A Colored Man Round the World. David F. Dorr
great glee. Children women and men are crowding the gates in solid batallions; you would think old Zack had come to town.
I am dizzy with reflections of these fast little towns of Germany. As I whirl along now towards the cradle of the Rothschild’s my brain is rocking its reflective matter from the canton of the quiet and religious Swiss here to the burghers of this profane people. But here I am, in the independent little territory of the Duchess of Darmstadt. Each mile-post is painted barber-pole style. This Duchess is better known as the Duchess of Nassau. The cars stopped at Darmstadt, and if a good big southern barber’s shop had been here the people all would have gone in it instead of Darmstadt by mistake. The gates are barberified in its style of designation.
I saw an American looking out of the cars at these posts until he felt his beard. All at once he threw himself back in his seat, as if he thought the country was too dull to look at, and of course impossible to produce anything sharp enough to take off beards.
Frankfort may be strictly termed the capitol of Germany; because all the German Princes meet here once a year and hold a conference on the great topics of interest to the whole German people. This gathering is called the Diet. This Diet enacts for the German principalities, some of the most wholesome and sound logical laws that comes from the parliament of any nation of these modern times. Frankfort has produced the most sagacious merchants the world ever knew. I have just been to look at Goethe’s house. It has stood the scathing weather of the main for five hundred years, but none of the calamities of time have laid their fingers upon it, save a slight decay.
“Frankfort on the Oder” must not be misconstrued so as to convey an idea of this Frankfort. This is generally designated as Frankfort on the Main. It is a town full of high spirited people, and lively as crickets, but less sedate. Business is always good here. Each man is in some degree possessed with the ambition of a Rothschild. I am going to see the house of the primitive Rothschild, and then off to the Rhine.
Here I am at Mainz, on the banks of the Rhine. Looking at my ticket down the Rhine, I see this is the 17th of September, but the weather indicates summer time. This old, dead, but vast town, has the distinction allotted to it of producing the first book printer.
I will not attempt, as most chroniclers, to describe the impression the legend river of Europe made on me; suffice it to say that, on every peak, and that is saying a good deal, is the ruins of tyrants, and every hole that is made through these turrets, sends out a woeful wisp of a “Blue Beard’s wrath,” that quickens the pulse of a modern civilian.
I am now in town, at a great hotel, called Disch. Here is a very old city, and in old times Roman emperors were proclaimed here. The wife of Germanicus, Aggrippa, the mother of the tyrant that “fiddled” whilst Rome was burning, was born here. In this city is a church which has already cost four millions of florins, and is not finished yet. In this church is one of the most imposing pieces of splendor the eye of man ever gazed on. Inside of this case of jewels is three skulls filled with jewels. They glitter about in the nose and eyes and ears like moving maggots, and causes man to gaze with amazement upon the peculiarities of the people of German towns. Its name is Cologne. Its modern merit is its production of Colognes, not little towns, but the fluid possessing requisite qualifications of admittance to the private apartment of the sweetest virgin.
I must now bring this chapter to a close and go down among the Dutch.
DOWN AMONG THE DUTCH.
Having been disappointed in seeing a magnificent city, and smelling one, I am rapidly running down the Rhine to the Netherlands—Holland among the Dutch. These boats are hardly worth mentioning, more than to say they have steam and a crew. The crew are very stupid looking; mind you I say stupid looking, but I don’t mean to say they are stupid. They have nothing to say or do with the passengers. They don’t leave their watch and come to the cabin to sit a minute and talk with passengers, and occasionally “take a hand” at a game, as they do on our inferior boats running the Yazoo, Arkansas, Red and Black River, until the boiler hisses, or the boat snags. They are slow but sure.
In the cabin, which is below, is a sufficient number of small tables in restaurant style, and whoever eats does it a la carte. If you eat what is worth only fifteen grochens, you only pay fifteen grochens; but, if you eat one hundred grochens’ worth, you will pay one hundred grochens; not one cent over or under is required, for the Dutch, as a class, are a reasonable, just and inoffensive people, therefore wish nothing but fair understanding and dealing. They always keep an interpreter on a cheap scale, to enable them to get along without difficulty. He was either a waiter, dish washer or potato-peeler, but on a no more expensive scale. They are the last people I am acquainted with to count unhatched chickens.
Captain Husenhork, I understand, is a gentleman and a good humored man, but the eye of a lynx would have a task to catch a smile upon his hickory countenance. He brought an old Dutch musket on deck for me to amuse myself with, shooting at snipe along the dykes. I shot into their midst several times, but they all flew up, circled around and lit at the same place. I never before saw so many of this style or genera of bird. Their bills was the most conspicuous part of them.
The boat is now turning to land at a pretty large town called Arnheim; but Holland is so low that a man cannot see the spires of a city until he enters its walls.
Holland is one vast marsh. It is dyked so as to drain each acre, but it is the richest soil in Europe, and its productiveness is so profitable that its owners would not swop it for the land of Goshen. It has nourished a people that seem to be well adapted to its nature; the forbearance of the Dutch people is not to be equalled by any. The labor required to till such soil as Holland’s, has been the best friend to the Hollanders, for no people on the earth enjoys the labor as does a Holland farmer, and no people could make it so profitable. In taking a hack ride a few miles in the country around Arnheim, I can say the nurseries are unsurpassed by Switzerland, the Hanse States, or France.
Having gossiped in Arnheim two days, I called for my bill, paid it, packed my trunk for Amsterdam. Wine being such an extravagant item I thought I would enquire into it, as I might get some information why it was so much more in Holland than the other parts of the Rhine. I found that wine was an imported liquor, consequently, the duty made the difference between wine on that side of the Rhine and the other. A swilly beer is most universally the beverage of the Netherlands. The clerk supposing that I was not satisfied with the length of my bill, took it in his inspection and examined it carefully, and said, “Sir, you eat snipe.” “Well is that any reason you should make my bill like a snipes?” “Yes sir,” said he, “it is extra.” “All right, sir, I did not ask you about any part of the bill except wine.” Next day I was in Amsterdam, the wealthiest city of Holland. It is a city of canals; they run through all the main parts of the town, leaving a large side-walk on each side. Some pretty large ships are in the heart of the town. Bridges run across the canals, but they revolve on hinges and are easily turned.
The gayest time of Amsterdam is dead winter. Then the Zuyder Zee and all its canals are frozen over, when ladies and gentlemen are skating night and day. Vessels sail charmingly on the ice, but their bottoms are made for the ice instead of water. Balls and pic-nic parties are numerous in winter. The Amsterdam ladies are all healthy looking. I saw half a dozen ladies yesterday shooting snipe, when I rode out to Saandam. They had on nice little boots and moved among the high grass like skilful hunters. At Saandam I registered my name in the little “book of names,” in the house of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia. He ran away from Russia and came here and rented this little house with only two rooms, and lived in poverty here, to learn to build ships. Hollandaise builders worked with him a year at a time, but knew not that it was Peter the Great, of the Russias. The little frame hut is three hundred years old, but has been preserved on account of its strange and novel history.
26th of September, and I am at the capitol of Holland, The Hague. The King lives here, about a quarter of a mile from my hotel, the “Bellevue.” But I just dined with a King. The father of the Queen is the old King of Wurtemburg, and he is putting up here, and we