A

WAR-TIME JOURNAL
GERMANY 1914
AND
GERMAN TRAVEL NOTES

BY
LADY JEPHSON

Author of ‘A Canadian Scrap-Book’ and
‘Letters to a Débutante’

LONDON
ELKIN MATHEWS, CORK STREET
M CM XV

ENGLISCHE KRIEGSFÜHRUNG

(How the Englishman makes war.)

PREFACE

Prefaces are rarely read, yet I have the hardihood
to venture on this one because there are certain
things in connection with my journal which it is
necessary to explain. On returning from Germany,
although urged by my friends to publish the story
of my experiences, I refused, fearing to do anything
which in the smallest degree might prejudice the
case of those still in captivity. There came a
day, nevertheless, when I read that all English
people had left “Altheim.” The papers announced
that men under forty-five had been interned at
Ruhleben, and those over that age had been sent
to Giessen. There seemed, therefore, no possible
object in further withholding the journal, since, after
all, there was nothing in it which could by any
possibility affect the fate of others less fortunate
than I. Accordingly I sent my manuscript to the
Evening Standard, which accepted it, and published
the first couple of pages. Then, in deference to
the wishes of people whose relations were still at
“Altheim” (having been sent back from Giessen),
I stopped my diary. However, in view of the
daily revelations in the Press as regards prisoners
in Germany, I have come, after seven months, to
the conclusion that nothing I can say will in any
degree make the condition of prisoners there worse.
Meanwhile it is of supreme interest to compare the
opinions and conduct of Germans at the beginning
of the war with what they express and observe now.
My journal is simply a record made each day of my
detention, and although it has no pretension to
being literature, it is at least a truthful picture of
the state of things as we in Altheim saw them
at the beginning of the war. For obvious reasons
the place of detention has been given a fictitious
name.

Harriet J. Jephson.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

These illustrations are reproduced from German newspapers.

[11]

A WAR-TIME JOURNAL:

GERMANY, 1914

Villa Buchholz, Altheim, August 1st.—Last night
a herald went round the town and roused everyone,
blowing his trumpet and crying, “Kommen Sie
heraus! Kommen Sie alle fort!” This was a call
to the reservists, all of whom are leaving Altheim.
To-day the crowd cheered madly, sang “Heil Dir
im Sieger Kranz,” and “Deutschland über alles,”
showing the utmost enthusiasm. To my horror, I
find that the banks here refuse foreign cheques, and
will have nothing to do with letters of credit. I
have very little ready money with me, and the
situation is not a pleasant one!

August 2nd.—Germany has declared war
against Russia! All men old enough to serve are
leaving to join the army. Proclamations are posted[12]
up in the Park Strasse, and crowds are standing in
tense anxiety in groups, discussing matters with
grave faces. We don’t know how to get away,
since all trains are to be used only for the troops
while “mobilmachung” is going on. People have
got as far as the frontier and been turned back
there, and some who left Altheim yesterday are
still at Frankfort. I tried to buy an English paper
in the town, and was told that none were to be had
until England had made up her mind what she was
going to do! We think of motor-cars to the
frontier, or the Rhine boat.

August 3rd.—Alas! all steamers on the Rhine
are stopped and motor-cars are impossible, because
an order has come out that petroleum is to be
reserved for the Government. I made another
attempt to cash a cheque to-day, and again the
bank refused. A Russian who stood beside me
was desperate. He spoke execrable French, and
cried excitedly: “Comment donc! je ne puis pas
quitter le pays et j’ai une famille et trois femmes!”
Poor Bluebeard! his “trois femmes” (wife and
daughters) looked terrified and miserable. Our
position is incredible and most serious. Still, one[13]
cannot but admire the glorious spirit of sacrifice and
patriotism which animates all classes of the German
people. Just what it was in the war of 1813, when
women even cut off their hair and sold it to help
their country.

August 4th.—Troops are marching through the
streets and leaving for the Front all day long.
The ladies of Altheim go to the station as the
trains pass through, and give the soldiers coffee,
chocolate, cigars, and zwiebacks. They get much
gratitude, and the men say (poor deluded mortals):
“Wir kriegen für Sie” (We fight for you). I saw
poor Frau G—— (my doctor’s wife) to-day. She
was quite calm, but looked miserable. Her eldest
son, Dr. T——, left for the front this morning. I
sympathised, and she said, choking back a sob:
“Man gibt das beste für das Vaterland” (one gives
one’s best for the Fatherland). No letters come,
nor papers; and we are only allowed to send postcards
written in German.

August 5th.—Our baker has gone to the war,
and Dr. G—— ‘s butler; the schools have shut up,
so many masters having been called upon to fight.[14]
Even learned professors turn soldiers in this
country, and most of the weedy cabhorses here
have left Altheim to serve their “Fatherland.”
My Bade-Frau’s husband has gone to the front,
and so has our Apotheke; there are no porters left
at the station, and a jeweller is doing duty as
station-master! The Red Cross Society meet
daily, and make preparations for the care of
wounded men. Hospitals, private houses, and
doctors’ houses are getting ready, and all motors
have been put at the State’s disposal. Insane
hatred against Russia exists, and the Russians here
are not enjoying themselves! My position is most
serious: no money, and no return ticket!

August 6th.—I went out early in quest of news,
and looked in at K—— and L——’s. A young
clerk, pale with excitement and anger, in reply to
my question: “Gibt es etwas neues?” literally
hissed at me: “England hat Krieg erklärt”
(England has declared war). It was an awful
moment, although one was prepared for it in a
measure, feeling sure that England would be faithful
to her bond.

Next came the Press announcements, “Das[15]
unglaubliche ist Tatsache geworden” (The unbelievable
is become an accomplished fact). “England,
who poses as the guardian of morality and all the
virtues, sides with Russia and assassins!” Abuse
of Sir Edward Grey, of our Government, and of all
things English, follows. When vituperation fails,
the “Frankfurter Zeitung” reminds its readers
that, after all, such conduct is only what may be
expected from “Die historische Perfide Albions.”
That it is a blow none the less is shown by more
than one newspaper beginning “Das Schlimmste
ist geschehen.” (The worst has happened.)
Miss M——, Miss H——, and I went to the
“Prince of Wales’s Hotel” to see Mr. S——,
who had made out a list of the English in Altheim,
and tried to telephone to our Consul in Frankfort
to ask what he was going to do for our rescue. The
telephone people refused to send the message
because we were English! Mr. S—— and other
men here are doing all they can to secure a train
when the mobilisation is over. He advised us to
pack up and be ready to start, also not to show
ourselves out of doors much, as there is the greatest
fury and indignation at present against the English,
and to be careful what we said and did. We are[16]
all terribly anxious, and it is rather trying for me, as
I am the only woman in the place quite alone.

August 7th.—Still no help! Innumerable wild
rumours are flying about. They say that those who
left Altheim have all come back, unable to get
farther than Frankfort. We are beginning to feel
hopeless. Nothing about England is in the German
papers, and, of course, we see no others. It is
quite terrible being without news. Last night there
was great scrubbing and scraping of Altheim shop
windows, and all the notices: “English spoken
here” have disappeared.

[17]

IN KANADA

(Behold the German idea of a Canadian)

There is a mania about spies in Frankfort, we
hear, and some Americans yesterday were very
roughly handled because their motor bore a French
maker’s name. The Americans have returned to
Altheim, and their motor has been taken to fight
for the Fatherland! Our situation is dreadful, but
we are keeping up brave hearts. Every day a
fresh “Bekanntmachung” (notice) appears; that of
to-day was addressed to the children and called
upon them to gather in the harvest, the workers
having gone as soldiers and turned their “pruning
hooks” into swords. My postcards written in
German have all come back. One cannot communicate
with anyone outside Altheim. What a position!
God in His mercy help us! It seems so
strange to see German troops marching to the tune
of “God Save the King,” yet it is Germany’s
National Anthem too, and these are the words
they sing to it:—

A “Warnung” has now been affixed to trees in[18]
the Avenue forbidding Russians, English, French
or Belgians to go within 100 metres of the station.
The Russians are being hardly used, but so far
Germans are quite nice to us. Mrs. N—— tells me
a gruesome tale of a Russian lady who left her hotel
for Russia smiling, well dressed, and happy. At
Giessen all Russians were turned out of the train
and put into a waiting-room, and locked up there
without any convenience of food, drink, or beds for
the night. The following morning they were told
to come out and soldiers marched them several
miles into the country to a farm-house. Some of
the poor creatures were faint from want of food, and
others had heart disease, and fell exhausted in the
road, the soldiers prodding them with their bayonets
to make them get up! After several hours’ detention
there, they were brought back to Altheim,
where the poor lady arrived a pitiable wreck!
What an experience! I have been packed up for
days!

August 8th.—I went into the Park Strasse this
morning to buy a “Frankfurter Zeitung.” Outside
the shop where I bought it some American women[19]
stood gazing at a map of the war, and one said:
“I am disgusted with England, just disgusted. So
degrading of her to help a country like Russia, and
side with assassins, just degrading! All we
Americans despise her now.” I thought to myself:
“If I go to prison for it, I will not allow anyone to
call my country ‘degraded and disgusting.'” So I
said, trembling with wrath, “There is nothing
‘degrading’ in being honourable, nor despicable in
keeping true to your word. England promised to
protect Belgium’s frontier, and she is bound to
do it.”

Several Germans were gathered round the map,
and they scowled at me until I faced them calmly
and said: “Jeder man für sein Land” (Every
man for his country), and they answered quite
civilly: “Gewiss!” (Certainly). The Americans
in Altheim, I found afterwards, were chiefly of
German extraction, which accounted for the
woman’s behaviour.

Early this morning three men arrived to search
my room for weapons. I was in bed, but they pushed
past the maid Käthchen, forced their way in, pried
into every corner, and departed. Emile the housemaid
here has four brothers at the war. Dreadful[20]
rumours are flying about as to our destination.
One day we hear we are to go to Denmark, another
to Holland. Sometimes we are told that we shall
not be allowed to leave Germany until the war is
over; again that we shall be sent away at a
moment’s notice; that we shall be left at the
frontier, and have to walk for six hours, and carry
our own luggage, etc.

The German papers are perfectly horrible in
their violent abuse of England, and we are so
miserably anxious, not about ourselves, but about
our dear, dear country, and how she is faring.
Käthchen said this morning, “Die deutschen in
Ausland sind sehr schlecht behandelt” (Germans
abroad are very badly treated). “See how well
the foreigners are treated here,” by way of impressing
upon me how thankful I ought to be for my
mercies.

