A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

neither bow or stern, strictly speaking, for she has a

long-bladed rudder on each end and she never turns around.

She uses both rudders all the time, and they are powerful

enough to enable her to turn to the right or the left

and steer around curves, in spite of the strong resistance

of the chain. I would not have believed that that impossible

thing could be done; but I saw it done, and therefore I

know that there is one impossible thing which CAN be done.

What miracle will man attempt next?

We met many big keel-boats on their way up, using sails,

mule power, and profanity–a tedious and laborious business.

A wire rope led from the foretopmast to the file of mules

on the tow-path a hundred yards ahead, and by dint

of much banging and swearing and urging, the detachment

of drivers managed to get a speed of two or three miles

an hour out of the mules against the stiff current.

The Neckar has always been used as a canal, and thus

has given employment to a great many men and animals;

but now that this steamboat is able, with a small crew

and a bushel or so of coal, to take nine keel-boats farther

up the river in one hour than thirty men and thirty mules

can do it in two, it is believed that the old-fashioned

towing industry is on its death-bed. A second steamboat

began work in the Neckar three months after the first one

was put in service. [Figure 4]

At noon we stepped ashore and bought some bottled beer

and got some chickens cooked, while the raft waited;

then we immediately put to sea again, and had our

dinner while the beer was cold and the chickens hot.

There is no pleasanter place for such a meal than a raft

that is gliding down the winding Neckar past green meadows

and wooded hills, and slumbering villages, and craggy

heights graced with crumbling towers and battlements.

In one place we saw a nicely dressed German gentleman

without any spectacles. Before I could come to anchor

he had got underway. It was a great pity. I so wanted

to make a sketch of him. The captain comforted me

for my loss, however, by saying that the man was without

any doubt a fraud who had spectacles, but kept them

in his pocket in order to make himself conspicuous.

Below Hassmersheim we passed Hornberg, Go”tz von Berlichingen’s

old castle. It stands on a bold elevation two hundred feet

above the surface of the river; it has high vine-clad walls

enclosing trees, and a peaked tower about seventy-five

feet high. The steep hillside, from the castle clear

down to the water’s edge, is terraced, and clothed thick

with grape vines. This is like farming a mansard roof.

All the steeps along that part of the river which furnish

the proper exposure, are given up to the grape. That region

is a great producer of Rhine wines. The Germans are

exceedingly fond of Rhine wines; they are put up in tall,

slender bottles, and are considered a pleasant beverage.

One tells them from vinegar by the label.

The Hornberg hill is to be tunneled, and the new railway

will pass under the castle.

THE CAVE OF THE SPECTER

Two miles below Hornberg castle is a cave in a low cliff,

which the captain of the raft said had once been occupied

by a beautiful heiress of Hornberg–the Lady Gertrude–

in the old times. It was seven hundred years ago.

She had a number of rich and noble lovers and one poor

and obscure one, Sir Wendel Lobenfeld. With the native

chuckleheadedness of the heroine of romance, she preferred

the poor and obscure lover. With the native sound judgment

of the father of a heroine of romance, the von Berlichingen

of that day shut his daughter up in his donjon keep,

or his oubliette, or his culverin, or some such place,

and resolved that she should stay there until she selected

a husband from among her rich and noble lovers. The latter

visited her and persecuted her with their supplications,

but without effect, for her heart was true to her poor