relics of fictitious ancestry at, say, a couple of guineas apiece, is sufficiently characteristic of Yankeedom.
The train rattles on past Fürth, and in two or three hours arrives at Forcheim, a small fortified town near the junction of the Wiesent with the Regnitz. It was here that the bishops of Bamberg took up a position of defence during the Thirty Years’ War, but the goodly walls which so long withstood the siege of Gustavus have gradually succumbed to the attacks of time. It is now one of the dullest of dull German towns. We put up at a homely little inn, where we were besieged by peasant boys who came to sell their rustic schoppen-cups made of variegated wood, for the manufacture of which this neighbourhood is famous.
Here, at the usual hour for German dinners—viz., one o’clock—was an apology for a table d’hôte, at which we sat down in company with three or four Bavarian officers. These gentlemen, to whom the Guards’ Club-house in Pall Mall would seem a palace of regal luxury, and the amusements of our military youth, utterly incompatible with a soldier’s lot, were dining at the rate of eightpence apiece on boiled beef (from which the soup had been made), sauerkraut, veal cutlets (about the size of a British cheese-plate), lentils, kartoffel-salat, and a sweet pudding, washing the whole down with a pint of good Bavarian beer, brought up, as it always is, in the humblest wirtschaft, icy cold. The repast concluded, they abandoned themselves to the enjoyment of halfpenny cigars—quite as good, by the way, as most that are sold for threepence in this country—or repaired to some adjoining café for a game of dominoes. I do not say that these warriors, as a class, are such fine gentlemen as those who lounge in Hyde Park, and, strange as it may sound in English ears, they are rarely seen out of uniform, but they are good soldiers, with a keen sense of discipline; and, though they may have a little of that military swagger peculiar to their profession, are much more affable in their bearing towards civilians than some I have known whose commissions dated from the Horse Guards.
Having paid our modest reckoning, we step out to inspect the vehicle which our host has provided for the journey. I have travelled by “road” a good deal in Germany, France, and Italy, but never in the whole course of my experience have I seen, before or since that memorable expedition, anything in the form of a carriage to compare with this one. It was a sort of ancient compromise between a battered gig and a vegetable cart, but by way of joke they called it a fiacre. There was a seat for two inside, and another for the driver, of the size of an ordinary pie-dish, and about as comfortable. The horse, which it would be idle compliment to call a “screw,” was harnessed, or rather tied in, with odds and ends of heterogeneous ligament—a complicated arrangement of leather straps, ends of rope, and whipcord. The chief characteristic of the animal itself was its inquisitiveness. Whether it had derived a sort of interest in natural history from long and frequent association with geologists and botanists I cannot say, but it had a very remarkable habit of stopping short on the road now and then, sniffing at the soil with a knowing air, and pawing up the ground with its forefeet. It also insisted on devoting a minute or two to look over every other gate on the right hand of the road from Forcheim, and when I add to the drawback of these equine impulses the fact that our driver, a stout young man in tight trousers, had to jump from his seat every ten minutes to replace our portmanteaus, which fell off alternately all along the hot and dusty road, and, having properly secured them, took to tumbling from his seat on his own account to that extent, that at last he was obliged to give it up and walk,—when, I say, these circumstances are taken into consideration, the reader may have some notion of the rate of our progress.
At last a cloud of dust is seen in the distance. It is occasioned by another fiacre, home-returning and empty. As they near each other, the drivers interchange first significant glances, and then seats. They evidently belong to one concern. Our pie-dish is occupied by the recent comer, and the boy takes the other trap back. Our new charioteer is evidently an old hand. He understands the little weaknesses of our Rosinante. With a skilful tug at the reins, and a vigorous application of the butt-end of the whip in the neighbourhood of the crupper, he sets us en route again, jolting and tumbling over ruts and stones until we come in sight of Streitberg, where a strong pull up a tough bit of hill lands us in front of the hotel, wondering that the wheels of our carriage, fore and aft, have held on so long together.
Streitberg is not a large village; but, being a fashionable retreat for the Germans in summer, its two inns and lodging-houses are full to overflowing. We are therefore for the first night accommodated with, or rather incommoded in, a small tenement, the interior of which looks like a Dartmoor cottage, and in which a mingled smell of burning peat and soap-suds rises to our bed-room door. All these places are in connection with the inn, where the guests meet for an early breakfast, a mid-day dinner, and a supper about seven o’clock. This inn is built on an artificial terrace by the side of the hill, and at the foot of a steep limestone cliff, round which a winding path leads to the ruined castle above. And so long is it since the old grey lichened walls of this fortress were raised there, that the stones have become naturalised and half-assimilated to the rock on which they stand, so that it is difficult to say where Nature ended and where man began. Standing at the end of this terrace, we look across the broad and fertile valley below, far away to the feudal watch-tower of Neudeck, and stretched on either side we see a range of hills rich in larch and silver fir. Down the neighbouring roads come herds of goats, their bells tinkling an accompaniment to the bauer’s humble ditty as he drives them homewards. Along the flat distant table-land in front, you may see the Wiesent flowing in a clear blue line, reflecting here and there in its course the last rays from the sun as it sinks behind the glowing horizon.
Such is the view which the inmates of the Golden Kreutz have before them every fine