August 9th.—No papers! No news! No
letters! No money! All of us are more or less
packed up ready to start. We are warned that no
heavy luggage can go with us, and are limited to
two small “hand Gepäck,” which we can carry
ourselves. I have presented my best hats to[21]
Käthchen, and it consoles me to think how comical
she will look under them!—but “flying canvas” is
the order of the day.

August 10th.—The “Frankfurter Zeitung”
calls England “ehrlos” (dishonourable), and the
Belgian frontier question “only an excuse,” and
even kind, good Dr. G—— raged against England.
One is sick with longing to hear how the war gets
on from the English point of view. The papers
here never allude to England’s movements—only to
her moral delinquencies. I am so poverty-stricken
now I wash my own pocket-handkerchiefs, guimpes,
and blouses!

The American part of our community have quite
recovered their spirits since money has come for
them. The United States is making every effort to
rescue her people, and get them back in safety to
America. No one seems to concern themselves
about us, and we can’t get away while mobilising
is going on. All Germans show the greatest
deference to Americans, and call them “our
honoured guests.” We, of course, are the dishonoured
ones, and in disgrace!

Altheim people so far are passably civil to us,[22]
but sometimes one has a disagreeable person to deal
with, as I had to-day at the Bad Haus. The girl
who stamps our tickets refused to pass mine until I
could show her my Kur Karte. I had none, and
told her so, and asked her why I should pay twenty
marks for a card, when I could not get any of the
privileges to which it entitled me: the band,
terrace, reading-room, and so on. Her answer was
a persistent dogged reiteration of “Sie müssen eine
Kur Karte haben, sonst können Sie nicht baden,”
and not having twenty marks in the world at
present I had to come away without my bath.
Every day there are fresh appeals to the patriotism
of the people. They are pasted on walls, windows,
and even trees.

August 12th.—Such an amusing thing has
happened. Mr. S—— said to Dr. ——, “We
English have captured your Kronprinzessin Cecilie,”
without saying that he meant the ship, and not the
lady. As the Government keeps all such disagreeable
intelligence dark, it was news to the doctor,
and he stoutly contradicted it, and went round the
town afterwards telling people: “Just think what
liars the English are; they say they have captured[23]
our Crown Princess!” We learnt of this prize-taking
from the “Corriere della Sera.”

August 13th.—The newspapers are full of
German victories and abuse of England. Also
they declare that the most terrible atrocities have
taken place in Belgium, where women have despatched
wounded Germans on the field and shot
doctors. The indignation is tremendous.

August 14th.—Permission has at last been given
for “Fremden” (foreigners) to depart, and also the
threats and restrictions as to the railway station
have been removed, but we must submit our passports
to the police, who send them to Berlin to be
stamped by the military authorities, and in about a
week we shall be free. “Gott sei Dank!”

August 15th.—I went to the Polizei-Amt, a
dreary little house, and found both yard and staircase
crammed with people. After waiting a long
time in the queue I had to beat a retreat, the neighbourhood
of Polish Jews being too overpowering!
In the afternoon I ventured again with the same
result. They say Holland is crammed with
refugees, and the hotels so full that people are[24]
sleeping on billiard tables even. We are allowed
to choose between Switzerland and Holland.

German papers express deepest disappointment
that Italy has not been “ehrlich” (honourable) to
her “Dreibund,” and yet (extraordinary people) the
Germans blame us for being true to ours.

August 16th.—I sent a telegram off to Ems
this morning, of course written in German, but the
official behind the little window where I handed it
in refused to send it until I showed him my passport.
As I have not yet succeeded in getting
through the crowds at the police station I still had
mine. We hear dreadful tales of hardships endured
by those who have managed to get away from other
places. Some went by the Rhine steamers, which
are now running, but wherever they passed a
fortress they were made to go below. As the
cabins were not enough for all, preference was given
to other nationalities, and English people had to
sit up all night on deck, even in pouring rain. The
entire absence of news is for us quite terrible. One
feels so out of the world, not knowing what is
happening outside our prison doors. The “Frankfurter
Zeitung” is full of nothing but boasts and[25]
untruths. A fresh “Bekanntmachung” has been
posted up forbidding us to leave the town, and
ordering us to be indoors by nine o’clock.

August 17th.—The Landsturm has been called
out and leaves to-day for the Front. These men
are the last to be requisitioned, being elderly.[1]
After long waiting among Jews, Infidels, and
Turks, I at last got entrance to the Chief of Police’s
office, had my passport taken, paid one mark fifty,
and was told to come back on Thursday, when it
would be returned from Berlin. The Chief was a
gruff, disagreeable old man, who, to my amiable
“Guten Tag” and “Adieu” vouchsafed no reply.

August 18th.—A dreadful blow! We English
are forbidden to go to Holland, and told that our
destination is to be Denmark. Imagine crossing
that mined sea now! For reasons of their own
German authorities will not allow any of us to go
by or near the Rhine.

August 19th.—The German Press is to me a
revelation of bombast, self-righteousness, falsehood,
and hypocrisy. What shocks one most is the
[26]familiar and perpetual calling upon God to witness
that He alone has led the Germans to victory and
blessed their cause. I read a poem yesterday,
which began “Du Gott der Deutschen,” as if
indeed the Deity were the especial property of the
German Nation! Massacre, pillage, destruction,
violation of territory, everything wicked God is supposed
to bless! What hideously distorted minds,
and where is the sane, if prosaic Teuton of one’s
imaginings! I wake often in the morning and
wonder if all that has happened here has not been a
horrible nightmare—if it can be possible in the
twentieth century that I, a woman, am a prisoner,
and for no sin that one has committed. I cannot
order an Einspänner and drive to the station
without a challenge and danger. I cannot possibly
get away without my passport. If I attempted to
drive to the Rhine my fate might be that of the
poor Russians who were shot the other day. In any
case I could not leave Germany without my passport
nor enter Dutch territory without permission
from the Netherlands Consul at Frankfort. It
seems all hopeless and heartbreaking.

August 20th.—Another terrific blow! Fraulein[27]
S—— came into my room this morning and said:
“Kein Engländer, kein Ausländer, kann Deutschland
verlassen” (no Englishman, no foreigner can
leave Germany). I rushed off immediately to the
Polizei Amt and found it only too terribly true.
Worse! Mr. W—— and Mr. S——, who tried to
arrange for a steamer on the Rhine to take us away,
have been arrested, and are being tried on a
trumped-up charge of forgery, and the Company
who were the go-betweens demand 3,000 marks
because the boat came a certain distance down
the river in order to embark us.

(Later) The Englishmen have been acquitted of
forgery, but we fear we shall have to pay the £120.
I have one mark left!

There is jubilation all over the town as the
Germans have taken Belfort. Käthchen enters
triumphantly. “Unter Führung des Kronprinzen
von Bayern haben Truppen gestern in Schlachten
zwischen Metz und den Vogesen noch einen Sieg
erkämpft,” and she goes on with the weary old
story of “viele tausend Gefangene” (many
thousand prisoners).

August 21st.—I found that charming old[28]
American friends of mine, the W——s, were here,
and I went to see them at the Grand Hotel. They
have been to a Nach Kur in Thuringia, and have
had most alarming and unpleasant adventures
coming back. However, being American their
pains and penalties are nearly over. A special
train is to take them and their compatriots to the
Hague on Wednesday next. They go to the flesh-pots
of Egypt, and we are left to eat manna in the
wilderness! They can drive in the country, while
we poor Britishers may not go outside the town,
and oh! how sick we are of the avenues and streets
of the red-roofed Bath Houses and shop windows
whose contents we know by heart. Mr. W—— told
me a good tale of the chef of a Hotel here, who
was obliged to obey his country’s call and join the
French forces. When he found German bullets
whizzing about him at Mülhausen, he said to
himself (so the story goes), “What is my duty?
Is it best for me to let these cursed Germans make
an end of me, or live to cook another day for my
country?” He decided that living was his game,
threw his rifle away, lay flat on his face, and let
the bullets whistle over him. He was taken
prisoner to his great relief, and now lies in Frankfort[29]
prison where his German brother chef has
visited him! The French of course are a brave
nation, but I daresay the poor cook was more at
home with his pots and pans than with bayonets
and rifles!

No papers! no letters! no news! no chance of
escape! Two men were put in prison yesterday for
laughing at Germany. Two Russians were stopped
in a motor car, and when arms were found upon
them they were put up against a wall and shot.

August 22nd.—Altheim has gone mad with joy
over the victory near Metz. Church bells chime
and German children sing “Deutschland über
Alles” ad nauseam; and the Kur Haus and all
private dwellings are draped with bunting. Red
Cross people are busy preparing for the wounded—sewing
classes are held every day in Bad Haus 8,
and the doctors are full of work. Mr. S——, a
young Englishman, formerly in the army, has been
arrested, and also the hall-porter of the “Grand,”
and two English valets.

August 24th.—A terrible day! First of all
Käthchen announced with complacency and obvious
triumph, that there had been a great victory “ganz[30]
herrlich!” and that an English Cavalry Brigade
had been cut to pieces at Lunéville, and that those
who were not killed had “run away”! Of course
I did not believe this, but it made one terribly
anxious. Then in came Miss H—— saying that
two men of our little colony had been arrested and
taken to the police-station, whence after examination
they were to be sent to Frankfurt. At the
Polizei Amt the Officials exhibited the results of
their Kultur by being rude and rough to the unfortunate
people arrested. A Polish woman whose
son had been made prisoner sobbed and cried,
whereupon the grim old inspector came into the
room and said sternly: “Kein Frauen Jammer
hier!” ordering her out of the room. I was in
the Park Strasse and heard some Germans chuckling
and saying: “Zwei Engländer sind verhaftet” (two
Englishmen are arrested), looked round, and saw
two of our little community, both service men,
following each other in Einspänners, each surrounded
by soldiers and fixed bayonets. It was
anything but a pleasing sight to me!

August 25th.—The clouds are lifting, thank God!
Cheering news has come that we are to be allowed[31]
to leave this delightful country in eight days’ time;
most likely we shall have to travel either by way
of Switzerland or Denmark. Those sagacious
personages in Berlin seem to imagine that the
secrets of the Rhine fortresses will reveal themselves
to us as we go by! What a compliment
to our powers of clairvoyance!

Fraulein G—— has just been in to see me.
Usually she is a most pleasant, gentle little woman,
kind and charming; now she is full of scorn and
hatred of England. She says the Englishmen were
arrested because they were heard to say that
German papers were “full of lies.” “So they
are,” said I, “and you can go now and get me
arrested too.” “Oh, no,” said she, “I would not
tell on you!” In spite of her magnanimity I cannot
think our interview was a success. We argued
until I said, “If we are to remain friends, we must
not discuss the war. I cannot think England
wrong, and as a loyal German you think Germany
right. Don’t let us talk about it any more.”

