lÜbeck to berlin.

By right of churches full of relics, antique buildings, and places curiously named, LÜbeck is, no doubt, a jewel of a town to antiquarians. Its streets are badly paved, but infinitely cleaner than the streets of Hamburg. I did not much wonder at that, for I saw no people out of doors to make them dirty, when I exposed myself to notice from within doors as a solitary pedestrian, upon my way to take a letter to a goldsmith in the market place. The market place is a kind of exchange; a square building with an open court in the centre, around which there is a covered way roofed quaintly with carved timbers. In this building the mechanical trades of LÜbeck are collected, each trade occupying a space exclusively its own under the colonnade. Here, all the tradesmen are compelled to work, but are not permitted to reside. Each master has his tiny shop-front with a trifling show of goods exposed in it, and his small workshop behind, in which, at most, two or three men can be employed. In some odd little nooks the doors of these boxes are so arranged, that two masters cannot go out of adjoining premises at the same time without collision.

Though my friend in LÜbeck was a stranger, as a brother jeweller he gave me friendly welcome. Having inquired into my resources, he said, “You must take the viaticum.”—“It is like begging,” I answered.—“Nonsense,” he replied; “you pay for it when you are in work, and have a right to it when travelling.”—“But I might find employment, on inquiry.”—“Do not be alarmed, my friend; there is not a job to be done in the whole city.” I was forced, therefore, by my friend’s good-natured earnestness, to make the usual demand throughout the little group of goldsmiths, and having thus satisfied the form, I was conducted to our Guild alderman and treasurer. A little quiet conversation passed between them, and the cash-box was then emptied out into my hand; it contained twenty-eight Hamburg shillings, equal to two shillings in English money.

I returned to my hotel and slept in a good bed that night. The morning broke heavily, and promised a day’s rain. Through the lowering weather and the dismal streets I went to the police office to get my passport visÉd for Schwerin in Mecklenburg. Most dismal streets! The LÜbeckers were complaining of loss of trade, and yearned for a railway from LÜbeck to Hamburg. But the line would run through a corner of Holstein, and no such thing would be tolerated by the Duke. The LÜbeckers wanted the Russian traffic to come through their town and on to Hamburg by rail. The Duke of Holstein wished to bring it through his little port of Kiel upon the Baltic.

Too poor to loiter on the road, having got my passport visÉd, I again strapped the knapsack to my back, and set out through the long avenues of trees over the long, wet road, through bitter wind and driving rain. Soaked with rain, and shivering with cold, I entered the village of SchÖneberg at two o’clock, just after the rain had ceased, as deplorable a figure as a man commonly presents when all the vigour has been washed out of his face, and his clothes hang limp and damp about his body. Wearied to death, I halted at the door of an inn, but was told inhospitably—miserable tramp as I seemed, and was—that “I could go to the next house.” At the next house they again refused me, already humbled, and advised me to go to The Tall Grenadier. That is a house of call for masons. I went to it, and was received there hospitably. My knapsack being waterproof, I could put on dry clothes, and hang my wet garments round the stove, while the uproarious masons—terrible men for beer and music—comforted me with unending joviality. They got into their hands a book of German songs that dropped out of my knapsack, and having appointed a reader, set him upon the table to declaim them. Presently, another jolly mason cried out over a drinking song—declaimed among the others in a loud monotonous bawl—“I know that song;” and having hemmed and tuned his voice a little, broke out into music with tremendous power. The example warmed the others; they began to look out songs with choruses, and so continued singing to the praise of wine and beauty out of my book, until they were warned home by the host. I climbed a ladder to my bedroom, and slept well. The Grenadier was not an expensive hotel, for in the morning when I paid my bill for bed and breakfast, I found that the accommodation cost me fourpence-halfpenny.

