Americans long resident abroad must arrive at this

conclusion.

THE END




APPENDIX



Nothing gives such weight and

dignity to a book as an Appendix.

Herodotus.

A

THE PORTIER

OMAR KHAY^M, the poet-prophet of Persia, writing more than eight
hundred years ago, has said :

" In the four parts of the earth are many that are able to write
learned books, many that are able to lead armies, and many also that
are able to govern kingdoms and empires; but few there be that can
keep a hotel."

A word about the European hotel portier. He is a most admirable
invention, a most valuable convenience. He always wears a con
spicuous uniform; he can always be found when he is wanted, for he
sticks closely to his post at the front door; he is as polite as a duke; he
speaks from four to ten languages; he is your surest help and refuge
in time of trouble or perplexity. He is not the clerk, he is not the
landlord; he ranks above the clerk, and represents the landlord, who
is seldom seen. Instead of going to the clerk for information, as we do
at home, you go to the portier. It is the pride of our average hotel
clerk to know nothing whatever; it is the pride of the portier to know
everything. You ask the portier at what hours the trains leave, he
tells you instantly; or you ask him who is the best physician in town; or
what is the hack tariff; or how many children the mayor has; or what
days the galleries are open, and whether a permit is required, and where
you are to get it, and what you must pay for it; or when the theaters
18** (273)



274 A Tramp Abroad

open and close, what the plays are to be, and the price ot seats; 01
what is the newest thing in hats; or how the bills of mortality average;
or "who struck Billy Patterson." It does not matter what you ask
him : in nine cases out of ten he knows, and in the tenth case he will
find out for you before you can turn around three times. There is noth
ing he will not put his hand to. Suppose you tell him you wish to go
from Hamburg to Peking by the way of Jericho, and are ignorant of
routes and prices, the next morning he will hand you a piece of paper
with the whole thing worked out on it to the last detail. Before you
have been long on European soil, you find yourself still saying you are
relying on Providence, but when you come to look closer you will see
that in reality you are relying on the portier. He discovers what is
puzzling you, or what is troubling you, or what your need is, before you
can get the half of it out, and he promptly says, " Leave that to me."
Consequently, you easily drift into the habit of leaving everything to him.
There is a certain embarrassment about applying to the average American
hotel clerk, a certain hesitancy, a sense of insecurity against rebuff; but
you feel no embarrassment in your intercourse with the portier; he
receives your propositions with an enthusiasm which cheers, and plunges
into their accomplishment with an alacrity which almost inebriates. The
more requirements you can pile upon him, the better he likes it. Of
course the result is that you cease from doing anything for yourself. He
calls a hack when you want one; puts you into it; tells the driver
whither to take you; icCciyes you like a lone; lost child when you return;
sends you about your business, does all the quarreling with the hack-
man himself, and pays him his money out of his own pocket. He sends
for your theater tickets, and pays for them; he sends for any possible
article you can require, be it a doctor, an elephant, or a postage stamp;
and when you leave, at last, you will find a subordinate seated with the
cab driver who will put you in your railway compartment, buy your
tickets, have your baggage weighed, bring you the printed tags, and tell
you everything is in your bill and paid for. At home you get such
elaborate, excellent, and willing service as this only in the best hotels of
our large cities; but in Europe you get it in the mere back country
towns just as well.

What is the secret of the portier s devotion? It is very simple: he
gets fees, and no salary p . His fee is pretty closely regulated, too. If
you stay a week in the house, you give him five marks a dollar and a
quarter, or about eighteen cents a day. If you stay a month, you



A Tramp Abroad 275

reduce this average somewhat. If you stay two or three months or
longer, you cut it down half, or even more than half. If you stay only
one day, you give the portier a mark.

The head waiter s fee is a shade less than the portier s; the Boots,
who not only blacks your boots and brushes your clothes, but is usually
the porter and handles your baggage, gets a somewhat smaller fee than
the head waiter; the chambermaid s fee ranks below that of the Boots.
You fee only these four, and no one else. A German gentleman told
me that when he remained a week in a hotel, he gave the portier five
marks, the head waiter four, the Boots three, and the chambermaid
two; and if he staid three months he divided ninety marks among
them, in about the above proportions,, Ninety marks make $22.50.