The “Frankfurter Zeitung” declares that no
workmen in England will fight for their country,
only the “mercenaries” who are well paid to risk
their lives. Oh, this life is hard to bear! Such[32]
intense, frightful hatred speaks in every look, in
every action of our enemies. It is consoling to
remember that their own Nietzsche says: “One
does not hate as long as one dis-esteems, and only
when one esteems an equal or superior.”

August 26th.—A chauffeur at the Bellevue was
arrested to-day and taken to Frankfort. He is
only twenty, a Glasgow lad, and absolutely harmless.

I am so sick of “Heil Dir im Sieger Kranz”
that as the children pass my villa shouting it or
“Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?” I go out
on my balcony and retaliate by singing “Rule
Britannia.” Small children with flags and paper
cocked hats, toy swords and tiny drums march
through the streets, day after day, singing patriotic
songs, whilst (poor dears!) their fathers are being
slaughtered in thousands. No reverses are ever
reported in the German papers, nothing but victories
appear, and Germans are treated like children. If
it were not for the “Corriere della Sera” we
should be tempted to believe the Allies in a bad
way. The “beehrte gäste” departed this morning.
At the station a band played, flags were waved,[33]
and every American man and woman was presented
with a small white book which contained the telegrams
which passed between the belligerent nations
at the beginning of the war. Again we hear that
Copenhagen is to be our destination.

IN POLYNESIEN
(The German idea of an Australian)]

August 27th.—I saw Dr. G—— this morning.
He begged me to be most careful what I said.
Two patients of his (English) Levantines were
talking on the Terrace, and one said to the other,
“We had better shave off our moustaches, or we
shall be taken for military men.” They were[34]
promptly arrested, having been overheard by a
spy. We are now ordered to get health certificates,
which are to go to Frankfort, and be forwarded
to the military authorities in Berlin. There is an
idea that we may go away on Tuesday next. We
have found out that our passports never went to
Berlin at all, but are lying at this moment in
the drawer of that old demon in the “Polizei-Amt.”

August 28th.—Nothing new. The German
papers, as usual, full of their victories and their
piety, and their patriotism, and their “Kultur,”
and goodness knows what not besides. Both
Kaisers praising each other and distributing iron
crosses ad lib., early though it be in the day. No
mention of English troops or England, except to
abuse the “Verflüchte” English.

A train of wounded men arrived yesterday, and
bandaged and lame soldiers are to be seen limping
about the town, looking ghastly pale and ill. At
the Lazarett behind the “Prince of Wales’ Hotel”
there are many sad cases. The Red Cross Society
has made every provision for their comfort and
happiness possible. Sheets have been hemmed,[35]
pillow cases sewn, bandages got ready. The
Germans, however, are chary of admitting English
women to share their labours, and those who
go and offer to help meet with a very chilly
reception.

August 29th.—An account has come of the
battle of St. Quentin. The “Frankfurter Zeitung”
calls it “decisive,” and says that the German army
has cut off the English army from its base.

August 30th.—Joy at last! Even the “Frankfurter
Zeitung” acknowledges that there has been
a fight in the North Sea, and that we have sunk
German ships, but, of course, it was “overpowering
numbers and larger ships” that did it, and the
Germans covered themselves with glory as usual.
I came home and hung out my flag, the best I could
do, a red silk dressing jacket, lined with white, and
draped over a blue silk parasol, which I tied knob
out, to look like a pole.

On our church door to-day was posted a typewritten
notice: “We have smashed your army on
the French Continent,(!) and we will smash you
too if you dare to ring your bell!”[36]

August 31st.—I heard a small boy singing to-day:

I pray it may not prove prophetic, but they all
talk of occupying Paris as a certainty, and the German
Emperor has invited a number of his Generals
to dine with him there on the 12th of September.
I hear that a doctor went into the Prince of Wales’
Hotel to-day, and saw stuck up in the hall the
words: “Das Seegefecht in der Nordsee” (in
which of course we were victorious). He tore it
down and stamped on it. An altruistic German
waiter thinking to please the English guests had
put the first sheet of the “Frankfurter Zeitung” in
a prominent position to console them for the many
defeats we are supposed to have had. John Burns’
speech at the Albert Hall is reported in full in the
German newspapers, headed “Eine Rede des
ehemaligen Englischen Minister, John Burns.
England gegen seine wahren interessen” (a speech
of the former English minister,[2] John Burns.
England against her true interests). No passports
yet! No release! This suspense is wearing!

September 1st.—The sentimentality of the
Germans is amazing! They cannot even insert a
simple notice of a death on the battlefield without
this sickly parade, “Heute starb den Heldentod
furs Vaterland, unser innigste-geliebter einziger
Sohn,” etc. Always a “hero’s death” and “for
his Fatherland.” A fresh “Bekanntmachung” has
appeared, we prisoners of war are not to leave the
town, not to stand in groups (“rotten” they call it)
talking in the streets, to be in our houses at 9 p.m.,
etc. Two ex-Frankfort prisoners have been sent
for by the Chief of the Police accused of indiscreet
talking. “I hear,” said the great man, “you say you
were fed on nothing but bread and water in prison.”
“No,” said Mr. ——, “I had soup in the middle of
the day, and coffee and bread at night, and in the
morning.” “Then why do you tell lies!” Such
utter childishness, to believe every scrap of unkind
gossip!

September 2nd.—We are buoyed up with hope,
as they talk of our getting away this week! It will
be delightful to leave this perpetual bell-ringing and
flag-waving and Vaterlandslieder behind us!

September 3rd.—The whole of Altheim went[38]
mad last night, processions, bands, marchings all
night, and such a noise that at last a nurse had to
come out from the Lazarett near the Park and beg
the revellers to think of the poor wounded sick,
and spare them. No one could sleep! The last
blow has come, our church is closed!

September 4th.—Despair! The American Ambassador
at Berlin has telegraphed that we English
are not to leave! The Russians are going, but our
treatment is retaliatory, because they say England
is detaining German women, and Russia lets them
go. To make all worse Fraulein S——, tired of
keeping me so long for nothing, has given me notice
to quit at the moment when for three days I have
had no greater fortune than 2d. in my pocket.
Where I am to go, or who will take me in without
money I can’t imagine! The American Ambassador
in Berlin and Mr. Ives, the American Vice-Consul
at Frankfort, are working untiringly and most
kindly for us. We do not complain of actual harsh
treatment, although to be turned adrift in the world
without money by one whose tenant I had been
for five years is hardly kind. However, war is war
undoubtedly. Mr. Ives is from the Southern States,[39]
Mr. H——, his Chief, from the Northern. The
Scotch chauffeur has been released after a week in
prison. He looks pale and dispirited, “a sadder,”
and no doubt “a wiser man.”

September 5th.—The “Times” of the 5th
August has turned up in Altheim. It has gone the round of our little community until such a worn,
creased remnant reached me, that I had much ado
to keep it together until I could master its contents.
One felt a second Rip Van Winkle, awaking after a
long sleep, our world being so confined here. At
last I have discovered how to get money from
England. One writes to the American Embassy
in Berlin, and encloses a telegram (with postal
order for the same) to one’s banker in London, instructing
him to pay the sum of money wanted to
the American Embassy in London, to be forwarded
through their kind offices to the Embassy in Berlin.
The telegram to be written on a sheet of foolscap
paper, with the full name and address of the sender,
and the name also of the nearest American Consul.
No letters can be sent through this channel.

September 6th.—No church now! Even that[40]
taken from us! The American Vice-Consul has
been here, and still thinks that we may get away in
a fortnight. We are sick with hoping and being
disappointed. The German Press full of the most
virulent abuse of England, “treacherous,” “hypocritical,”
“lying,” “cowardly,” “boastful,” there is
no bad name they don’t call her! Russia and
France and Belgium get no lashings of scorn and
fury and hatred such as England does! At last
the account of Sir Edward Goschen’s interviews
with Von Jagow and Bethmann Hollweg has
appeared in the German papers. I had read it all
in the “Corriere della Sera” long ago. They talk
of stopping Italian papers in Germany since they
are pro-English (in German, “lying”).

Most of my English friends here went to the
German church to-day. The Pfarrer pointed out
to his congregation how clearly God had favoured
their cause, how victory had followed victory, the
virtuous, religious people triumphing over the
wicked, ungodly nations. Then he spoke of the
day so near when Germany should annihilate the
“Macht von England,” and teach her when
crushed and humbled “die Wahrheit,” Religion and
Morality! Humph!

September 7th.—Wonder of wonders! no[41]
bell-ringing to-day, nor processions of singing
youngsters, so we hope there is a lull in the
“Sieges.”

Miss H—— went last week to have her hair
washed, and during the process her hair-dresser
remarked casually to her, “We shall be in Paris in
a day or two, and in London in another week, and
when we have conquered England as well as
France you will all have to learn to speak German.”
This shows the amazing conceit and
arrogance of the people. Poor, ignorant things,
they are quite hoodwinked by their rulers—and
even look forward to seeing their Kaiser “Emperor
of Europe”! One day we read that a bag has
been made of 30,000 Russians, the next that the
number was understated, and that it is 70,000. As
for Belgians and French, every day 10,000 men
and guns ad lib. are captured, and the poor silly
people believe it all. Villas and streets are still
beflagged, and by this time we know every patriotic
song in the “Vaterlandslieder” book by heart.
One tries to be plucky, but our hearts are very sad
just now.

Paris seems doomed, and apparently the French[42]
have abandoned hope too, since Poincaré and his
Cabinet have gone to Bordeaux. The German
Press call him a “Feiger” (Coward).

September 9th.—Unaccountably the forward
march seems to have been checked, although we
don’t know why. Maubeuge has fallen, and of
course the usual bell-ringing and bunting and
singing has celebrated the victory. We cannot
understand what our troops are doing. There is
no mention of them in the German papers, only
columns of sneers and abuse of England.

September 10th.—A rumour has reached us that
the Crown Prince has been captured, and that the
enemy is retreating. No official confirmation has
come to hand however; but the flags are down at
last, and the jangling of bells has ceased, and we
have not heard “Deutschland über Alles” for
twenty-four hours, “Gott sei Dank”! Prince
Joachim is wounded, and he has sent a telegram
worded after the manner of his dear Papa, thanking
God who in His goodness permitted him to be
wounded for his beloved Fatherland. I wonder
what Frederick the Great would have thought of[43]
these boastful warriors. We English are looked
upon with horror as the brutal barbarians who use
dum dum bullets, and Sir Edward Grey’s dignified
disclaimer is reported under the polite heading
“Grey leugnet” (Grey lies).

