(The first thing that
we ask of men is their faith: "What do you believe?" The first
thing that they show us is their church: "THIS we believe.") Then
a tall chimney ranges itself alongside. (First faith, then works.)
Then a confused jumble of roofs, out of which, at last, stand forth
individual houses, factories, streets, and we draw up in a sleeping
town.
People open the carriage door, and look in upon us. They do not
appear to think much of us, and close the door again quickly, with a
bang, and we sleep once more.
As we rumble on, the country slowly wakes. Rude V-shaped carts,
drawn by yoked oxen, and even sometimes by cows, wait patiently
while we cross the long, straight roads stretching bare for many a
mile across the plain. Peasants trudge along the fields to work.
Smoke rises from the villages and farm-houses. Passengers are
waiting at the wayside stations.
Towards mid-day, on looking out, we see two tiny spires standing
side by side against the sky. They seem to be twins, and grow
taller as we approach. I describe them to B., and he says they are
the steeples of Cologne Cathedral; and we all begin to yawn and
stretch, and to collect our bags and coats and umbrellas.
HALF OF SATURDAY 24TH, AND SOME OF SUNDAY, 25TH
Difficulty of Keeping this Diary. - A Big Wash. - The German Bed. - Its
Goings On. - Manners and Customs of the German Army. - B.'s Besetting
Sin. - Cologne Cathedral. - Thoughts Without Words. - A Curious Custom.
This diary is getting mixed. The truth is, I am not living as a man
who keeps a diary should live. I ought, of course, to sit down in
front of this diary at eleven o'clock at night, and write down all
that has occurred to me during the day. But at eleven o'clock at
night, I am in the middle of a long railway journey, or have just
got up, or am just going to bed for a couple of hours. We go to bed
at odd moments, when we happen to come across a bed, and have a few
minutes to spare. We have been to bed this afternoon, and are now
having another breakfast; and I am not quite sure whether it is
yesterday or to-morrow, or what day it is.
I shall not attempt to write up this diary in the orthodox manner,
therefore; but shall fix in a few lines whenever I have half-an-hour
with nothing better to do.
We washed ourselves in the Rhine at Cologne (we had not had a wash
since we had left our happy home in England). We started with the
idea of washing ourselves at the hotel; but on seeing the basin and
water and towel provided, I decided not to waste my time playing
with them. As well might Hercules have attempted to tidy up the
Augean stables with a squirt.
We appealed to the chambermaid. We explained to her that we wanted
to wash - to clean ourselves - not to blow bubbles. Could we not have
bigger basins and more water and more extensive towels? The
chambermaid (a staid old lady of about fifty) did not think that
anything better could be done for us by the hotel fraternity of
Cologne, and seemed to think that the river was more what we wanted.
I fancied that the old soul was speaking sarcastically, but B. said
"No;" she was thinking of the baths alongside the river, and
suggested that we should go there. I agreed. It seemed to me that
the river - the Rhine - would, if anything could, meet the case.
There ought to be plenty of water in it now, after the heavy spring
rains.
When I saw it, I felt satisfied. I said to B.:
"That's all right, old man; that's the sort of thing we need. That
is just the sized river I feel I can get myself clean in this
afternoon."
I have heard a good deal in praise of the Rhine, and I am glad to be
able to speak well of it myself. I found it most refreshing.
I was, however, sorry that we had washed in it afterwards. I have
heard from friends who have travelled since in Germany that we
completely spoiled that river for the rest of the season. Not for
business purposes, I do not mean. The barge traffic has been,
comparatively speaking, uninterfered with. But the tourist trade
has suffered terribly. Parties who usually go up the Rhine by
steamer have, after looking at the river, gone by train this year.
The boat agents have tried to persuade them that the Rhine is always
that colour: that it gets like that owing to the dirt and refuse
washed down into it during its course among the mountains.
But the tourists have refused to accept this explanation. They have
said:
"No. Mountains will account for a good deal, we admit, but not for
all THAT. We are acquainted with the ordinary condition of the
Rhine, and although muddy, and at times unpleasant, it is passable.
As it is this summer, however, we would prefer not to travel upon
it. We will wait until after next year's spring-floods."
We went to bed after our wash. To the blase English bed-goer,
accustomed all his life to the same old hackneyed style of bed night
after night, there is something very pleasantly piquant about the
experience of trying to sleep in a German bed. He does not know it
is a bed at first. He thinks that someone has been going round the
room, collecting all the sacks and cushions and antimacassars and
such articles that he has happened to find about, and has piled them
up on a wooden tray ready for moving.