None of these fees are ever paid until you leave the hotel, though it
be a year, except one of these four servants should go away in the
meantime; in that case he will be sure to come and bid you good-bye
and give you the opportunity to pay him what is fairly coming to him.
It is considered very bad policy to fee a servant while you are still to
remain longer in the hotel, because if you gave him too little he might
neglect you afterward, and if you gave him too much he might neglect
somebody else to attend to you. It is considered best to keep his
expectations " on a string " until your stay is concluded.

I do not know whether hotel servants in New York get any wages
or not, but I do know that in some of the hotels there the feeing system
in vogue is a heavy burden. The waiter expects a quarter at breakfast,
and gets it. You have a different waiter at luncheon, and so he gets
a quarter. Your waiter at dinner is another stranger, consequently
he gets a quarter. The boy who carries your satchel to your room and
lights your gas fumbles around and hangs around significantly, and you
fee him to get rid of him. Now you may ring for ice water; and ten
minutes later for a lemonade; and ten minutes afterwards, for a cigar;
and by and by for a newspaper, and what is the result? Why, a new
boy has appeared every time and fooled and fumbled around until you
have paid him something. Suppose you boldly put your foot down,
and say it is the hotel s business to pay its servants? and suppose you
stand your ground and stop feeing? You will have to nng your bell ten
or fifteen times before you get a servant there; and when he goes off to
fill your order you will grow old and infirm before you see him again.
You may struggle nobly for twenty-four hours, maybe, if you are an
adamantine sort of person, but in the meantime you will have been so



276 A Tramp Abroad

wretchedly served, and so insolently, that you will haul down youi
colors, and go to impoverishing yourself with fees.

It seems to me that it would be a happy idea to import the European
feeing system into America. I believe it would result in getting even
the bells of the Philadelphia hotels answered, and cheerful service
rendered.

The greatest American hotels keep a number of clerks and a cashier,
and pay them salaries which mount up to a considerable total in the
course of a year. The great continental hotels keep a cashier on a
trifling salary, and a portier ivho pays the hotel a salary. By the latter
system both the hotel and the public save money and are better served
than by our system. One of our consuls told me that the portier of a
great Berlin hotel paid $5,000 a year for his position, and yet cleared
$6,000 for himself. The position of portier in the chief hotels of
Saratoga, Long Branch, New York, and similar centers of resort, would
be one which the holder could afford to pay even more than $5,000 for,
perhaps.

When we borrowed the feeing fashion from Europe a dozen years
ago, the salary system ought to have been discontinued, of course. We
might make this correction now, I should tfiink. And we might add
the portier, too. Since I first began to study the portier, I have had
opportunities to observe him in the chief cities of Germany, Switzer
land, and Italy; and the more I have seen of him the more I have
wished that he might be adopted in America, and become there, as he
is in Europe, the stranger s guardian angel.

Yes, what was true eight hundred years ago, is just as true to-day :
" Few there be that can keep hotel." Perhaps it is because the land
lords and their subordinates have in too many cases taken up their trade
without first learning it. In Europe the trade of hotel-keeper is taught.
The apprentice begins at the bottom of the ladder and masters the
several grades one after the other. Just as in our country printing-
offices the apprentice first learns how to sweep out and bring water;
then learns to "roll"; then to sort "pi"; then to set type; and
finally rounds and completes his education with job-work and press-
work; so the landlord- apprentice serves as call-boy; then as under-
waiter; then as a parlor waiter; then as head- waiter, ia which position he
often has to make out all the bills; then as clerk or cashier; then as portier.
His trade is learned now, and by and by he will assume the style and
dignity of landlord, and be found conducting a hotel of his own.