September 11th.—Nothing new in the situation,
but we rejoice to see grave faces and groups looking
solemn in the streets, and talking in subdued
voices, and thank God! we hear no bell-ringing!
Everything cheering we read in the “Corriere della
Sera” is denied in the “Frankfurter Zeitung” or
given as a production of the “Lügen Fabrik”
(manufactory of lies).

September 12th.—The Germans seem depressed,
no flags, no bands, and although there is a
notice posted up in the town to say that the Crown
Prince has achieved another victory, there is
evidently something unsatisfactory in the background
to counterbalance this. I draw deductions
from the “Frankfurter Zeitung,” which has a bitter
article entitled “Torheiten” (Folly), and which
speaks of the “Kindische Freudengeheul”
(childish howls of joy) of the English and French[44]
Press, because “ein parr Kalonnen deutscher
Soldaten ein Stuck weges zurückgezogen haben”
(two columns of German soldiers had withdrawn a
bit of the way back). Then the writer contrasts
the boastful words (“prahlender wörte”) of
England with the self-restraint and pious calm
and virtuous behaviour of Germany. One has
only to look at the postcards in the Park Strasse to
see which of the combatants is boastful. England
is drawn as ignominiously lying on the ground
(when she isn’t running away) and Germany
invariably is kicking or thrashing her.

People are less friendly than at first, though the
bath attendants, people in the Inhalatorium, and
doctors are most kind. I had tea at Müller’s with
Miss H—— the other day. There were at least
thirty empty chairs in the tea-room, but a German
woman marched up to the chair on which I had
laid my daily newspaper, and ordered me to take it
off, as she must have my chair! She was stout
and ugly, and had a way of doing her hair which,
as a writer says, “alone would have proved
impeccable virtue in the face of incriminating
circumstantial evidence.” For all their “Kultur”
Germans are gross, and to the last degree inartistic.[45]
Their “nouveau art” is repulsive; their dressing
outrageously ugly, and their cooking atrocious. I
have watched them here year after year tramping
up and down the shady walks stolidly drinking,
wearing garments of ingeniously devised ugliness
and blind to “l’inutile beauté.” There is no variety
of type nor individuality of person in either men
or women. These worthy Hausfrauen have no
grace of dainty frills, diaphanous lace or rustling
petticoats. They are obviously and incontestably
of the class described by a witty writer to whom “a
lace petticoat is as much a badge of infamy as a
cigarette on the stage.” The German proletariat
cannot be susceptible to externals, else the universal
sad-coloured skirt, the ill-fitting blouse and
the ugly hat worn by his women-folk could not find
favour in his eyes.

Life in Altheim has changed under war conditions.
The Kur Haus is closed, there are no
teas on the Terrace or promenadings to the strains
of Grieg or Strauss, or theatrical performances.
The German Kur-Gäste have left, and only the
Russian, English and a few Belgian prisoners of
war remain. Russians here are chiefly of a very
low class. Most of the women go about bareheaded,[46]
and all are rough and unkempt and dirty-looking.
I fancy some of them have suffered much
privation, but happily their order of release has
come. They will have to travel by Denmark,
Sweden and across to Petrograd. The weather is
autumnal, and they have only summer clothes, like
us. We cannot help them, having so little money
ourselves. I have had to borrow twice, and tried
to sell my jewellery without success, but I have
developed a latent and unsuspected talent for
laundry work. The pretty summer shops in the
Park Strasse are now closed, and the sound of
beating mattresses is heard everywhere; the blinds
of most of the villas are drawn down, and the
families having no longer lodgers have descended to
their winter quarters on the ground floor. Only a
few einspänners are left, as both Kutschers and
horses are gone to meet a “Heldentod” for their
Fatherland.

One sees white-capped nurses and Red Cross
Ambulance men and wounded and bandaged warriors
everywhere. When recovered, the soldiers
get three days leave to visit their families, and
then return to the Front. Poor souls! Shops are
chiefly tended by women nowadays, and the[47]
German Frau is not a capable shopkeeper like the
French woman. A “Drogerie” here is presided
over by the wife of the man who owns it, in his
absence at the war. She is a gentle, rather pretty
creature, but amazingly slow and stupid. If tooth-powder
be asked for, she mounts a ladder, searches
among a hundred bottles, shakes her head despairingly,
and wonders where her “Mann” has put
it. Outside her Küche and house, the German
woman does not shine, but she is a faithful unselfish
wife, and a good and affectionate mother. Mr.
Ives thinks we shall certainly get away next week.
I hope so! The weather is cold and rainy, and
there is no fire-place in my room.

September 13th.—The Altheim daily papers
complain that they are inundated with foolish
questions over the telephone. “Ist Namur
belgisch oder französisch?” (Is Namur Belgian or
French?)

“Gehen die Schottländer wirklich mit nackten
Beinen in die Schlacht?” (Do the Highlanders
really go into battle with naked legs?)

“Wie lange wird es ungefähr dauern, bis die
Deutschen Paris eingenommen haben?” (How[48]
long will it be before the Germans have taken
Paris?) and so on.

September 14th.—Again rumours of our going,
but even though release will be most welcome, we
all dread the journey. Terrible tales come to us of
the treatment meted out to foreigners crossing the
frontier. Many English were turned out of
Wiesbaden and sent here. At F—— they had
their luggage searched, and the ladies of the party
were stripped to the skin by women who even
combed their hair to see if by any ingenuity they
had concealed plans and drawings in the puffs and
coils, two soldiers with fixed bayonets mounting
guard meanwhile outside. No doubt we shall
remember this journey to the end of our lives, but
what can you expect from a people whose Prophet
Nietzsche says, “What is more harmful than any
vice? Pity for the weak and helpless—Christianity!”

September 15th.—The singular absence of humour
of the Germans often amuses me. I think it
was Palmerston who described Germany as “that
land of damned Professors.” They are all so desperately[49]
in earnest, and their “Kultur” is so serious,
that jokes and fun seem like blasphemy. My
penury has again been relieved by Mr. S——’s kind
loan of £1. Lady M—— came in to tell me that
the American Vice-Consul had telegraphed to Mr.
W—— the good news that we are all to go on
Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday next. I have
heard this story so often that I am utterly sceptical.
We conclude that things are going badly for the
enemy, since there is no bell-ringing, and the flags
have been taken in.

NUR IN LONDON NICHT
(But not in London!)

September 16th.—I hear that no men who have[50]
served in the Army or Navy are to be allowed to
go with us. To-day’s “Frankfurter Zeitung”
thinks that England must be at her last gasp, or
she would not have “barbarians such as Indians,
Japanese and Highlanders” fighting her battles for
her! They also declare on “unimpeachable
evidence” that India is in a state of revolt, and that
the Japanese are to be despatched at once to quell
the rebellion. Any misfortune to the British
delights them.

September 17th.—The B——s, who to our envy
have received special passes to go to Denmark, got
as far as Hamburg and then had their passports
taken from them. The Chaplain and his wife disappeared
one morning, and we learn that he obtained
a special pass on the ground of being a clergyman.
He was heard to utter something about the
“Bishop of London,” and perhaps that was the
talisman. Lady M—— tells me that they have
arrived in Hamburg, we wonder what their fate
will be!

A delightful story has just reached me from an
Italian source. In the church of a Convent
Hospital in France, one of the sisters was praying[51]
aloud with immense fervour, and when she came to
the “Confiteor” she said: “C’est ma faute! c’est
ma faute! c’est ma très grande faute,” whereupon
uprose a Turco crying out: “Ah! non! ma Soeur!
c’est la faute à Guilleaume!”

September 18th.—A letter at last! but only one
from the American Consul at Frankfort, saying that
the Foreign Office wanted to know my whereabouts
as several friends had inquired about me and my
safety. I can’t imagine why, when America
rescued her stranded citizens long ago, and sent
them money to get home, we should be suffering
like this. Nothing more about the phantom train!
Our nerves are becoming wrought up, and we are
developing unexpectedly irritable and argumentative
natures. The weather is amazingly windy and
horribly cold, one shivers in summer garments, and
cannot afford to buy warmer things. A leading
article in the “Frankfurter Zeitung” gives us a
grain of comfort, since it is headed “Geduld
und Zuversicht” (patience and confidence), and
begins,

“In consequence of the victorious news of the
first weeks, those remaining at home had become[52]
accustomed to constant victories, and the pause in
the news of the battlefield of the West is a great
trial of patience.” Long may that trial last! On
the whole we ought to be thankful that we are in
Hesse and not in Prussia. The Hessians are a
simple, kindly people, pleasant, and good tempered.
I have known Germany well for eighteen years.
When first we travelled in the Fatherland I found
each Duchy, or Kingdom, or Principality, devoted
to its own particular Ruler, and little outside it
mattered to its people. Nowadays there are no
Hessians or Würtembergers, not even Saxons or
Bavarians, but all are Germans, and for one
photograph of the Grand Duke of Hesse and his
Duchess you will see here one hundred of “Unser
Kaiser” and “Unsere Kaiserin.” They have
become Imperialists, and the ambitious spirit which
animates them is shown by the act of a soldier at
Liège who chalked up on a wall: “Kaiser Wilhelm
the Second, Emperor of Europe.”

I have now 2d. left in the world, and have not
taken my inhalation for two days, not being able to
pay for it. The money I telegraphed for has not
yet come, and life seems very difficult! I think of
the old lines:[53]

September 19th.—At the eleventh hour and
when I seemed at the end of my resources, help
came from a most unexpected quarter! I can never
cease to be grateful for the goodness and kindness
which relieved my distress. The Germans look
downcast, the Russians jubilant. How paternal
this Government is no one who has not lived in
Germany can imagine. For instance, above the
nearest pillar box I saw a notice written “Don’t
forget address and stamps!”