Since it is my desire not to fatigue the reader of this uneventful narrative, but simply to illustrate by a few notes drawn from my own experience the life of a German workman on the tramp, I shall now pass over a portion of the road between Hamburg and Berlin in silence. My way lay through Schwerin; from SchÖneberg to Schwerin is twenty-six English miles, and we find it a long way. In reckoning distances, the Germans count by “stunden”—i.e. hours—and two “stunden” make one German mile. From experience, I should say that five miles English were about equal to one mile German; but they vary considerably. Having spent a night in the exceedingly neat city of Schwerin beside its pleasant waters, and under the protection of the cannon in the antiquated castle overhead, I set out for a walk of twenty miles onward to Ludwigslust. The road was a pleasant one, firm and dry, with trim grass edgings and sylvan seats on either side. The country itself was flat and dull, enlivened only now and then by a fir plantation or a pretty village. Brother tramps passed me from time to time with a cheerful salutation, and at three o’clock I passed within the new brick walls of Ludwigslust; a town dignified as a pleasure seat with a military garrison, a ducal palace, and an English park.

The inn to which I went in Ludwigslust, was the house of call for carpenters. The carpenters were there assembled in great force, laughing, smoking, and enjoying their red wine, which may have come from France, for Mecklenburg is no wine country. It was the quarter-day and pay-day of the carpenters, who were about to celebrate the date as usual with a supper. I went to sit down in the small travellers’ room, and was assailed instantly by the whole army of joiners, some with bleared eyes; with flushed faces under caps of every shape and colour; and a flexible pipe hanging from every mouth—Who was I?—What was I?—Whence did I come?—Where was I born? and whither was I going? etc., etc. When they had found out all about me and confirmed their knowledge by examination of my passport, which one dull dog persisted in regarding as a book of ballads, out of which he sang, I began to ask concerning food. “Nothing warm in the house,” said the housefather, a carpenter himself. “There will be a grand supper at six o’clock, and everything and everybody is wanted in the preparation of it. Make yourself easy for the present with brown bread and dripping, and a glass of beer, and then you can make your dinner with us when we sup.” That suited me well enough.

The carpenters flowed out into the street, to take a stroll and get their appetites, leaving behind them one besotted man, who propped himself against the oven, and there gave himself a lecture on the blessings of equanimity under all circumstances of distress.

“Do you sleep here to-night?” inquired the host. Certainly, I desired to do so. “Then you must go to the police bureau for a permission.”—“But you have my passport; is not that sufficient?”—“Not in Ludwigslust; your passport must be held by the police, and they will give you in exchange for it a ticket, which I must hold, or else I dare not let you have a lodging.” I went to the police office at once; through the ill-paved street into the middle of the town. I went by a large gravelled square, which serves as a riding ground for the cavalry in the adjoining barracks; and a long broad street of no great beauty, ending in a flight of steps, led me then to the police office, and would have led me also, had that been my destination, to the ducal palace. The palace fronts to a paved square; it is a massive, noble edifice of stone, having before it a fine cascade with a treble fall. To the left, across a green meadow, I observed the church—the only church—a simple whitewashed building with a colonnaded front. At the foot of the low flight of steps was the police office, in which I found one man, who civilly copied my passport into a book, put it aside, and gave me a ticket of permission to remain one night in Ludwigslust. I was desired to call for my passport before leaving in the morning.

At seven o’clock there was no sign of supper. At eight o’clock the cloth was spread in a long, low lumber-room at the back of the inn, and the assembled carpenters took their seats before the board, or rather boards supported upon tressels. I took my place and waited hungrily. Very soon there was a great steam over the whole table sent up from huge tureens of boiled potatoes; smaller dishes of preserved prunes, boiled also, occupied the intervals. A bottle of red wine was placed for every two men. We then began our meal with soup; thin, sorry stuff. Then came the chief dishes, baked veal and baked pig’s head. The prunes were to be eaten with the veal, which meat, having been first boiled to make the soup, and then baked in a deep dish in a close oven to bring out some of the faded flavour, was a sodden mass, and the whole meal was removed a very long way from the roast fillet of veal and pickled pork known to an Englishman. Our pig’s head was, however, capital,—no soup had been made out of that. The carpenters, with assiduous kindness, heaped choice bits upon my plate, and as I had not dined, I supped with energy. The drunken man who had fallen asleep by the stove sat by my side with greedy looks, eating nothing, for he had not paid his share; he was a man who drank away his gains, and he received no pity.