A Tramp Abroad 277

Now in Europe, the same as in America, when a man has kept a
hotel so thoroughly well during a number of years as to give it a great
reputation, he has his reward. He can live prosperously on that reputa
tion. He can let his hotel run down to the last degree of shabbiness
and yet have it full of people all the time. For instance, there is the
Hotel de Ville, in Milan. It swarms with mice and fleas, and if the
rest of the world were destroyed it could furnish dirt enough to start
another one with. The food would create an insurrection in a poor-
house; and yet if you go outside to get your meals that hotel makes up
its loss by over-charging you on all sorts of trifles, and without
making any denials or excuses about it, either. But the Hotel de Ville s
old excellent reputation still keeps its dreary rooms crowded with
travelers who would be elsewhere if they had only had some wise friend
to warn them.



B

HEIDELBERG CASTLE

HEIDELBERG CASTLE must have been very beautiful before the French
battered and bruised and scorched it two hundred years ago. The stone
is brown, with a pinkish tint, and does not seem to stain easily. The
dainty and elaborate ornamentation upon its two chief fronts is as
delicately carved as if it had been intended for the interior of a draw
ing-room rather than for the outside of a house. Many fruit and
flower-clusters, human heads and grim projecting lion s heads are still
as perfect in every detail as if they were new. But the statues which
are ranked between the windows have suffered. These are life-size
statues of old-time emperors, electors, and similar grandees, clad in
mail and bearing ponderous swords. Some have lost an arm, some a
head, and one poor fellow is chopped off at the middle. There is a
saying that if a stranger will pass over the drawbridge and walk across
the court to the castle front without saying anything, he can make a
wish and it will be fulfilled. But they say that the truth of this thing
has never had a chance to be proved, for the reason that before any
stranger can walk from the drawbridge to the appointed place, the
beauty of the palace front will extort an exclamation of delight from
him.

A ruin must be rightly situated, to be effective. This one could not
have been better placed, It stands upon a commanding elevation, it is
buried in green woods, there is no level ground about it, but, on the
contrary, there are wooded terraces upon terraces, and one looks down
through shining leaves into profound chasms and abysses where twilight
reigns and the sun cannot intrude. Nature knows how to garnish a
ruin to get the best effect. One of these old towers is split down the
middle, and one half has tumbled aside. It tumbled in such a way as
to establish itself in a picturesque attitude. Then all it lacked was a

(278)



A Tramp Abroad 279

fitting drapery, and Nature has furnished that; she has robed the
rugged mass in flowers and verdure, and made it a charm to the eye.
The standing half exposes its arched and cavernous rooms to you, like
open, toothless mouths; there, too, the vines and flowers have done
their work of grace. The rear portion of the tower has not been
neglected^ either, but is clothed with a clinging garment of polished ivy
which hides the wounds and stains of time. Even the top is not left
bare, but is crowned with a flourishing group of trees and shrubs.
Misfortune has done for this old tower what it has done for the human
character sometimes improved it.

A gentleman remarked, one day, that it might have been fine to live
in the castle in the day of its prime, but that we had one advantage
which its vanished inhabitants lacked the advantage of having a
charming ruin to visit and muse over. But that was a hasty idea.
Those people had the advantage of us. They had the fine castle to live
in, and they could cross the Rhine valley and muse over the stately ruin
of Trifels besides. The Trifels people, in their day, five hundred years
ago, could go and muse over majestic ruins which have vanished, now,
to the last stone. There have always been ruins, no doubt; and there
have always been pensive people to sigh over them, and asses to scratch
upon them their names and the important date of their visit. Within a
hundred years after Adam left Eden, the guide probably gave the usual
general flourish with his hand and said: "Place where the animals
were named, ladies and gentlemen; place where the tree of the forbid
den fruit stood; exact spot where Adam and Eve first met; and here,
ladies and gentlemen, adorned and hallowed by the names and addresses
of three generations of tourists, we have the crumbling remains of Cain s
altar, fine old ruin!" Then, no doubt, he taxed them a shekel
apiece and let them go.

An illumination of Heidelberg Castle is one of the sights of Europe,
The Castle s picturesque shape; its commanding situation, midway up
the steep and wooded mountain side; its vast size, these features
combine to make an illumination a most effective spectacle. It is
necessarily an expensive show, and consequently rather infrequent.
Therefore whenever one of these exhibitions is to take place, the news
goes about in the papers and Heidelberg is sure to be full of people on
that night. I and my agent had one of these opportunities, and im
proved it.