September 20th.—Our passports are now in the
hands of the military authorities at Frankfort, and
Mr. Ives, the American Vice-Consul, is doing all
in his power to get us leave to go. The Superintendent
of the Inhalatorium is most kind and
sympathetic. She inquired why I had not been
there for three days, and when I told her “Gar
kein Geld” (no money) was the cause, she cried
with real feeling, “Schrecklich!” (terrible). Any
thing to do with money or the want of it appeals[54]
to the Teutonic mind, although the Germans sneer
at us for being a nation of shopkeepers. There
are two words we hope never to hear again,
“Kultur” and “Unser.” “Unser Deutschland,”
“Unser Kaiser,” “Unser Kultur.” How weary
and trite are these! What an extraordinary
mixture the Germans are, brave, conceited, sentimental,
prosaic, patriotic, and yet no people so
soon lose their national characteristics, and become
citizens of another country as Germans. Many of
their intellectual poses are absolutely morbid.
They adore Ibsen as a playwright and despise
Goldsmith and Sheridan; they worship Gauguin,
and the school of Impressionists, and have little
appreciation nowadays for pre-Raphaelitism. They
are intensely and truly musical, and it is amazing,
taking into consideration their extraordinary lack
of humour, that they should be such accomplished
students of Shakespeare, but of real wit or humour
the German possesses not an atom. Take, for instance,
the modern novels of Suderman, of Rudolph
Herzog, of Rudolph Stratz, of Bernard Kellerman,
of Paul Heyse, and you will find intense seriousness,
tragedy, pathos, masterly drawing of character, and
absolutely no fun from cover to cover. As for the[55]
“Fliegende Blätter,” the German “Punch,” it is the
sickliest imitation of humour possible to conceive.
Foremost in science, the German is yet a neophyte
in the graces and arts of life. What cooking!
what clothes!

September 22nd.—If we may believe such good
news we are to be released from this irksome life,
and set at liberty next Saturday. Our joy is much
damped, however, by hearing that none of the men
are to be allowed to leave, and, of course, their
wives stay with them. Mr. Ives has made a special
journey to Berlin on behalf of our poor men, but the
authorities are obdurate.

People say that the loss of life in this terrible
war is beyond belief as far as the Germans are
concerned. To hide this the Emperor requests
that no one shall wear mourning for the dead until
the war is over. Also, no complete catalogues of
casualties are issued, only lists for each kingdom,
or duchy, so that the bulk of the people have no
idea of the waste of life. The wounded being so
numerous, the doctors now have little time to attend
to them on the spot, and therefore they are put into
trains and sent off to “Lazaretts” sometimes before[56]
even their wounds are washed. A Belgian lady
who had a special police permit to go to Frankfort,
returned this afternoon in a train full of wounded
soldiers. One of these was put into her carriage.
He had been badly shot in the arm; his sleeve was
soaked with blood, and that had coagulated; his
wound had never been washed, and French earth
was still on his boots, and yet he had been sent in
this condition from Rheims to Giessen!

September 23rd.—Terrible news! A telegram
was posted up in the town this morning, saying that
three English “Panzerkreuzers” had been sunk by
one German submarine. Of course the church
bells pealed, and the flags came out, and the
children sang “Nun danket alle Gott,” because
950 brave Englishmen had gone under. We are
much depressed, and our depression is aggravated
by the want of occupation here. We dare not
sketch for fear of being “verhaftet” (arrested). It
is no good writing because every scrap of paper
will be taken from us on the frontier; nobody I
know plays bridge, and so I read and walk all day
long. Miss H—— tells me that a rude young clerk
in the “Löwen-Apotheke” refused to talk English[57]
to her this morning, “You will have to learn
German now, because we shall be in London
within a fortnight,” said he! No German I have
yet known foresees any other result of this war but
success. The Fatherland Commissariat, according
to the Italian papers, leaves much to be desired.
The unfortunate soldiers are almost starving, and
often live for days together on raw carrots, turnips,
herbs, or any other vegetable they can root up out
of the ground. The doctors are puzzled because
men have died of such seemingly slight wounds.
One case seemed so incomprehensible that an
autopsy was decided on, and a raw root with
fragments of earth upon it was found in the poor
creature’s stomach. The Russians left at 5 a.m.
this morning, men and women. It is more than
hard that our poor men should be left behind.
Lady M——, who has been ill, and her daughter,
an invalid lady, and her maid, were given special
passes to go a couple of days ago. Miss M—— and
Miss G—— went to the police station armed
with these passes, and requested to have their
passports back. “The Demon” curtly refused.
“But you must give them to us,” said Miss M——. “Don’t
say müssen to me!” said “the Demon,”[58]
“bitten is the word!” (Don’t say must to me, beg
is the word).

September 24th.—Joyfully packing! A last
meeting was held at the “Prince of Wales’ Hotel”
where kind Mr. S—— presided, and we all received
instructions for our journey, and our long detained
passports!

Fifty women and children go. We sleep in
Frankfort, and cross from Flushing to Folkestone.
Oh! that terrible mined sea, and the “untersuchung”
of the Frontier. I tremble for this
Diary, all letters I have destroyed.

Frankfort, September 25th.—We are still in
the enemy’s country of course, but have come out
of our prison Altheim. All were early at the
Bahn-Hof. There for the last time, please God!
we found our old horror the Chief of Police. He
had a long paper in his hand, and read out our
names; “Hamilton?” “Here!” “Your passport?”
(which he scrutinised as if he had never
seen such a thing before), and so on. As we got
our precious papers back we passed through the
barrier, where our tickets were clipped, and on to[59]
the platform above. The train when it came
in was crammed with soldiers, and we were
advised to wait two hours for the next, but (to a
woman) we all preferred travelling third, or even
fourth class, rather than remain another hour
where we had suffered so much. Miss G—— told
me afterwards that she had travelled with
two German men, who cursed England up
and down, using the most horrible language
about her.

Presently a wounded soldier came into the
carriage, and they asked him where he had been
fighting. “On the Western Frontier,” said he.

“With the French?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see the English?”

“No.”

“Of course not! They had all run away.
Cowards, cowards!”

These are the things which make life so unendurable
in an enemy’s land. I was sent here to
the “Hessicher-Hof,” which, although it masquerades
under another name, I had no difficulty in
recognising as the former “Englischer-Hof.” Miss
H—— went to the “Hotel Bristol,” and when[60]
she got there found over the door the one word
“Hotel.” What we women should have done
without the able committee who arranged all details
for us with such kindness and thoroughness, I
cannot imagine.

September 28th.—There were few tears shed
when we steamed out of Frankfort two days ago on
our way to home and freedom. It was wonderful
to feel that we might talk above a whisper in the
railway-carriage; amazing that we had not to
scrutinize carefully every corner to be sure no
spies lurked there, and most delightful of all
to know that we had got beyond the reach of
the Demon of the Burg-Strasse. Egotistically
enough we went over in retrospect our anxieties,
disappointments and miseries. Should we ever
get rid of that evil shadow, we wondered, which
had darkened so cruelly two weary months of
our lives!

Now and then we looked out of the windows
with distaste—agreed that the outskirts of Frankfort
were hideous with their obtrusive and insistent
collection of factory chimneys; and shuddered at
the distant and beautiful background of mountain[61]
and forest, to us so teeming with painful memories.
We exclaimed at the unsightliness of the huge
skeleton lettering proclaiming to all the world that
a maschinen-Fabrik was below. Even when we
entered a bucolic region of modest gardens and saw
nothing more aggressive than cabbages and turnips,
we turned away from the sight with aversion.
Yet the villages are picturesque enough, and
so are the towns. Timber-framed and gabled
houses, steeply pitched red roofs and stunted grey
and mossy church spires, certainly make no unpleasing
picture. In happier days I have admired
the grape-vines meandering over the whitewashed
cottages, and marvelled at the monotony of taste
which furnished every window-ledge with exactly
four pots of scarlet geraniums. Now, nothing
pleased us that was German; scenery, architecture
or people! “This,” we said to ourselves, is “the
sunny Rhineland through which we are passing,
and we see no obvious signs as we go by of the
struggle which is devastating Belgium and menacing
France.” At the first station, however, we realised
that Germany was indeed at war. Red Cross
nurses seemed everywhere. Long tables were
spread with snowy cloths and bore coffee urns,[62]
zwiebacks, hörnchen and huge bowls of steaming
soup ready for the poor wounded as they pass
through. Now and then pale bandaged faces
looked out at us from passing trains, and men on
crutches hobbled by, and the horrors of mutilating
war came home to us all. At Goch we had to
show our passports, and have our luggage
examined, but the reality proved not nearly so bad
as our imaginings, and on the whole the officials
were kind and courteous compared to our Altheim
demon. The sun was setting blood-red behind a
distant line of black forest when we left Goch and
our enemies and imprisonment behind us and
entered the Land of Promise.

We had all been saddened in the morning
to learn that Mr. Ives’ strenuous efforts to get
permission for the men left behind to go soon, had
met with a curt refusal from the Commandant at
Frankfort. “When England returns our men, not
before, and she had better be quick about it,” said
he. But how true is Rochefoucauld’s cynical
epigram—”Nous avons tous assez de force pour
supporter les maux d’Autrui!” Even our
sympathy with, and sorrow for, those left in
Altheim could not damp the joy we felt to be free[63]
again; and when we quitted Goch, the German
frontier station, I thought how blessed would be
that day when “They shall beat their swords into
ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up a sword against nation,[64]
neither shall they learn war any more. But
they shall sit every man under his vine and
under his fig-tree; and none shall make them
afraid.”

[65]

GERMAN TRAVEL NOTES

[66]

[67]

“TAKIN’ NOTES”

He who knows his Rhine and loves it must take of
its charms in small doses, or satiety is the outcome.
There are those, of course, who can travel from
Dan to Beersheba and cry, “‘Tis all barren”; but
the ordinarily intelligent traveller may find much to
delight and interest on the banks of the Rhine,
always provided that he suits his mood to his
environment, and takes but little of Rhine scenery
at a time. For surely between Coblentz and
Bingen there is an iteration as regards castles and
ruins which is downright wearisome. Do we not
between these points find Lahneck, Marksburg,
Sterrenberg, Liebenstein, The Mouse, Rheinfels,
The Cat, Schönburg, Gutenfels, The Pfalz,
Stahleck, Furstenberg, Hohneck, Sooneck, Falkenburg,
Rheinstein, and Ehrenfels?

Moreover, there is an affinity of form and colour
and, indeed, of situation between all these which[68]
produces the effect of perpetual repetition. And we
owe Byron a grudge for having written such trite
words as “the castled crag” in relation to the
Rhine, since no commonplace mind of the present
day acquainted with his works but has fallen back
on “the castled crag” to describe Drachenfels or
Marksburg or Rheinfels, because, forsooth, its own
English is too limited to supply a better adjective.
So it is that conventional and inadequate English
is perpetuated and individual force and expression
are lost because people accept the ideas of others
and will not seek language to convey their own.

