A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

There were some nice German people in our compartment.

I got to talking some pretty private matters presently,

and Harris became nervous; so he nudged me and said:

“Speak in German–these Germans may understand English.”

I did so, it was well I did; for it turned out that there

was not a German in that party who did not understand

English perfectly. It is curious how widespread our language

is in Germany. After a while some of those folks got out

and a German gentleman and his two young daughters got in.

I spoke in German of one of the latter several times,

but without result. Finally she said:

“ICH VERSTEHE NUR DEUTCH UND ENGLISHE,”–or words to

that effect. That is, “I don’t understand any language

but German and English.”

And sure enough, not only she but her father and sister

spoke English. So after that we had all the talk we wanted;

and we wanted a good deal, for they were agreeable people.

They were greatly interested in our customs; especially

the alpenstocks, for they had not seen any before.

They said that the Neckar road was perfectly level, so we

must be going to Switzerland or some other rugged country;

and asked us if we did not find the walking pretty fatiguing

in such warm weather. But we said no.

We reached Wimpfen–I think it was Wimpfen–in about

three hours, and got out, not the least tired; found a

good hotel and ordered beer and dinner–then took

a stroll through the venerable old village. It was very

picturesque and tumble-down, and dirty and interesting.

It had queer houses five hundred years old in it,

and a military tower 115 feet high, which had stood there

more than ten centuries. I made a little sketch of it.

I kept a copy, but gave the original to the Burgomaster.

I think the original was better than the copy, because it

had more windows in it and the grass stood up better and had

a brisker look. There was none around the tower, though;

I composed the grass myself, from studies I made in a field

by Heidelberg in Ha”mmerling’s time. The man on top,

looking at the view, is apparently too large, but I found

he could not be made smaller, conveniently. I wanted

him there, and I wanted him visible, so I thought out a

way to manage it; I composed the picture from two points

of view; the spectator is to observe the man from bout

where that flag is, and he must observe the tower itself

from the ground. This harmonizes the seeming discrepancy.

[Figure 2]

Near an old cathedral, under a shed, were three crosses

of stone–moldy and damaged things, bearing life-size

stone figures. The two thieves were dressed in the fanciful

court costumes of the middle of the sixteenth century,

while the Saviour was nude, with the exception of a cloth

around the loins.

We had dinner under the green trees in a garden belonging

to the hotel and overlooking the Neckar; then, after a smoke,

we went to bed. We had a refreshing nap, then got up

about three in the afternoon and put on our panoply.

As we tramped gaily out at the gate of the town,

we overtook a peasant’s cart, partly laden with odds and

ends of cabbages and similar vegetable rubbish, and drawn

by a small cow and a smaller donkey yoked together.

It was a pretty slow concern, but it got us into Heilbronn

before dark–five miles, or possibly it was seven.

We stopped at the very same inn which the famous old

robber-knight and rough fighter Go”tz von Berlichingen,

abode in after he got out of captivity in the Square Tower

of Heilbronn between three hundred and fifty and four hundred

years ago. Harris and I occupied the same room which he

had occupied and the same paper had not quite peeled off

the walls yet. The furniture was quaint old carved stuff,

full four hundred years old, and some of the smells

were over a thousand. There was a hook in the wall,

which the landlord said the terrific old Go”tz used to

hang his iron hand on when he took it off to go to bed.