About half past seven on the appointed evening we crossed th



280 A Tramp Abroad

lower bridge, with some American students, in a pouring rain, and
started up the road which borders the Neunheim side of the river.
This roadway was densely packed with carriages and foot passengers;
the former of all ages, and the latter of all ages and both sexes. This
black and solid mass was struggling painfully onward, through the slop,
the darkness, and the deluge. We waded along for three-quarters of a
mile, and finally took up a position in an unsheltered beer garden
directly opposite the Castle. We could not see the Castle, or any
thing else, for that matter, but we could dimly discern the outlines of
the mountain over the way, through the pervading blackness, and knew
whereabouts the Castle was located. We stood on one of the hundred
benches in the garden, under our umbrellas; the other ninety-nine were
occupied by standing men and women, and they also had umbrellas.
All the region round about, and up and down the river-road, was a
dense wilderness of humanity hidden under an unbroken pavement of
carriage tops and umbrellas. Thus we stood during two drenching
hours. No rain fell on my head, but the converging whalebone points
of a dozen neighboring umbrellas poured little cooling streams of water
down my neck, and sometimes into my ears, and thus kept me from
getting hot and impatient. I had the rheumatism, too, and had heard
that this was good for it. Afterward, however, I was led to believe that
the water treatment is not good for rheumatism. There were even little
girls in that dreadful place. A man held one in his arms, just in front
of me, for as much as an hour, with umbrella-drippings soaking into
her clothing all the time.

In the circumstances, two hours was a good while for us to have to
wait, but when the illumination did at last come, we felt repaid. It
came unexpectedly, of course, things always do, that have been long
looked and longed for. With a perfectly breath-taking suddenness
several vast sheaves of varicolored rockets were vomited skyward out of
the black throats of the castle towers, accompanied by a thundering
crash of sound, and instantly every detail of the prodigious ruin stood
revealed against the mountain side and glowing with an almost intoler
able splendor of fire and color. For some little time the whole building
was a blinding crimson mass, the towers continued to spout thick col
umns of rockets aloft, and overhead the sky was radiant with arrowy
bolts which clove their way to the zenith, paused, curved gracefully
downward, then burst into brilliant fountain sprays of richly-colored
sparks. The red fires died slowly down, within the castle, and pre



A Tramp Abroad 281

sently the shell grew nearly black outside; the angry glare that shone
out through the broken arches and innumerable sashless windows, now,
reproduced the aspect which the Castle must have borne in the old time
when the French spoilers saw the monster bonfire which they had made
there fading and smouldering toward extinction.

While we still gazed and enjoyed, the ruin was suddenly enveloped
in rolling and tumbling volumes of vaporous green fire ; then in
dazzling purple ones; then a mixture of many colors followed, and
drowned the great fabric in its blended splendors. Meantime the
nearest bridge had been illuminated, and from several rafts anchored in
the river, meteor showers of rockets, Roman candles, bombs, serpents,
and Catharine wheels were being discharged in wasteful profusion
into the sky, a marvelous sight indeed to a person as little used
to such spectacles as I was. For a while the whole region about us
seemed as bright as day, and yet the rain was falling in torrents all
the time. The evening s entertainment presently closed, and we joined
the innumerable caravan of half-drowned spectators, and waded home
again.

The Castle grounds are very ample and very beautiful; and as they
joined the Hotel grounds, with no fences to climb, but only some nobly
shaded stone stairways to descend; we spent a part of nearly every day
in idling through their smooth walks and leafy groves. There was an
attractive spot among the trees where were a great many wooden tables
and benches; and there one could sit in the shade and pretend to sip
at his foamy beaker of beer while he inspected the crowd. I say pre
tend, because I only pretended to sip, without really sipping. That is
the polite way; but when you are ready to go, you empty the beaker at
a draught. There was a brass band, and it furnished excellent music
every afternoon. Sometimes so many people came that every seat was
occupied, every table filled. And never a rough in the assemblage,
all nicely dressed fathers and mothers, young gentlemen and ladies and
children; and plenty of university students and glittering officers; with
here and there a gray professor, or a peaceful old lady with her knitting;
and always a sprinkling of gawky foreigners. Everybody had his glass
of beer before him, or his cup of coffee, or his bottle of wine, or his
hot cutlet and potatoes; young ladies chatted, or fanned themselves, or
wrought at their crotcheting or embroidering; the students fed sugar to
their dogs, or discussed duels, or illustrated new fencing-tricks with their
little canes; and everywhere was comfort and enjoyment, and every-