All of which above prosing is the result of a day
on the Rhine when the thermometer registered 74°
to 84° in the shade, and a white vapour hid the
banks of the river from Köln till close on Bonn.
At Bonn a huge party of “personally-conducted”
American tourists came on board. Their sharp,
keen, eager, shrewd faces and shrill voices proclaimed
their nationality at the outset. They were
all obviously outside the pale of Society, and their
thirst for information and keen interest in their
surroundings were amazing. One learned before
long that they had “done” the Paris Exhibition
and meant to have a “look in” at most European[69]
countries before sailing from Naples. They took
the whole ship into their confidence before a quarter
of an hour had passed; and we shared alike in
thrilling intelligences conveyed through the medium
of Baedeker’s pages. “The castled crag” resounded
from one end of the boat to the other;
and as for Roland and Hildegunde, the tragedy of
their lives was discussed, and exclaimed over, and
lamented, until, happily, a bend of the river hid
Nonnenwerth from sight.

In emphatic contrast to the nervous alertness of
the Yankee was the spectacle of the middle-class
German and his ways. He sat by his plain, stout,
ill-dressed Frau, with his back to the scenery, and
ate. Occasionally he spoke in monosyllables: more
often he drank; but the end and object of his Rhine
trip seemed to be that of consuming as much food
as lay within the limits of possibility. What
Nemesis has in store for him and those of his
manner of life I can only imagine!

At a table near us sat three women and two
men. Directly we left Köln a waiter set forth
trays in front of them laden with coffee, zwiebacks,
hörnchens, and eggs. This meal over, they sat
sleepily blinking their eyes, whisking away flies,[70]
and mopping the moisture from their faces until the
sound of “Eis! meine Herrschaften!” “Bier!
meine Herrschaften!” roused them from their
lethargy. Ices and beer and cherries and peaches
successively filled up the weary hours until “the
tocsin of the soul, the dinner bell,” carried joy to
their hearts. I can never forget the rapturous look
of anticipation and satisfaction which those stolid
middle-class Teutonic countenances wore when
“Mittagsessen” was announced. They shook off
their normal and habitual torpidity, and cheerfully
elbowed their neighbours, nearly tumbling down the
companion-ladder in their eagerness to be first in
the field. They lost no time over the unlovely
detail of tucking a corner of their napkins down
their necks, and smoothing its folds over their
protuberant persons; and they studied the Speise-Karte
with a conscientiousness that was worthy of
a better cause.

Dinner began with a tolerably good soup,
followed by tough roast beef, cut in thick slices and
garnished with carrots, peas and beans. Next
came veal, equally uneatable, and then a surprise
in the shape of Rhine salmon; after which followed
chicken, salad, and compôte. Finally, a stodgy[71]
pudding, sufficiently satisfying, and dessert. Not
one item of the menu was neglected by the five.
They calmly and conscientiously and readily ate
through the Speise-Karte from start to finish.
Then they returned to deck, only to order coffee
and ices, and called for a bottle of champagne, three
of light Rhine wine, and a plateful of peaches;
out of which they brewed a cup, ladling it from a
Taunus ware bowl into their long Munich glasses,
and sipping it lazily all the afternoon between such
trifles as Kuchen and fresh relays of cherries.
They ate and drank from Köln to Bingen with rare
intervals of dozing, and I never once saw any of the
party take the faintest interest in the Rhine, so far
as its banks were concerned.

It was a relief to turn from such grossness to its
antithesis in the shape of two American ladies who
sat near us. They were well-preserved, well-bred
spinsters under forty. Everything about them was
dainty and exquisitely neat. I likened them in my
mind to bowls of dried rose-leaves—the freshness
gone, the perfume left. Such was their intense and
intelligent interest in travel that, rather than lose a
timber-framed village or historic castle, a vineyard
or watch-tower, they abstained from lunch and[72]
picnicked lightly on deck off tea and eggs and
hörnchen. They knew the legends of the Rhine as
you and I know (or ought to know) our Prayer-Books.
They had studied the history of Germany,
and mastered the intricacies alike of the Thirty
Years’ War and of the Hohenzollern pedigree; and
they talked well, expressing their ideas in good
Saxon words; at times, perhaps a trifle pedantic,
but never offensively so.

As the day wore on the temperature became
almost overpowering. The water reflected a
blinding glare, and a heat like that of a burning
fiery furnace was radiated from the engines. I was
wondering whether a hammock in a cool English
garden would not have been more desirable, when I
heard a plaintive, uneducated American voice
behind me ask a question of its mate which
exactly embodied my own unuttered sentiments:

“What I want to know, Jake, is: Is this
pleasure, or ain’t it? Did we come here to enjoy
ourselves, or what?”

Jake: “Wall, I guess you ain’t used to travelling
around, my dear, and you don’t understand it. Oh,
yes” (with an obvious effort), “this is real fust-class
pleasure, this is!”[73]

Mrs. Jake: “Wall, I’m darned! I’d as lief be
in our store.”

Jake: “Sakes alive! You do surprise me!
Think what Keren-Happuch Jones will say when
you mention casual on your return something that
happened when you was sailing up the Rhine.
She’ll die of envy, she will, and spite to think
you’ve seen more’n her.”

Mrs. Jake (cheered somewhat): “Wall, I
reckon, Jake, there’s summat in that. Keren-Happuch
don’t like anyone to do what she don’t do.”

Jake: “And then, my dear, think of your noo
bonnet from Paris! That’ll be another pill for
Keren-Happuch to swallow.”

Mrs. Jake: “My! Yes! I don’t think much
of Europe, anyway, but I could never have bought
that bonnet in Baltimore. But, Jake, do look on
the map and tell me when we get to Heidelberg.”

Jake: “It ain’t any good my lookin’, my dear,
for I wasn’t raised to these sort of things, and
I’m darned if I know where to find it.”

A groan from Mrs. Jake, followed by: “Wall, I
reckon when I find myself again in No. 9, Mount
Mascal Street, I won’t want to go travelling around
even to cut out Keren-Happuch Jones.”[74]

I came to the rescue at this point, and showed
the good lady where Heidelberg lay. She was a
hard-featured, plain woman of some thirty-eight
summers, her hair was dragged back uncompromisingly
from her forehead, and there were no
“adulteries of art” about either coiffure or costume.

“You see,” she said apologetically, “Jake here
and me are travelling around, and the only way we
can get on is to ask for a ticket to a place, and
never stop travelling till we get there. We speak
German all right because my parents were Germans,
and Jake was born in Germany; but he don’t know
much about it because he was only two years old
when he left it eight-and-thirty years ago. We
thought we’d like to see the Paris Exposition, but
my! it ain’t to be compared to the Chicago
Exhibition, and as for Paris, it can’t come up to
Noo York, and these river steamers ain’t a patch on
the Hudson River boats, and I don’t think much
of Europe anyway.”

Jake, a good-looking, gentle-mannered man,
tried to soften the asperity of his wife’s strictures
without success. He evidently adored her.

“The way we travel,” resumed Mrs. Jake, “is
to think of a place we’ve heard of, and to ask for a[75]
ticket to it. Now, we’d heard of Paris and
Cologne, and Heidelberg, and Baden, and Dresden,
and Berlin, and Hamburg, but we don’t know now
how they come—see? So we hev’ to go cavortin’
around to find out which to take next. A gentleman
way back at Cologne”—she pronounced it
“Klon”—”told me Heidelberg came next. I quite
thought Baden was near Hamburg, and that we
should take it last; but they tell me it ain’t, and
that, you see, has upset all our calculations. Guess
you’re a Londoner, anyway; thought so by your
accent!”

When we left the steamer at Bingen, the last I
heard of Mrs. Jake was a plaintive moan:

“Guess I don’t think much of Europe, anyway,
and I wouldn’t come again, not even to cut out
Keren-Happuch!”

[76]OF SOME FELLOW TRAVELLERS AND
THE CATHEDRAL OF MAINZ.

“Ja Wohl! Frau Rittergutsbesitzer. I have
lived in the Herr Professor’s house for five-and-thirty
years. I have pickled his cabbage and
preserved his fruit. I have minced with my own
hand the pork for his sausages before they had
mincing-machines in Schleswig-Holstein. I have
seen personally to the smoking of his hams and
fish. I make his Apfelkuchen and Nusskuchen
myself, and do not buy them in the shop, like that
lazy Hausfrau opposite us at No 2, who comes from
that God-forgotten country England, where all the
women are so badly brought up. I grant you that
what I do is no more than the duty of every God-fearing
German Haushälterin; none the less, I do
not mean all my work to go for nothing, and I will
not be ousted by a hussy! In the time of the
vielbedauerten mother (Frau Regierungsrat Lenbach)[77]
I had no worries about his matrimonial affairs; she
looked after those. But sieh mal, Frau Riedel,
now the care of him is on my shoulders. He has
no more idea of taking care of himself than a baby!
He is exactly like that learned man—I think it was
our great Neander—who was running out of his
college one day and ran into a cow; so he pulled
off his hat and said, ‘Gnädige Frau, ich bitte um
Verzeihung‘ (‘Gracious lady, I beg your pardon’),
and went on; and the week after he came tearing
round the same corner, thinking, I suppose, of those
heathen gods and goddesses whose pictures shame a
modest woman to look at, and he ran up against a
lady, so he cried out: ‘Oh! du dumme Kuh!
warum kommst du mir immer in den Weg?‘
(‘Oh, you stupid cow, why will you always get in
my way?’) Yes, my Herr Professor is just like
that—quite as stupid, though they call him so wise
and clever; and what chance has a born innocent
like he is against a designing spinster of forty-five
who makes him presents of Weihnachtstollen at
Christmas, Oster-Eier at Easter, and Geburtstagstorte
on his birthday? I ask you what chance of
escape a poor Junggeselle has?

“Told him she wanted to marry him! Not I.[78]
Why, liebe Frau, I have not lived sixty-five and a
half years in this world for nothing! If I let him
suppose she was in love with him, that would be
the very way to make him like her. So as I laid
the cloth for the Herr Professor’s Abendtisch, I
remarked casually that Fräulein Bettine Meyer was
not at all a bad sort of woman really, and that she
had some excellent qualities, if only she did not
make herself so ridiculous. ‘How ridiculous?’
says he, sitting up. ‘What does she do ridiculous,
I should like to know?’ ‘Why, wears a false front
and curls bought at Frau Kölsch’s shop,’ says I.
‘Poor thing, she can’t make herself look young
and beautiful, whatever she does, and Frau Rittmeister
Bernstorf was laughing at her the other
day, and at the high heels and at the stuffing the
Schneiderin round the corner puts into her gowns
to cover the angular bones! She would look much
more respectable,’ said I, ‘if she would brush her
scanty grey locks back, and smooth them with
pomatum as I do, and wear a black lace Mütze over
them, instead of making herself the laughing-stock
of Schleswig.’ And away I walked. And the
Professor ate no supper that night, and next day he
left for his Ferienausflug, and never called to say[79]
good-bye to Fräulein Meyer; and so I put the
extinguisher on that little candle just as its flame
was beginning to burn up, and—why! here we are
at Mainz.”

