Our Way From That City To Heilbronn, Was Through A Most
Charming Country Along The Valley Of The Neckar.
Here were low hills and
valleys rich with harvests, a road embowered in fruit-trees, the branches
of which were propped with stakes to prevent them from breaking with their
load, and groves lying pleasantly in the morning sunshine, where ravens
were croaking.
Birds of worse omen than these were abroad, straggling
groups, and sometimes entire companies of soldiers, on their way from one
part of the duchy to another; while in the fields, women, prematurely old
with labor, were wielding the hoe and the mattock, and the younger and
stronger of their sex were swinging the scythe. In all the villages
through which we passed, in the very smallest, troops were posted, and men
in military uniform were standing at the doors, or looking from the
windows of every inn and beer-house.
At Heilbronn we took the railway for Stuttgart, the capital of Wurtemberg.
There was a considerable proportion of men in military trappings among the
passengers, but at one of the stations they came upon us like a cloud, and
we entered Stuttgart with a little army. That city, too, looked as if in a
state of siege, so numerous were the soldiery, though the vine-covered
hills, among which it is situated, could have given them a better
occupation. The railway, beyond Stuttgart, wound through a deep valley and
ended at Geisslingen, an ancient Swabian town, in a gorge of the
mountains, with tall old houses, not one of which, I might safely affirm,
has been built within the last two hundred years. From this place to Ulm,
on the Danube, the road was fairly lined with soldiers, walking or resting
by the wayside, or closely packed in the peasants' wagons, which they had
hired to carry them short distances. At Ulm we were obliged to content
ourselves with straitened accommodations, the hotels being occupied by the
gentry in epaulettes.
I hoped to see fewer of this class at the capital of Bavaria, but it was
not so; they were everywhere placed in sight as if to keep the people in
awe. "These fellows," said a German to me, "are always too numerous, but
in ordinary times they are kept in the capitals and barracks, and the
nuisance is out of sight. Now, however, the occasion is supposed to make
their presence necessary in the midst of the people, and they swarm
everywhere." Another, it was our host of the Goldener Hirsch, said to my
friend, "I think I shall emigrate to America, I am tired of living under
the bayonet."
I was in Munich when the news arrived of the surrender of the Hungarian
troops under Goergey, and the fall of the Hungarian republic. All along my
journey I had observed tokens of the intense interest which the German
people took in the result of the struggle between Austria and the Magyars,
and of the warmth of their hopes in favor of the latter. The intelligence
was received with the deepest sorrow. "So perishes," said a Bavarian,
"the last hope of European liberty."
Our journey to Switzerland led us through the southern part of Bavaria,
among the old towns which formed a part of ancient Swabia. The country
here, in some respects, resembles New England; here are broad woods, large
orchards of the apple and pear, and scattered farm-houses - of a different
architecture, it is true, from that of the Yankees, and somewhat
resembling, with their far-projecting eaves, those of Switzerland. Yet
there was a further difference - everywhere, men were seen under arms, and
women at the plough.
So weary had I grown of the perpetual sight of the military uniform, that
I longed to escape into Switzerland, where I hoped to see less of it, and
it was with great delight that I found myself at Lindau, a border town of
Bavaria, on the Bodensee, or Lake of Constance, on the shores of which the
boundaries of four sovereignties meet. A steamer took us across the lake,
from a wharf covered with soldiers, to Roorschach, in Switzerland, where
not a soldier was to be seen. Nobody asked for our passports, nobody
required us to submit our baggage to search. I could almost have kneeled
and kissed the shore of the hospitable republic; and really it was
beautiful enough for such a demonstration of affection, for nothing could
be lovelier than the declivities of that shore with its woods and
orchards, and grassy meadows, and green hollows running upward to the
mountain-tops, all fresh with a shower which had just passed and now
glittering in the sunshine, and interspersed with large Swiss houses,
bearing quaintly-carved galleries, and broad overhanging roofs, while to
the east rose the glorious summits of the Alps, mingling with the clouds.
In three or four hours we had climbed up to St. Gall - St. Gallen, the
Germans call it - situated in a high valley, among steep green hills, which
send down spurs of woodland to the meadows below. In walking out to look
at the town, we heard a brisk and continued discharge of musketry, and,
proceeding in the direction of the sound, came to a large field, evidently
set apart as a parade-ground, on which several hundred youths were
practicing the art of war in a sham fight, and keeping up a spirited fire
at each other with blank cartridges. On inquiry, we were told that these
were the boys of the schools of St. Gall, from twelve to sixteen years of
age, with whom military exercises were a part of their education. I was
still, therefore, among soldiers, but of a different class from those of
whom I had seen so much. Here, it was the people who were armed for
self-protection; there, it was a body of mercenaries armed to keep the
people in subjection.
Another day's journey brought us to the picturesque town of Zurich, and
the next morning about four o'clock I was awakened by the roll of drums
under my window.
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