282 A Tramp Abroad

where peace and good- will to men. The trees were jubilant with birds,
and the paths with rollicking children. One could have a seat in that
place and plenty of music, any afternoon, for about eight cents, or a
family ticket for the season for two dollars.

For a change, when you wanted one, you could stroll to the castle,
and burrow among its dungeons, or climb about its ruined towers, or
visit its interior shows, the great Heidelberg Tun, for instance.
Everybody has heard of the great Heidelberg Tun, and most people
have seen it, no doubt. It is a wine cask as big as a cottage, and some
traditions say it holds eighteen hundred thousand bottles, and other
traditions say it holds eighteen hundred million barrels. I think it likely
that one of these statements is a mistake, and the other one a lie.
However, the mere matter of capacity is a thing of no sort of conse
quence, since the cask is empty, and indeed has always been empty,
history says. An empty cask the size of a cathedral could excite but
little emotion in me. I do not see any wisdom in building a monster
cask to hoard up emptiness in, when you can get a better quality, out
side, any day, free of expense. What could this cask have been built
for? The more one studies over that, the more uncertain and unhappy
he becomes. Some historians say that thirty couples, some say thirty
thousand couples, can dance on the head of this cask at the same time.
Even this does not seem to me to account for the building of it. It
does not even throw light on it. A profound and scholarly English
man, a specialist, who had made the great Heidelberg Tun his sole
study for fifteen years, told me he had at last satisfied himself that the
ancients built it to make German cream in. He said that the average
German cow yielded from one to two and a half teaspoonfuls of milk,
when she was not worked in the plow or the hay wagon more than
eighteen or nineteen hours a day. This milk was very sweet and good,
and of a beautiful transparent bluish tint; but in order to get cream
from it in the most economical way, a peculiar process was necessary.
Now he believed that the habit of the ancients was to collect several
milkings in a teacup, pour it into the Great Tun, fill up with water, and
then skim off the cream from time to time as the needs of the German
Empire demanded.

This began to look reasonable. It certainly began to account for
the German cream which I had encountered and marveled over in so
many hotels and restaurants. But a thought struck me,

" Why did not each ancient dairyman take his own teacup of milk



A Tramp Abroad 283

and his own cask of water, and mix them, without making .a govern
ment matter of it?"

" Where could he get a cask large enough to contain the right pro
portion of water?"

Very true. It was plain that the Englishman had studied the matter
from all sides. Still I thought I might catch him on one point; so I
asked him why the modern empire Md not make the nation s cream in
the Heidelberg Tun, instead of leaving it to rot away unused. But he
answered as one prepared,

"A patient and diligent examination of the modern German cream
has satisfied me that they do not use the Great Tun now, because they
have got a bigger one hid away somewhere. Either that is the case or
they empty the spring milkings into the mountain torrents and then skim
the Rhine all summer."

There is a museum of antiquities in the castle, and among its most
treasured relics are ancient manuscripts connected with German history.
There are hundreds of these, and their dates stretch back through many
centuries. One of them is a decree signed and sealed by the hand of
a successor of Charlemagne, in the year 896. A signature made by a
hand which vanished out of this life near a thousand years ago, is a
more impressive thing than even a ruined castle. Luther s wedding
ring was shown me; also a fork belonging to a time anterior to our era,
and an early bootjack. And there was a plaster cast of the head of a
man who was assassinated about sixty years ago. The stab-wounds in
the face were duplicated with unpleasant fidelity. One or two real hairs
still remained sticking in the eyebrows of the cast. That trifle seemed
to almost change the counterfeit into a corpse.

There are many aged portraits, some valuable, some worthless;
some of great interest, some of none at all. I bought a couple, one