And this is what I heard, and how I was
entertained, in the “elektrische Bahn” on my little
expedition from Wiesbaden to Mainz. I reflected,
as I saw the Haushälterin get down heavily with
all the deliberation of her sixty-five and a half
years, that feline amenities are much the same in
Germany as in England; and I felt sorry for poor
Fräulein Meyer, who might have given up her
small vanities and made pancakes and Apfelkuchen
for the Professor quite as well in the end as the
Haushälterin.

The cathedral of Mainz was, of course, the
object of our expedition. It dominates the city
from afar, with its wonderful towers and pinnacles,
making of Mainz (a commonplace city enough) a
thing of beauty. From the shores of the Rhine we
crossed a wide street planted with trees and lined
on each hand with modern German houses of
pinkish stone (covered with heavy sculpture and
breaking out into countless balconies and bay
windows), and soon found ourselves in the market-place.[80]
And here, indeed, one felt oneself in the
Germany of bygone days. Instead of pseudo-classic
buildings, heavy with meaningless ornamentation,
we found beautiful old timber-framed houses, with
deep eaves and wood carvings. On one of these I
read:

Zum Kurfürstlichen
Wappen.
Erneuert in Jahr
des Heils
1899.

It was evidently a Gasthaus of considerable
antiquity, and had been carefully restored. Close
by a Brobdingnagian finger lured the unwary to
where it pointed—a low doorway above which was
inscribed the legend: “Hier essen Sie gut.” The
market-place had been dismantled of its stalls and
umbrellas all but one, which was being furled as we
arrived on the scene. A couple of men in blue
smocks were sweeping up the cabbage leaves, straw
and refuse, market carts were driving off, and
smart-looking officers in beautiful uniforms strolled
across what we English miscall “a square” for
want of a better word.

But to get a good view of the exterior of the[81]
cathedral was what we wanted, and to this end we
dived down strange, evil-smelling alleys, and went
round and round a labyrinth of streets, always
expecting to see, and never arriving at, the
cathedral’s façade. At last we realised that the
quest was hopeless, since the building is so surrounded
and deformed by commonplace, ugly houses
that nothing of it but roof and towers can be seen
from outside. We entered it at last by a narrow
lane between poor, ugly houses, an unfit approach
indeed to this beautiful Romanesque cathedral—one
of the four famous Romanesque Gothic cathedrals
of Germany. The general effect of the interior is
that of strength, solidity, and simplicity. The grand
structural lines are noble and pure. There is an
entire absence of the florid in architecture, and no
attempt at all at decoration as one understands it in
Spanish cathedrals. The tone of the walls and floor
is a pinkish brown, and the whole church has a
warm glowing effect from its richly-coloured stone.
I could have spared most, if not all, of the overladen
rococo monuments to the Electors of Mainz, with
their monstrous records of impossible perfections;
but my companion (a German lady) thought them
beautiful. The whole church struck one as rather[82]
ill-kept; perhaps the red stone floor had something
to do with it. Dust and mud do not adhere somehow
to an opus Alexandrinum pavement. A guide
appeared to offer his services, almost obsequiously
polite in his attentions to the English lady. Whatever
their opinions may be as to our failings and
vices, our shortcomings and our iniquities, most
Germans are civil to us nowadays.[3] They hate us
cordially, envy us sincerely, attack us in the press and
out of it, and are insanely jealous of the people they
affect to despise. But while the superficial entente
lasts, they smile and bow and are outwardly polite.
I asked an English lady, the widow of a German
official, if her husband, having married an English
wife, did not cherish kindlier sentiments towards us
than the majority of his countrymen. “He died
during the Boer war,” she said, “and he died in the
sure and certain hope that England was done for.”

Apart from the Domkirche, there is little to see in
Mainz, although the city is of great antiquity, having
been founded by Drusus. It is a strongly fortified
place, and stood once upon a time a memorable
siege. There are pleasant walks by the Rhine,
beautiful Anlagen, a picturesque old tower, and the
[83]site of Gutenberg’s house to see. The Grand Ducal
Palace once sheltered Napoleon the First, as did
many another palace in Germany. The present
Grand Duke prefers his palace in Darmstadt, the
Neue Palais (built by Queen Victoria for Princess
Alice), and comes little to the ancient city of bygone
Electors.

We have fallen into German ways—alarming
thought!—and become unquestionably alive to the
virtues of cafés and Restaurations as a wind-up to a
day’s expedition. At Mainz we discovered a café
close to the theatre, and sipped coffee and ate
Streuselkuchen out of doors in the shadow of the
cathedral and Gutenberg’s statue. A pleasant-faced
Gretchen brought us miniature Mont Blancs of
whipped cream on small glass plates, and loitered
near us ostensibly rearranging a table, but in reality
studying our gowns and hats. Before we paid our
Rechnung, the Haushälterin and Frau Rittergutsbesitzer
turned up hot and rather cross, having
spent their time since we parted in futile attempts
to match Schleswig-Holstein ribbons with those of
the sunny Rhineland.

SCHLANGENBAD.[84]

GREEN HILLS AND BLUE WATERS.

Schlangenbad, although a charmingly pretty spot,
is not one to fascinate a painter. The landscape is
unvaryingly green, and that green is too monotonous
in tone for effect in a picture. Moreover, it
lies shut in by hills, and there is no distant horizon
to give the value of foreground and middle distance.
But less critical eyes find much to admire in
Schlangenbad. The great wide road leading to it
from Eltville testifies to its former popularity in the
days of family coaches and postilions. Nowadays
an ugly steam tram transports the traveller from
the Rhine to the “Serpent’s Bath,” and nearly
poisons and chokes him en route with the horrible
smoke it emits. Half of the tram is open to the
air at the sides, like a char-a-banc; and when we
travelled by it a little party of Germans were
enjoying an Ausflug, each man with one eye[85]
cocked on the scenery and the other on the
look-out for a Bier-garten.

Next to me sat a student, whose face was so
slashed and gashed that it reminded one of
“Amtshauptmann Weber” (in Reuter’s delightful
book), whose “face looked as if he had sat down
upon it on a cane-bottomed chair.” Opposite the
student was a middle-aged fat “Assessor,” with a
small girl in long frilled drawers and short petticoats;
and on the other side of the gangway were
two homely-looking women in lead-coloured garments.
As we passed through Altdorf the child
drew her father’s attention to a fat goose which
waddled away as the tram approached. “Sieh
mal, Vater,” said she, “die schöne Gans.” (“Look,
father, at the beautiful goose.”) “O! die Gans,”
said her practical and prosaic parent, “wird viel
schöner sein, mein Kind, wenn sie gebraten ist.”
(“The goose will be much more beautiful, my child,
when it is roast.”) “And has an accompaniment of
sage-stuffing and apple-sauce,” I added, to which
he in all serious conviction bowed an assent.

The valley up which we journeyed was green
and pleasant. There were no walls or fences on
either side of the road, but trees shaded the[86]
wayfarer, and his outlook on gardens, bean-poles,
orchards, and vines was agreeable enough. If he
chose to look further afield a silvery streak called
the Rhine was visible, and beyond that again low
blue hills stretched away until their cobalt and that
of the sky got mixed on the palette of Nature.
From this valley comes the famous Rauen-thaler
wine. Most of the hills, indeed, are covered with
vines, and the village houses showed grapes
hanging from their eaves and peeping in at their
windows.

At Neudorf we paused to pick up a Barmherzige
Schwester; and as our halt was exactly in front
of the village shop I amused myself by making a
mental inventory of its contents. The window—an
ordinary one—had wooden shelves nailed across
it; and on these were displayed soap, slates and
slate-pencils, bottles of peppermint lozenges, hearthstone,
flannel, lemon-drops, gingham, sausages, and
gingerbread.

The houses of the village were covered with
rough stucco, and white or yellow-wash was
swished liberally over them. Under their deep
eaves an occasional small image of Die Mutter
Gottes was to be seen. Many were covered with[87]
grape-vines, and all had clean muslin blinds at their
windows, and often pots of geraniums and fuchsias
outside. Sunflowers, dahlias, and roses grew in
the little patches of garden by the road; and all
was charming and primitive, save for the discordant
electric fittings which hung midway on the
telegraph-posts, and the anomaly of a brand new
brick Brod-fabrik just outside the village.

All the way up the “cane-bottomed chair” and
the “Assessor” smoked stolidly, while their women-folk
cackled like human geese. “Wie schön!”
“Colossal!” “Entzückend!” “Reizend!” Nothing
but incessant and weary adjectives! I turned
with relief to the “Barmherzige Schwester,” a prim
and silent little figure in neat blue cotton gown,
black apron, and white kerchief pinned over her
shining hair.

The tram stopped at last before the village
church, and we all got out. To our left, as we
faced the Kurhaus, straggled a long line of houses
with deep verandahs and balconies, to our right
shady walks and bath-houses and beautiful woods.
Here and there amid the hotels and villas was a
shop, and we knew that Schlangenbad marched
with the times when we saw the word “Schamponieren“[88]
and a bunch of Empire curls exhibited as
a modern trophy. We stopped at a shop and
examined its wares, which, indeed, hung chiefly on
the shutters. There were Swiss embroidered
gowns and blouses to be bought, edelweiss
penwipers, wooden paper-cutters, and clocks with
chamois climbing wooden rocks. Nothing apparently
in that shop had been “made in Germany.”
When we reached the verandah of the “Nassauer
Hof” we were gladdened by bows from the
“Assessor” and the student, who with the
“cackling geese” were seated at a long table
consuming piles of Apfelkuchen, Streuselkuchen,
and Napfkuchen to an accompaniment of steaming
coffee.

As for dull, useful information Schlangenbad, of
course, was known to the Romans, and they bathed
in its waters. The Middle Ages seem to have
neglected Spas generally, and to have been dead to
the joys of a bath. At all events, nothing more
was heard about Schlangenbad or its springs until
in 1687 a wooden hut was put over what was
known as the “Römer Bad.” Next the Landgraf
of Hesse awoke to the virtues of its waters, and
caused the “Oberes Kurhaus” to be built. Five[89]
years later, the “Nassauer Hof” was erected, and
a time of prosperity and fashion set in for Schlangenbad.
The waters have always had a great
reputation for beautifying the skin and healing
wounds and sores. It is on record that Frederick
the First of Sweden ordered four thousand bottles
of Schlangenbad water a year as eau de toilette, and
another and still vainer sovereign three hundred a
week. After this who shall dare say that women
have the monopoly of vanity?

