sterile, but we have many glorious views from the upland roads. There are long stretches of hills interspersed with wooded valleys and fields bright with yellow gorse or crimson poppies. There are many grain-fields, though not so opulent-looking as those we saw in the Rhine Valley, and we pass through tracts of fragrant pine forest, which often crowd up to the very roadside. There are many long though usually easy climbs, and again we may glide downward a mile or more with closed throttle and disengaged gears. Much of the way the roadside is bordered with trees and the landscapes remind us more of France than any we have so far seen in Germany. We pass but two or three villages in the one hundred and ten miles between Cologne and Treves; there are numerous isolated farmhouses, rather cleaner and better than we have seen previously. We stop at a country inn in the village of Prun for luncheon, which proves excellent—a pleasant surprise, for the inn is anything but prepossessing in appearance. The guests sit at one long table with the host at the head and evidently the majority are people of the village. Beer and wine are served free with the meal and some of the patrons imbibe an astonishing quantity. This seems to be the universal custom in the smaller inns; in the city hotels wine comes as an extra—no doubt somewhat of a deterrent on its free use.

Treves—German Trier—is said to be the oldest town in Germany. The records show that Christianity was introduced here as early as 314 and the place was important in ecclesiastical circles throughout the middle ages. We have a splendid view of the town from the hills as we approach; it lies in the wide plain of the Moselle and its red sandstone walls and numerous towers present a very striking appearance. The cathedral, though not especially imposing, is one of the oldest of German churches—portions of it dating from 528 and the basilica now used as a Protestant church is a restored Roman structure dating from 306. But for all its antiquity Treves seems a pleasant, up-to-date town with well-paved streets—a point which never escapes the notice of the motorist. The surrounding hills are covered with vineyards and the wine trade forms one of the principal enterprises of the place.

A few miles from Treves we enter the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, an independent country, though part of the German Zollverein, which no doubt makes our touring license and number-plates pass current here. It is a tiny state of no more than a thousand square miles, though it has a quarter million people. Luxemburg, where we decide to stop for the night, is the capital. The Grand Hotel Brasseur looks good, though the service proves rather slack and the “cuisine” anything but first-class. Luxemburg is a delight—partly due to its peculiar and picturesque situation, but still more to the quaint buildings and crooked, narrow streets of the older parts and the shattered walls and watchtowers that still encircle it. The more modern portion of the town—which has but twenty thousand inhabitants—is perched on a rocky tableland, three sides of which drop almost precipitously for about two hundred feet to small rivers beneath. The hotels and principal business houses are on the plateau, but the older parts of the town are wedged in the narrow valleys. These are spanned by several high bridges, from one of which we have a delightful viewpoint. It is twilight and the gray houses are merging into the shadows, but the stern towers and broken walls on the heights fling their rugged forms more clearly than ever against the wide band of the sunset horizon. These are the remnants of the fortifications which were condemned to destruction by the Treaty of London in 1876, which guaranteed the neutrality of the Grand Duchy. Only the obsolete portions of the defenses were permitted to stand and these add wonderfully to the romantic beauty of the town. Indeed, the wide panoramas of valley and mountain, of bare, beetling rock and trim park and garden, groups of old trees, huge arched viaducts and the ancient fortifications, form one of the most striking scenes we have witnessed on the Continent. It evidently so impressed the poet Goethe, about one hundred years ago, for a graphic description of Luxemburg may be found in his writings. So charming is the scene that we linger until darkness quite obliterates it and return to our inn feeling that Luxemburg has more of real attractiveness than many of the tourist-thronged cities.

LUXEMBURG—GENERAL VIEW

VI
THE CAPTAIN’S STORY

Friedrich Reinmuth had always been an unsettled and discontented youth; if his days were sad he complained because they were so and if they were prosperous he still found fault. It was not strange that, being of such a nature, he should already have tried many vocations, although yet a young man. At the time of my story he had become a soldier, and while he often fretted and chafed under the rigor of military discipline, he did not find it easy to shift from its shackles as had been his wont in other occupations.

By chance he formed a friendship with an old and grizzled comrade, who, although he had served almost two score years in the army, was still hale and strong. The old man had been in the midst of numberless desperate engagements but had always come out of the fray unscathed. Queer stories were whispered about him among his soldier companions, but only whispered, for it was believed, and with reason, that he would take summary vengeance on anyone who crossed his path. He had murdered his own brother in a fit of fury, and to him was also imputed the assassination of the Baron of Reynold, who rebuked the fiery-tempered man on some trifling point; but he had never been brought to justice for any of his crimes. There was a vague rumor that Gottfried Winstedt had sold himself to the devil in return for the power to resist all mortal weapons and to escape all human justice—this it was that made him invulnerable in battle and shielded him from the wrath of the law.

But Friedrich in his association with this man for the space of two months had noted little extraordinary about him. He never guessed why the veteran broke an habitual reserve to become his companion until one night when they were conversing on the eve of battle. As they sat moodily together by a waning camp-fire the older man, who had been even more morose than usual during the day, broke the silence. In a melancholy voice he said:

“I have somewhat to tell you now, for before the set of tomorrow’s sun I will be—God in Heaven, where will I be?—but let it pass; I dare not think of it. My life has been one of unparalleled wickedness; I have committed crimes the very recital of which would appall the most hardened criminal in the Kingdom, but I would not recite them to you if I could, for what would avail the monotonous story of vice and bloodshed for which there is no repentance? You have heard the rumors that these accursed fools have whispered of me—I will not say whether they be true or no. But long foreseeing—yes, foreknowing my fate—I have sought for someone in whom I might confide. I was drawn toward you—I hardly know why—yet I dare not wholly trust in you. Upon one condition, nevertheless, I will commit to you something of vast and curious importance.”

Friedrich in his amazement was silent and the veteran brought forth from the folds of his faded cloak a small sandalwood box, which he held toward the young man.