Then after supper there came toasts. The president was on his legs, all glasses were filled; men ready. “Long live the Guild of carpenters! Vivat h—o!” The ho! was a howl; the glasses clashed. “Long live all carpenters! Vivat ho—o!” At ten o’clock there was a bustle and confusion at the door, and a long string of lads marched, two and two, cap in hand, into the room. These were all the carpenters’ apprentices in Ludwigslust. Every quarterly night the hospitable carpenters have them in after supper to be regaled with beer and cordials, and initiated into the mysteries of jollity that are connected with the existence of a master carpenter. “Long live all carpenters’ apprentices! Vivat ho—o—o!” The apprentices having revelled in as much beer and spirits as could be got through, shouting included, in a quarter of an hour, formed double line again, and marched out under a fire of lusty cheers into the street. Some jolly carpenters still lingered in the supper room, smoking or singing choruses, or making partners of each other for mad waltzes round the table to the music of their tongues.

Longing for bed, I was obliged to wait until the landlord was at leisure to attend to me. After I rose next morning, I waited for three hours impatiently enough until the sleepy host had risen; for until I had received my ticket back from him I was unable to get my passport and go on. At length, however, I got out of the brick walls of Ludwigslust, and marched forward under a clear sky on the way to Perleberg, my next stage, distant about fifteen English miles.

Having passed through two dirty, ill-paved towns, and being in some uncertainty about the road, I asked my way of a short, red-faced man who, being himself bound for the frontier station, favoured me so far with his company. He was a post-boy whose vocation was destroyed, but who was nevertheless blessed with philosophy enough to recognise the merits of the railway system, and to point out the posts marking the line between Berlin and Hamburg, with the comment that “the world must move.” It seemed to be enough for him that he lived in the recollection of the people on his old road-side, and that he could stop with me outside a toll-gate, the first I had seen in Germany, sure of the production of a bottle for a social dram, in which I cordially joined. Then presently we came to a small newly-built village, the Prussian military station. A sentinel standing silent and alone by his sentry box striped with the Prussian colours, black and white, marked where the road crossed the Prussian frontier. We passed unchallenged, and found dinner upon the territory of the Black Eagle, in a very modest house of entertainment.

Travelling alone onward to Perleberg, I stopped once more for refreshment at a melancholy, dirty place, having one common room, of which the chairs and tables contained as much heavy timber as would build a house. I wanted an hour’s rest, for my knapsack had become a burden to me, and the handles of the few tools I was obliged to carry dug themselves relentlessly into my back. “White or brown beer?” asked the attendant. Dolt that I was to answer Brown! They brought me a vile treacley compound that I could not drink; whereas the Berlin white beer is a famous effervescing liquor; so good, says a Berliner, that you cannot distinguish it from champagne if you drink it rapidly with closed eyes, and at the same time press your nose between your fingers. In the evening I got to Perleberg, and walking wearily up the old, irregular High Street, established myself at the Londoner Schenke—the London Tavern. I found the parlour pleasant and almost private, the hostess quiet and lady-like. While she was getting coffee ready for me, I paid my call of duty upon the police; for though my passport had been visÉd to Berlin in half a dozen places, the law required that I should not sleep in a new kingdom without first announcing my arrival.

At the upper end of the market place I found a red brick building with a gloomy door, opening upon a broad stone staircase, by which I mounted to the magistrate’s room. That was a lofty hall, badly lighted by two little windows, and scantily furnished with a few seats. Behind a railing sat the magistrate in a velvet skull-cap and black robe; a short fat man with a satisfied face, but unsatisfied and restless eyes. Two armed soldiers shared with him the space beyond the rail. Two townsmen, hat in hand, were patiently waiting for their passes. Having mentioned my business, I was told that I might wait; standing, of course. The heavy quiet of the room was broken presently by the entrance of two young workmen in clean blouses, bound upon an errand like my own, who hovered in a tremulous condition near the doorway.