Besides embellishing, the Schlangenbad waters
are good in nervous disorders, rheumatism, and
asthma. They are of an exquisite light-blue colour,
and when bathing in them one’s limbs have the
appearance of marble. That the Schlangenbad
people think highly of their “cure” is obvious. I
bought a map of the district (manufactured in the
place) and found the word Schlangenbad printed in
huge letters, while the neighbouring town of Wiesbaden
was in such small ones that it looked as if
scarcely worth mentioning at all.

[90]

LIEBENSTEIN.

Here in the Thuringian Forest, aloof from the stir
and roar of life, lies a Kur-Ort little known to the
English world. Its waters are analogous to those
of Schwalbach, its air is as pure, its scenery more
beautiful, and its prices half those of the Taunus
Wald. Its people still retain their primitive charm,
unspoilt as yet by the potentialities of South African
or American money-bags. Within easy reach of
such interesting towns as Eisenach, Weimar, Erfurt,
Gotha, and Coburg, it offers many alluring baits to
the sightseer; yet to the coming and going of
tourists is it altogether unaccustomed. Liebenstein
lies in a green and beautiful valley, and the hills
which surround it are covered for the most part
with great black forests. Patches of wheat and rye
vibrate in the winds which sweep up the valleys,
and the fields of potatoes alternate on the low
grounds with pasturage and orchards. Under the[91]
great limestone rocks, which near Liebenstein rise
sheer out of the plain, nestle charming villages, and
long avenues of poplars conduct you where you
would go along the high roads. By the roadside a
wealth of flowers is yours for the picking—wild
thyme and asparagus and mallow, periwinkles, and
the picturesque dock and crowfoot. The woods are
starred with flowers, and the perfume of the pines
is a revelation.

The humbler houses of Liebenstein (for the
greater part timber-framed and red-tiled) straggle
up the immediate hills which surround it. Those
of more pretention and inevitable ugliness range
themselves decently and in order along two parallel
roads. Aloof as this village is from “the madding
crowd’s ignoble strife,” it has yet been touched to
its undoing by the ruthless finger of conventionality.
The inevitable Kur-Haus and bandstand and
Anlagen are here; worst of all, a Trink-Halle!
The Trink-Halle stands a mute and awful warning
to the vaulting ambition which overleaps itself,
since a classic temple in the heart of Liebenstein is
surely as much out of place as a tiara would be on
the head of the peasant woman who hands you your
daily portion of Stahlwasser. Even the spring it[92]
originally sheltered has revolted against its sham
marble pillars and grotesque entablature, and betaken
itself elsewhere! Nowadays the paint and
plaster are peeling off the columns, and its door is
padlocked. Happily—although a melancholy warning
to the educated—it remains a source of pride to
the peasant, who loves his shabby temple as the
Romans do the marble glories of their Vesta.

Immediately behind the temple are the springs
of Georg and Kasimir, at which stand two charming
maidens ready to fill your glasses. No conventional
and hideous hat or bonnet disfigures the neat
outline of their heads. No travesty of Berlin or
Paris fashion burlesques their sturdy figures.
Theirs the traditional costume of the Thuringian
female peasant—a dark skirt, and white, short-sleeved
chemisette, a blue apron and the daintiest
of white silk kerchiefs, fringed sparsely and
brocaded abundantly with red roses. Albeit their
arms are red and coarse with the combined effect of
iron-water, hot sun, and exposure to the air, their
faces make ample amends in their innocent, good-tempered
comeliness. They greet you with a
kindly “Guten Tag” or “Guten Abend,” and, in
the case of a lady, seldom omit the pretty “Gnädige[93]
Frau,” for which our “Ma’am” is but a poor correlative.

Wandering through the streets of Liebenstein,
one is struck by the intensely picturesque sights of
its older and original part. The little houses are
timber-framed and whitewashed, with deep projecting
eaves and often many gables. Their
windows are made gay outside by boxes filled with
geraniums, nasturtiums, and fuchsias. Beneath the
windows lie small gardens, in which bloom roses
and single dahlias, while scarlet runners send their
tendrils climbing over the palings which separate
road and garden. Many of the little houses have
projecting signs, on which one reads such legends as
“Tabak, Cigarren, Cigaretten;” “Adolf Schmidt,
Herren kleidermacher;” “Weinhandlung Naturreinheit
garantirt;” or the very indispensable
“Bäckerei.” One house bears a tablet announcing
to an admiring world that “Herzoglich. Sachsen-Meiningen
Stadtesbeamter” lives within. Cocks
and hens, dogs and children, make common playground
of these narrow streets, and one sees in them
pretty well every form of animal life represented,
except horses. Now a long cart, drawn by oxen
and well filled, toils up the hill, and not long after[94]
follows one drawn by a big dog. At a pump two
tiny girls are busily employed filling stone jars,
which by the beauty and purity of their outlines
might have been Etruscan. Mothers beat mats at
their cottage doors, and shrilly scream at their
children to get out of the way of the passing carts;
and the world in this remote village goes on pretty
much as it does elsewhere.

But the fashionable life of Liebenstein does not
concern itself with such mean sights and bucolic
sounds as oxen-carts and crowing of cocks. It
takes its pleasure up and down the long avenues of
beech trees which lie between the Kur-Haus and
the Hôtel Bellevue. It rallies round the bandstand,
and makes great show of studying the programmes
of the daily concert. It chatters glibly
over the previous evening’s illuminations, and
describes them as “colossal!” and “wunderschön.”
Beauty is not in vogue at Liebenstein, judging by
the middle-class Kur guests who haunt the shade of
the beech trees. Indeed, if anywhere in the world
an Englishman might be forgiven for thanking God
that he is not as other men are, it would be here
among the “Ober-Lieutenants” and “Herr Professors”
and their mates. Figures, both male and[95]
female, seem to be of the switchback order—faces
rudimentary in their modelling, and uncompromising
in their plainness, dressing of the ugliest. Yet, Gott
sei Dank! Hans thinks his Gretchen perfection,
and it would never enter into innocent Gretchen’s
head, as it does mine, to bestow upon Hans the
carping criticism of Portia upon Monsieur Le Bon:
“God made him, and therefore let him pass for a
man.”

[96]

TRÈVES

The dominant glory of the Moselle region is
Trèves. No town or city near has the smallest
affinity with its peculiar character, and all seem
modern and prosaic compared with its well-preserved
tale of antiquity. “Nowhere north of the Alps,” we
are told in weary iteration, “exist such magnificent
Roman remains.” It is generally on the obvious
that the unimaginative English parson takes upon
himself to comment. We listen submissively to
much school-book lore as to “Claudius” and the
“fourth century” and the “residence of Roman
Emperors,” but when it rains Bishops and Archbishops
and Electors we fly before them. For, after
all, what signifies the paltry learning of a dry-as-dust
dominie compared with the vivid tales these grand
old ruins tell if suffered to speak for themselves?
In Trèves people need to absorb silently, and then
assimilate undisturbed by weary chatter. One looks[97]
at the tender turquoise sky, flecked with luminous
clouds; at the fine horizontal distance, with its sense
of breadth and breathing-space; at the low hills
covered with vines; at the cornfields, and orchards,
and river—and we wonder what the old Romans
thought of it all, and reflect on the strangeness of
life that a people so remote from our times should
have lived and loved and died, as we live and love
and die to-day. Whether Trèves lie on the right or
left bank of the Moselle is immaterial except to the
tiresomely precise or to those who pin their faith to
guide-books and such shallow teachers. There is a
more valuable lesson to be learnt of the place than
that of its exact situation; and no Baedeker or
Murray can help you to appreciate Trèves as quiet
communings with your own intelligence will. If it so
happens that you have none to commune with, then
God help you—and yours!

In Trèves you have not far to go in search of
the Romans. Their magnum opus confronts you
boldly at the very threshold of the town. Solid
and massive and symmetrical, it stands a pregnant
lesson to the jerry-builders of to-day. There is little
affinity indeed between the building methods of the
ancient Romans and those of their trade whose sorry,[98]
pitiable record exists in the Quartiere Nuovo of
Rome. About the Porta Nigra is no trace of stucco
or rubble. The huge blocks of which it is built
stand one upon the other clean-hewn and square.
No signs of mortar are left, but we see marks of iron
or brass clamps. Its colour is a warm, deep red,
softened here and there by streaks of green.

The Porta Nigra has passed through strange
phases since first it started in life as a city gate.
Obviously built for purposes of fortification, and
equipped with towers of defence, its second phase
was an ecclesiastical one, and the “spears”
were indeed turned into “pruning-hooks” when the
bellicose propugnaculum found itself transformed
into a church.

The gate was in 1876 finally cleared of priests and
altars, and allowed to revert to its original form.

Not far from the Porta Nigra stands the Cathedral,
one of the oldest in Germany, archæologically
interesting, inasmuch as it owes its inception to the
Romans. The Basilica, built by Valentinian as a
court of law, is clearly traceable in the present cathedral,
and one reads a strange tale of Romans and[99]
Franks in the sandstone and limestone and brick of
its walls. Here is treasured the famous Heilige
Rock, or holy coat worn by our Saviour when a boy.
At rare intervals this garment is exhibited to the
faithful, who come from all countries to gaze reverently
upon it. Who that has seen can forget the
last exposition in 1891? Never before or since has
there been anything more pathetic than the sight of
the long rows of tired, haggard, perspiring, praying
pilgrims, who stood patiently for hours in the
broiling August sun, moving only when permitted,
and then at a snail’s pace, towards their Mecca.
Plebeian though the majority of faces were, their
devotional, solemn, rapt expressions for the time
being ennobled and beautified them.

Trèves during that time, however, was by no
means the reposeful, dignified city it is to-day. Its
buildings were defaced with flags and banners, its
streets blocked with pilgrims, and the road leading
from the station to the town was lined with booths,
whose owners disposed quickly of such delicacies
as Napfkuchen, Streusel-Kuchen, and Apfelwein.
Piety and profit went everywhere hand-in-hand, and
a roaring trade was done in rosaries and bénitiers,
the last made of the blue pottery of the country, and[100]
stamped with a representation of Leo XIII. against
a background of Domkirche.

But to be thoroughly in harmony with Trèves
one must be Pagan and Roman rather than Christian
and German. Indeed, one feels in sympathy with
the Isle of Wight farmer who after he had found a
Roman villa on his farm gave up the bucolic and inglorious
occupation of growing turnips and potatoes,
and could talk of nothing meaner than hypocausts
and thermae. So we, like the farmer, slight the
really beautiful Early Gothic “Liebfrauenkirche”
and roam and muse for hours about the ruins of the
Amphitheatre, the Roman Baths, the Roman Palace
and the Basilica.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E., AND GREAT WINDMILL STREET, W.