The magistrate of Perleberg, after awhile, looked at my passport, and asked “Have you the requisite amount of travelling money to show?” I had not expected such a question, but the two gold ducats were still in my fob, and I produced them with the air of a fine gentleman. One of the soldiers took them in his hand, examined them and passed them to his comrade, who passed them to the townspeople. “They are good,” said the soldier, as he put them back into my hand.—“Is that enough?” I asked, as though there had been thousands of such things about other parts of my person, for I saw that I had made an impression. “That will do,” said the magistrate, “you may sit down.” O miserable homage before wealth! They would not keep me standing.

It had grown dark, and a lighted candle had been placed upon the desk of the chief magistrate, a most diligent man in his office, who, seeing no description of my person in the passport, set to work with the zest of an artist upon the depiction of my features. Examining each feature minutely with a candle, he put down the results of his researches, and then finally read off his work to me with this note at the bottom—“The little finger of his left hand is crooked.”

The hostess of the London Tavern, when I got back to my quarters, must have heard about my wealth. That pleasant little maiden lady told me all about her house, and how it had been named afresh after the King of Prussia slept there on his way to London, where he was to act as sponsor to the Prince of Wales. I, who had been turned away from the doors of the humblest inns, was flattered and courted by a landlady who had entertained His Majesty of Prussia. The neatest of chambermaids conducted me to an elegant bedchamber—“her own room,” the little old maid had said as I left her—and there I slept upon the couch sacred to her maiden meditations, among hangings white as snow.

The next morning I went out into Perleberg,—a ricketty old place, full of rats and legends. There is a colossal figure in the market-place of an armed knight, eighteen or twenty feet high, gazing eternally into the fruit baskets below. He has his head uncovered, his hand upon his sword, and is made of stone; but who he is nobody seemed to know; I was only told that the statue would turn any one to stone who fixed his eyes upon it in intense gaze for a sufficiently long time. I visited the chief jeweller, a wonderful man, who was said to have visited nearly all parts of the known world except London and Paris. I found him with one workman, very busy, but not doing much; and he was very civil, although manifestly labouring under the fear that I had come to ask for a “viaticum.” I did not. I went back to eat a hearty breakfast at the London Tavern, where I found the mistress gracious, and the handmaid very chatty and coquettish. From her talk I half concluded that I was believed to be an Englishman who travelled like a journeyman for the humour of the thing: the English are so odd, and at the London Tavern they had not been without experience of English ways. My display of the gold pieces must have been communicated to them overnight, by one of the townspeople who heard me tell the magistrate at what inn I was staying.

From Perleberg to Keritz was eighteen miles. Upon the road I came up with a poor fellow limping pitiably. He had a flat wooden box upon his back, being a tramping glazier; and he made snail’s progress, having his left thigh swollen by much walking. I loitered with him as long as my time allowed, and then dashed on to recover the lost ground. Passing at a great pace a neat road-side inn, singing the while, a jolly red face blazed out upon me from the lattice window. “Ei da! You are merry. Whither so fast?”—“To Berlin.”—“Wait an instant and I’m with you.” Two odd figures tumbled almost at the end of the instant out of the house door. One a burly man with a red face and a large moustache, the other a chalky young man with a pair of Wellington boots slung round his neck. They were both native Prussians on the way from Hamburg to Berlin, having come through Magdeburg, travelling, they declared, at the rate of about six-and-twenty English miles a day. These Prussians will talk; but at whatever rate my friends might have travelled, they were nearly dead beat. They had sent on their knapsacks by the waggon, finding them unmercifully heavy. The stout traveller had a white sack over his shoulders, his trousers tucked up to his knees, and his Wellington boots cut down into ankle-jacks to ease his chafed shins, that were already dotted with hectic red spots from over-exertion. His young friend carried his best Wellingtons about his neck, and wore a pair of cracked boots, through which I could see the colour, in some places, of his dark blue socks, in other places of his dark red flesh. Both were lamed by the same cause, inflammation of the front of the leg, in which part I also had begun to feel some smartings.

We got on merrily, in spite of our legs, and overtook two very young travellers, whom I recognised as the flutterers before the presence of the magistrate at Perleberg. One proved to be a bookbinder, the other a wood-turner. They were fresh upon their travels, and their clean white blouses, the arrangements of their knapsacks, and the little neatnesses and comforts here and there about them, showed that they had not yet travelled many days’ march from a mother’s care. Then we toiled on, until our elder friend grew worse and worse about his feet, laughing and joking himself out of pain as he was able. Finally, he could go no farther, and we waited until we could send him forward in a passing cart.

He being dispatched, we travelled on, I and my friend with the boot-necklace, till we met a little crowd of men in blouses, little queer caps, knapsacks, and ragged beards, all carrying sticks. They were travelling boys like ourselves, bound from Berlin to Hamburg. “Halloo!” they cried. “Halloo!” we answered, shouting in unison as we approached each other. When we met, a little friendly skirmish with our sticks was the first act of greeting. A storm of questions and replies then followed. We all knew each other in a few minutes; carpenters, turners, glovers were there,—not a jeweller among them but myself. We parted soon, for time was precious. “Love to Berlin,” cried one of them back to us. “My compliments to Hamburg,” I replied; and then we all struck up an amatory chorus of the “Fare thee well, love” species, that fitted properly with our position.

Continuing upon our way we found our lame companion smoking a pipe comfortably outside the village inn at Warnow. His cart was resting there for bait to man and horse. We baited also and discussed black bread-and-butter, and Berlin white beer, till the cart carried away our moustachioed friend, never again, perhaps, to meet us in this world, and not likely to be recognised by his moustachios in the other.

My chalky comrade, who was also very lame, lay on the ground in a desperate condition before the day was over, and it was with some difficulty that I brought him safe by nightfall into Wusterhausen. He had become also mysterious, and evidently inquisitive as to the state of my finances, exhibiting on his own part hasty glimpses of a brass medal wrapped up in fine wool, which he wished me to look upon as a double ducat. When we got to the inn-door, my friend made a hurried proposition very nervously, which made his purpose clear. There were sixty English miles of road between us and Berlin; he was knocked up, and a fast coach, or rumbling omnibus, accommodating six insides, would start for Berlin in the morning. He thought he could bargain with the coachman to take us to Berlin for a dollar—three shillings—a piece, if I did not mind advancing his fare, because he did not want to change the double ducat until he got home. I put no difficulty in his way, for he was a good fellow, and moreover would be well able to help me in return, by telling me the addresses of some people I depended upon finding in Berlin. He proceeded, therefore, into the agonies of bargaining, and was not disappointed in his expectation. At the price of a dollar a-piece we were packed next morning in a frowsy vehicle, tainted with much tobacco-smoke, to which he came with his swollen feet pressed only half-way down into the legs of his best Wellingtons. The ride was long and dull, for there was little prospect to be caught through the small, dirty window; and the air tasted of German tinder. From a cottage villa on the roadside, a German student added himself to the three passengers that started from Wusterhausen. He came to us with a pipe in his mouth, unwashed, and hurriedly swaddled in a morning gown, carelessly tied with a cord about the middle. After a few miles travelling the vehicle was full, and remained full—until we at last reached Berlin.

There I found no work, and wandered listlessly through the museums and picture-galleries; for a troubled mind is a poor critic in works of art. So I squeezed myself into the Police Court, meaning to leave Berlin, and had the distinction of being beckoned, before my turn out of the reeking mass of applicants for passports, because my clothes had a respectable appearance, and I wore a showy pin in my cravat.